Workers at the Parkway Ford dealership in Dover, Ohio, have successfully removed International Association of Machinists (IAM) Local 1363 union officials from their workplace.
Technicians at the dealership submitted a petition to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) with the 30 percent of signatures needed to call for a decertification vote that, if successful, would have required the union to dissolve.
However, IAM Local 1363 union officials filed paperwork disclaiming interest in continuing to represent the dealership before the NLRB could schedule a decertification vote for workers.
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which provided free legal aid to the dealership’s technicians, said union officials’ move before a decertification vote appears to be an effort “to avoid an embarrassing rejection by employees at the ballot box.”
In addition to the Ohio dealership, workers at the Hansel Ford of Petaluma dealership in California also successfully pushed out International Association of Machinists (IAM) Local Lodge 1596 union officials from their workplace as a result of working towards a decertification vote.
Just as the Ohio workers did, the California dealership workers collected enough signatures to call a decertification vote; however, union officials filed paperwork disclaiming interest in continuing to represent the dealership before a vote could be held.
National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix applauded the unsatisfied Ohio and California workers’ efforts, saying, “The employees from Ford dealerships in California and Ohio are just the latest examples of the many workers across the country who want to exercise their right to dissociate from union officials that they disapprove of.”
The Ohio and California workers’ efforts to dissociate from their respective unions come at a time when decertification petition filings across the nation have increased by more than 40 percent since 2020, according to data published by the NLRB.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Ohio Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Workers” by Parkway Ford Lincoln.
