UFCW organizers and representatives petition to decertify the Teamsters as their agents
An individual employed by a United Food & Commercial Workers union local in Tacoma, Washington filed a petition on Thursday with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold an election to decertify the Teamsters as the employees’ collective bargaining agent.
The petition, according to the NLRB’s website, includes five UFCW representatives and two organizers employed by the union, while excluding the UFCW management, which includes the president, secretary-treasurer, staff director, and organizer coordinator.
UFCW local 367, according to the union’s Facebook page, is a “diverse member-driven Union fighting for economic and social justice.”
If there are no challenges to the decertification petition, the UFCW employees could have an election within a few weeks.
However, the Teamsters could file so-called blocking charges against the UFCW in an effort to delay a decertification vote. If that happens, it could be months or, perhaps, even longer before employees would have the right to vote on whether they keep the Teamsters as their agent or not.
Although it is fairly uncommon for union employees to decertify the unions representing them, in February, another UFCW local’s employees petitioned the NLRB to hold a decertification election. However, that petition is still open.
While many media outlets have covered the wave of union organizing activity that began in 2021, few have covered the smaller, yet substantial increase in decertification petitions filed with the NLRB.
For example, union decertification petitions filed with the NLRB increased nearly 30% from 2021 to 2022, according to NLRB data.
Some Starbucks workers across the nation who unionized last year have filed decertification petitions with the NLRB only to be stymied by the union and labor board.
