Employees win again, but there needs to be an end to union phony appeals.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) reversed a regional official’s decision to dismiss a decertification petition filed by McDowell County Commission on Aging employee John Reeves, who sought to remove SEIU officials from his workplace. The NLRB found that the Regional Director improperly dismissed Reeves’ petition and refused to count decertification ballots based on unproven unfair labor practice allegations and a collusive settlement between the employer and union. This decision highlights issues with bureaucratic manipulation and delays in the decertification process, underscoring the need for reforms to ensure employees’ rights to vote on union representation.

Key points

• The NLRB reversed a regional decision that improperly dismissed a decertification petition from McDowell County Commission on Aging employee John Reeves.
• The regional director was found to have wrongly tossed out employee union decertification votes based on unproven unfair labor practice allegations.
• The Board majority determined that the Regional Director simply repeated unproven allegations without an independent finding of employer involvement.
• NLRB Region 9 officials impounded ballots and later approved a settlement between the company and union, which included dismissing Reeves’ petition.
• The settlement, to which Reeves was not a party, contained no admission of wrongdoing by the employer but blocked further decertification petitions.
• The NLRB majority cited the _TruServ Corp._ decision, stating that a settlement without an admission of liability cannot justify dismissing a decertification petition.
• The case illustrates how union lawyers and sympathetic regional officials can exploit NLRB rules to hinder workers from removing unions.
• While the ruling came too late for Reeves, who successfully decertified the union with coworkers, it exemplifies bureaucratic manipulation of the decertification process.
• National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix emphasized the need for a rulemaking petition to eliminate non-statutory barriers to decertification elections.

See our earlier post about this case.