Workers Nationwide Continue Efforts to Oust Steelworkers Officials

In the space of just a month, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys successfully aided groups of workers in New Jersey and Louisiana in voting out United Steelworkers (USW) union officials they opposed. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) certified both votes.

In Louisiana, Ryne Fox led his coworkers at GEO Specialty Chemicals to a decisive victory over USW officials, while Michael Cobourn did the same with his fellow workers at Gold Bond Building Products in New Jersey.

Both cases demonstrated the struggles workers face when seeking to “decertify” union officials whom they no longer want in power. 

“Workers across the country are increasingly exercising their right to vote out union officials they oppose, and we at the Foundation are happy to aid them,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “However, we’re also acutely aware of the obstacles that stand in the way of this freedom, and one of those, which Steelworkers officials seem to have no reservations about exploiting, is the ‘contract bar.’”

“The unjustified ‘contract bar’ is always wrong because it prevents workers from voting out unions they oppose when they want. But even worse, this NLRB-invented doctrine actually incentivizes union officials to rush and impose unpopular, self-serving contracts for the very purpose of insulating the union’s forced representation powers from a vote of the workers union officials claim to ‘represent,’” Mix added.

NATIONAL RIGHT TO WORK LEGAL DEFENSE FOUNDATION

All contents from this article were originally published on the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation Website.

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