Red cement truck image under Creative Commons license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

Workers at CalPortland’s Fresno ready mix plant have filed a petition to end their Teamsters Local 431 union representation.

Drivers at the Fresno facility of CalPortland, the western United States’ largest building materials company producing cement and construction materials, filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) requesting a decertification vote to remove the union from their workplace.

The drivers’ efforts are spearheaded by Darrell Dunlap Sr., who filed the petition with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys, according to a news release.

Steve Sharp, president at Teamsters Local 431 in Fresno, said the union was preparing to start bargaining a new agreement with CalPortland before the petition was filed.

“I’m not really sure at this point what they want,” Sharp said. “Nobody that came to the meeting was setting any demands.”

Due to the government shutdown, there is no set date for an election. The NLRB also lacks a quorum after Pres. Trump fired one of its members in January — a move reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in May.

The petition is supported by the majority of the workers at the Fresno ready mix plant, according to the National Right to Work Foundation news release.

“This workplace has been under Teamster union control for over 20 years, so we’ve seen union officials’ actions up close for many years,” Dunlap Sr said in a statement. “As our majority-backed petition shows, based on our extensive experience with the Teamsters, we are confident we’ll be better off without a union.”

In 2017, Teamsters at a different CalPortland facility declared a strike and attempted to sabotage the company’s trucks while in mid-delivery, which would have left workers out of a job, according to the release.

The Right to Work Foundation has seen a rise in requests from workers seeking legal assistance in Teamsters decertification cases.

“The rank-and-file are the most familiar with the union officials in their workplaces, and this is just the latest of a growing number of employees who have decided to exercise their right to free themselves of unwanted so-called ‘representation,’” said NLRB President Mark Mix. “Given Teamsters’ bosses’ intimidation tactics or worse, it is not surprising that the Teamsters are regularly the union that faces the most worker decertification drives.”