Without NLRB Quorum, Workers Are Stuck in Union

Until Senate Okays Trump Nominees, Biden Board Decisions Stand

This February, a team of Starbucks associates in Niskayuna, N.Y., led by barista Nadia Kuban, petitioned the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for a vote to strip the Starbucks Workers United (SBWU/SEIU) union of its monopoly control over their terms and conditions of employment. 

And if the NLRB were carrying out in good faith its duty to schedule such union “decertification” elections, the vote would have already happened.

Trump Nominees Caught In Senate Limbo

Unfortunately, the Board is mostly idle late this year because neither of the two nominees for empty seats put forward by President Donald Trump back in July has yet been confirmed. 

As this Newsletter edition went to print, there was just one person — a Democrat — sitting on the five-member Board. 

“There have been major delays in the process of confirming NLRB nominees, and the responsibility for those delays rests with one vocally anti-Right to Work Republican senator from Missouri: Josh Hawley,” stated National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix. 

Mr. Hawley sits on the Senate Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which must give initial approval to the President’s NLRB nominees.

“The HELP Committee is split between 11 Democrats and 12 Republicans,” Mr. Mix explained. 

“The 11 Democrats consistently stand with Big Labor no matter what, and Sen. Hawley has been increasingly going over to their side. 

“That gives him the ability to take down any bill or nominee he doesn’t like. 

“The HELP Committee chairman can’t hold hearings and votes on any nominee until he is confident Mr. Hawley won’t blow up the process at the behest of union bosses.”

Vote on General Counsel Nominee Was Put Off For Months

Back in March, President Trump nominated Crystal Carey, a qualified labor attorney, to serve as the NLRB’s chief prosecutor. 

Ms. Carey has a strong track record of vocal criticism of the Biden Board’s anti-worker precedents, and for that reason she was immediately opposed by numerous union bosses. 

It took until July for Ms. Carey to even have a hearing, and at that hearing she faced intense grilling from Mr. Hawley, who pressured her to commit herself to advancing cases based on legally dubious Biden NLRB precedents. 

Ms. Carey refused to make such commitments, and as a result she didn’t get a committee vote until October, when Mr. Hawley relented and, expressing his continued reservations, voted to approve her. 

At the same time, however, one of the President’s nominees to serve as a Board member, Scott Mayer, was delayed. He too had been targeted by Mr. Hawley during his confirmation hearing.

Mr. Mayer was scheduled for a vote alongside Ms. Carey and a second Board nominee, but he was pulled from the schedule at the last minute. 

“Thanks to Josh Hawley, the Biden NLRB continues to deny workers their statutory rights from beyond the grave,” declared Mr. Mix.

“We’re coming up on a year since President Trump was inaugurated, and only two of his three NLRB nominees have even cleared the initial hurdle of a committee vote. 

“Mr. Hawley’s union-boss allies most certainly appreciate the delays he’s causing. But for the ordinary workers who don’t want to be under the thumb of unions they oppose, the Trump NLRB cannot be confirmed soon enough.”

Starbucks Workers Seek To Remove Unwanted Union 

One of the most outrageous of the Biden Board’s power grabs was its 2022 Rieth-Riley Construction decision. It has made it far easier for union lawyers to use so-called “blocking charges” to deny workers the opportunity to vote out a union, even though workers’ right to petition for what are technically known as “decertification” votes is enshrined in the National Labor Relations Act. 

Joe Biden-elevated Chairman Lauren McFerran and two Biden appointees sitting on the Board at the time supported Rieth-Riley. Two members appointed by President Donald Trump dissented. 

With Mr. Trump once again in the White House, the Board is expected some day to have a majority that will overturn this and other radical Biden Board decisions. But before any Trump nominees can begin their work, they need to be confirmed by the Senate.

As this Newsletter went to print, that hadn’t happened yet. 

“Every day that the Senate fails to confirm Trump NLRB nominees is another day when precedents put in place by the Biden Board remain on the books,” said Mr. Mix.

“Those delays have big implications for workers across the country who are stuck under unions they do not want — workers like Nadia Kuban.” 

Ms. Kuban is one of the many Starbucks employees across the country who have sought to decertify SBWU radicals who have taken power at roughly 5-6% of the company’s thousands of domestic stores.

In some locations, early support for unionism has given way to frustration with union organizers and their behavior. 

It’s not clear whether any of the Starbucks union drives got their start from genuine employee interest. SBWU has been vocal about its use of “salts,” undercover union agents who pose as normal employees to attempt to drum up support for unionization.

“One of the most common things we hear from workers who petition to decertify an SBWU local is that the employees who were most enthusiastic about unionizing had suddenly gotten different jobs after the union was installed,” said Mr. Mix. 

“It’s possible many of them were ‘salts’ who had no intention of living with the consequences of the monopolistic unionism they demanded.”

Decertifications Blocked By Radical Decision

Nadia Kuban and her like-minded fellow employees completed the necessary steps to obtain a decertification election, but have never gotten the chance to remove the union from their Starbucks location. The petition was dismissed by NLRB regional officials. 

That dismissal was made possible by NLRB precedents put in place by the Biden Board, which let union officials use so-called “blocking charges” to derail worker efforts to remove an unwanted union.

The Biden Board scrapped the “Election Protection Rule” established during the last year of the first Trump Administration. That rule had helped ensure that workers could still get a prompt election if they filed a decertification petition and union lawyers attempted to stall it. 

Without the Election Protection Rule, even unproven or demonstrably false union-boss allegations against an employer suffice to delay a decertification election while the NLRB “investigates” the charges.

To make matters worse, the Biden Board decided in Rieth-Riley that “blocking charges” could be used as a pretense to dismiss worker decertification petitions altogether. 

Citing Rieth-Riley, NLRB bureaucrats threw out Ms. Kuban’s petition, saddling her and her colleagues with the SBWU union they had sought avidly to remove.  

Because the Biden NLRB created its blocking-charge regime by repealing rules put in place by the Trump NLRB, and by issuing decisions over the objections of Trump-appointed Board members, it’s likely that the Board’s anti-worker policies will change substantially when Trump appointees once again take power. 

The nagging question that remains unanswered as 2025 draws to a close is when and whether Josh Hawley will ever allow that to happen.

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This article was originally published in our monthly newsletter. Go here to access previous newsletter posts.

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