United Steelworkers Officials Ousted from Latrobe Specialty Metals

| January 31, 2023

FRANKLIN, Pa. (EYT) – United Steelworkers (USW) officials missed a January 27th deadline in their dispute before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with workers at Latrobe Specialty Metals’ Franklin facility, clearing the way for the NLRB to certify the workers’ rejection of the union’s representation.

Background

On July 25, 2022, workers at Latrobe Specialty Metals reportedly rejected a contract drawn up by USW officials, leading Kerry Hunsberger to begin collecting signatures for a petition to decertify the union.

When union officials discovered the circulation of the decertification petition, it is alleged that their representative secretly signed the contract on July 28, 2022, without telling the employees or the employer in an apparent attempt to trigger what’s known as the “Contract Bar Doctrine” to prevent the union from being voted out.

The Contract Bar Doctrine refers to a rule of the NLRB that states that once a contract is executed, no representation elections are permitted in the covered workplace, or “unit,” until the contract expires. Proponents of so-called Right to Work laws, such as the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation (NRTW), object to the rule. They point out that unions can use the rule to avoid being voted out by workers, as appears to be the case at Latrobe Specialty Metals.

According to NRTW, in their haste to enact the contract that workers had rejected, Steelworkers union officials didn’t include critical details in the contract they signed on July 28, such as start and end dates.

Steelworkers union officials held a ratification vote at Latrobe Specialty Metals on August 1, 2022, asking workers to ratify the contract the union claimed to already be in effect. Workers rejected the contract again.

In filings at the NLRB, union officials stated that the August 1 vote “was only taken as a courtesy to employees [and] was an attempt to obtain their blessing of the contract that the [union] had already executed.”

Hours before the ratification vote, Hunsberger reportedly submitted her decertification petition. But later that night, after the contract had again been rejected by workers, union officials reportedly announced that the contract was already in effect and that ratification was not necessary because of the signing that occurred on July 28.

The NRTW says that during a hearing with the NLRB, one union boss allegedly admitted “that the Steelworkers union regularly executes contracts despite employees voting them down, and that he did so in this case and ignored the employees’ vote against the contract ‘to protect the integrity of the union.'”

“Apparently,” stated a news release from the NRTW, “Steelworkers bosses’ lust for monopoly bargaining power and compulsory dues payments regularly takes precedence over the wishes of even a majority of the workers they claim to represent.”

NLRB Denies the Contract Bar Maneuver, Does Not Address Union Deception

NRTW attorneys representing Hunsberger and the other Latrobe Specialty Metals employees defended their right to vote the union out despite the Steelworkers union officials’ attempted use of the Contract Bar Doctrine. The NLRB regional representative eventually ordered the decertification election to proceed in November. The decision was narrowly-based, citing the lack of start and end dates as the reason the contract bar couldn’t be enforced. It is likely the decision will not become precedent in other cases where workers allege deception such as the secret July 28 signing of the USW contract in Franklin.

Workers Vote on Union Certification

After clearing the way for a decertification vote, the NLRB scheduled the vote for December 6, 2022. In a vote of 29 to 26, employees of Latrobe Specialty Metals voted to oust the union.

On January 12, USW officials withdrew their objections to the election. They presented no additional objections by a January 27th deadline imposed by the NLRB, which means Hunsberger and her co-workers’ rejection of the USW stands and has been certified by the NLRB.

“Foundation attorneys were proud to fight for Ms. Hunsberger and her coworkers, who displayed remarkable perseverance in defending their right to vote out a union that they don’t believe serves their interests,” commented National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “However, this victory exposes glaring flaws in American labor law.”

Mix continued, “If USW officials had merely added valid dates to their unpopular contract, the NLRB would have likely enforced the deceptive union scheme to trap workers in union ranks against their will for three more years, as the ‘contract bar’ permits. And, these workers would have been forced to pay dues for those three years or be fired, as Pennsylvania is not a Right to Work state.”

According to Mix, “This is yet another demonstration that the ‘contract bar’ destroys union accountability, as union bosses can rush to ‘ratify’ unpopular contracts in secret, safe in the knowledge that a three-year shield from being voted out awaits them.”


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Category: Business News, Local News, News, State News

Gavin Fish is a reporter for EYT Media Group and YouTuber based in Venango County. In addition to his YouTube Channel, he has contributed to investigations and reports for ABC News, Investigation Discovery, and Fox Nation, and has collaborated on projects developed for Netflix, Oxygen, Discovery Channel, Amazon Prime, and Hulu.
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