by Bethany Blankley
XPO Logistics employees ousted the Teamsters Union from their workplace after colleagues in other states also successfully ousted them with free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation.
In Hialeah, Florida, XPO Logistics employees, led by Martin Garcia, successfully voted to oust Teamsters Local 769 union officials from their workplace.
Garcia filed a union decertification petition with the National Labor Relations Board on May 19 that had enough signatures to prompt the NLRB to hold a union decertification vote. Within a month, the vote was held last week to end Teamsters officials’ monopoly bargaining control over their place of employment. A quickly scheduled vote is unusual compared to others that have been blocked from being scheduled in some cases for over a year.
It was easier to oust the union in a “right to work” state like Florida because Garcia and his colleagues “had the freedom to refuse to pay dues or fees to the Teamsters union while it was imposing its one-size-fits-all ‘representation’ over all workers,” the foundation said in a statement.
In non-right to work states workers are often forced to pay dues or fees to unions they oppose as a condition of getting or keeping a job, and decertification votes are the only way to end the practice of forced dues and union monopoly representation, the foundation said. Union officials will also attempt to implement “blocking charges” or employ other tactics to delay the vote, which in some cases can last a year or longer, as was the case in Ventura, California in 2021.
The Miami employees voted to oust the Teamsters, Garcia said, because “Teamsters officials didn’t listen to us and didn’t represent our interests in the workplace. My coworkers and I decided that the best way forward was to vote them out, and we’re glad we could get legal aid from the National Right to Work Foundation in exercising our rights.”
Their efforts followed successful foundation-backed union decertification efforts by XPO Logistics employees and others against Teamsters union officials in recent years in several states.
In Albany, New York, employees filed a decertification petition last December, seeking to vote out Teamsters Local 294 union officials from their place of employment. In response, within a few days, union officials filed paperwork ending their control over the workers.
The previous year, in October 2021, employees at a Bakersfield, California, XPO Logistics facility filed a decertification petition resulting in Teamsters Local 87 union officials disclaiming interest in their work unit.
Also in 2021, in Los Angeles, XPO Logistics employees successfully removed Teamsters Local 63 union officials from their workplace, as did Long Branch-area, California, Savage Services employees.
In 2020, workers in Cinnaminson, New Jersey, were able to oust Teamsters after union officials demanded a hearing on the method of voting in an attempt to delay the vote. Employees were sent mail ballots two months after filing their petition, and nearly all voted to remove the union.
“Teamsters officials have a well-earned reputation for seeking power, money, and political clout over looking out for employee interests, so it’s unsurprising to see so many workers seeking to exercise their rights to vote them out,” NRWF President Mark Mix said. “But this trend goes even beyond the Teamsters, as employee attempts to decertify unions are spiking across the country.
“Unfortunately, even as employees increasingly realize that their interests diverge from union boss agendas, Big Labor allies in the Biden Administration are seeking to make it harder than ever for workers to exercise their right to oust an unpopular union.”
The Teamsters hasn’t published statements or responded publicly to union representation losses. It maintains it’s representing its 1.2 million members to fight for their rights and is currently organizing and threatening nationwide strikes against major corporations like UPS and Amazon.
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Bethany Blankley is a contributor to The Center Square.
Photo “XPO Logistics” by Emiliano García-Page Sánchez. CC BY-SA 2.0.
