Biden's labor arbiter is already canceling elections for workers

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

One of the first things that Joe Biden did upon taking office was to begin firing people at the National Labor Relations Board, an unprecedented move designed to tilt the board in favor of union advocates that support Democratic campaigns. That investment is already paying off for liberals who oppose right-to-work laws. At a food processing plant in Delaware, workers voted overwhelmingly to reject the leadership of the local chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW). When the vote was challenged by the union, a regional NLRB director ruled in favor of the workers’ right to reject the union. But this week, the NLRB overturned that ruling and said that the workers must remain in the UFCW for at least three years and continue to have dues extracted from their pay. (Free Beacon)

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President Joe Biden’s labor arbiter threw out hundreds of votes from workers attempting to cut ties with a Delaware union.

The National Labor Relations Board overruled hundreds of Delaware poultry workers who had voted to reject union leadership. The agency said in a 3-1 ruling released Wednesday that a provision prohibiting workers from leaving a union for a set time period after a contract is signed allowed the board to ignore the workers’ March 2020 vote. The decision reversed a regional NLRB director who had initially ruled in the workers’ favor.

Oscar Cruz Sosa, the employee who led the charge to hold the election, ripped union leadership for disregarding the voices of workers. “The union has been harassing and intimidating us for a long time and it’s unbelievable that they’re going to get their way by having 800 ballots destroyed,” Cruz Sosa told the Washington Free Beacon.

Thanks to the party that claims that election integrity is crucial and every vote must be counted, 800 votes were tossed into the trash and the results of the election will be ignored. Though I’m sure this is just a coincidence, it’s still worth noting that the UFCW donated more than $1.2 million to Democratic campaigns in 2020. And pretty much every penny of that money was taken from the paychecks of workers, many of whom do not support the union or its politics.

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The employee who spearheaded the move to hold an election described a systemic campaign of harassment and intimidation by union bosses throughout the process. The rationale offered for scrapping the election is based on a pair of provisions in the contract signed between the union leaders and the employer. One makes union membership a mandatory condition for employment and the other forbids the workers from opting out of union representation for three years. Both of these provisions are similar to ones that have been shot down in court in recent years, leading the regional NLRB director to side with the workers because the contract should have been invalid. But that didn’t matter to Joe Biden’s labor arbiter apparently.

One National Right to Work attorney representing the workers described Biden’s NLRB as “existing solely to please labor union officials.” That about sums it up, and Joe Biden has never been shy about that. He knows which side the Democrats’ bread is buttered on and how much money the labor unions flush into the coffers of Democratic candidates. The new President is clearly aware that the unions intend to be repaid for their generosity, even if that payment comes at the expense of workers who have clearly rejected the unions’ practices.

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Hopefully, this group of Delaware poultry workers will be able to find relief through the courts, but that process will almost certainly take longer than the waiting period before they can vote again. At that stage of the game, the entire point of a lawsuit may be moot.

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