Penske Truck Rental employees filed a petition to remove International Association of Machinists (IAM) officials in Minnesota and Tennessee, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation said Thursday.
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Kyle Fulkerson and David Saylor filed the petitions with the National Labor Relations Board with free legal aid from the foundation. Fulkerson is acting on behalf of Minnesota employees and Saylor on behalf of Tennessee. Both filed petitions containing signatures from a majority of their coworkers, exceeding the 30% threshold needed to trigger a decertification vote, the foundation says.
"Transportation and trucking employees across the country are realizing that monopoly union control is frequently harmful," says National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. "While workers' right to vote out union bosses they oppose is vital in every state, it's especially important in forced-dues states like Minnesota, where union bosses can force workers to pay for representation they don't agree with."
Minnesota does not have right-to-work protections for private sector workers. In that state, union officials maintained a contract with Penske management that requires Fulkerson and his coworkers to pay union dues or fees to keep their jobs, the foundation says. In Tennessee, IAM officials are forbidden from enforcing a contract that mandates payments and membership.
Penske had no comment on the petitions. The IAM did not respond to a request for comment.
Union officials in a unionized business are allowed by federal law to impose a union contract on all employees in the workplace, including those who oppose the union. A successful decertification vote would strip union officials of forced dues and bargaining power, the foundation says.
The foundation says it's staff recently assisted transportation workers across the country in removing unions. In Southern California, foundation attorneys helped Dependable Highway Express employees remove Teamsters officials who it says threatened a worker for revealing information on union boss salaries. In January, foundation attorneys helped Keurig Dr Pepper distribution workers in three locations across Wisconsin remove another Teamsters local.
