Rio Grande Valley area Frito Lay workers successfully remove Teamsters officials from their workplace

(The Center Square) – Frito Lay salesmen from Del Rio and Eagle Pass, Texas, recently removed Teamsters union officials from their workplaces after petitioning the NLRB for a decertification election.

Officials from Teamsters Local 657 failed to gain support from a majority of workers who voted, resulting in the union no longer having the authority to bargain on behalf of the salesmen.

The Texas workers who petitioned the National Labor Relations Board received free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRWLDF).

The case was resolved quickly after the petition was first filed May 13, 2021. The petitioner, John Adams, filed for a decertification election after having gathered enough signatures from his coworkers to trigger an NLRB-supervised vote to remove the union from their workplace.

The workers at both facilities voted June 3. On June 11, the NLRB certified the results of the decertification election and announced that Teamsters officials no longer had monopoly authority to impose “representation” on Frito Lay salesmen.

The process took less than a month partially because of recent NLRB reforms finalized in 2020, which limit tactics previously employed by unions to delay or block workers from exercising their right to vote out an unwanted union. In July 2020, new NLRB rules went into effect limiting the use of “blocking charges.” The new rules, which heavily relied on input from the NRWLDF, also allow workers to not be trapped in union ranks when the union lacks the support of a majority of workers.

Before the change was made, union attorneys could file so-called “blocking charges” to stall a vote they expected to lose. Such charges were often unproven allegations against the employer used as pretense to hold up an election, the NRWLDF argues, even when they had nothing to do with the employees’ dissatisfaction with the union.

“Even in a Right to Work state like Texas, a union can negotiate for workers without their permission thanks to federally-granted monopoly bargaining powers,” NRWLDF President Mark Mix said in a statement.

Because of the new rule changes, “votes like the one Mr. Adams and his colleagues held to boot the Teamsters from their place of work cannot so easily be derailed by unproven union allegations,” he added, noting the foundation would continue to “work towards a day when unions can’t impose their so-called ‘representation’ on individual workers against their will.”

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