A curious event is brewing in the Nevada desert.
On Mar. 9, workers at four home healthcare agencies in Las Vegas filed decertification petitions in a coordinated effort to remove SEIU Local 1107 as their exclusive bargaining representative. This development has gone unreported by the media, and the petitions were filed three days after the union staged a high-profile rally outside the agencies’ parent company’s headquarters.
NLRB records show that the petitions were simultaneously filed across four Vida Senior Care-managed agencies with units totaling 391 workers: Avalon Home Health Care (28-RD-382731), Advanced Home Health Care (28-RD-382733), All About You Home Health Care (28-RD-382727), and A Caring Hand Home Healthcare (28-RD-382726). No docket activity beyond the initial filings exists, and as is customary, the names of those workers who filed these petitions are confidential.
A Rally Didn’t Help The Union’s Cause
Since Jan. 1, these home healthcare workers have been working under an expired contract. On Mar. 3, SEIU filed ULP charges against the agencies alleging refusal to bargain and bad faith bargaining. On Mar. 6, the union held a rally outside Vida’s Las Vegas headquarters over stalled bargaining.
Then on March 9, those decertification petitions landed.
Neither SEIU nor Vida has publicly addressed this turn of events. For that matter, neither have the workers who filed those petitions. However, it’s likely that failed negotiations were the driving force behind the petitions, along with workers’ dissatisfaction with SEIU in general.
Decertification petitions require at least 30% of employees in a bargaining unit to sign a written statement indicating they no longer want union representation. In this situation, workers reached that threshold, indicating a groundswell of sentiment against the union among Vida workers.
Also worth noting: In the social media age, it’s not unheard of for workers to go public while gathering signatures to file a decertification petition. Yet it’s entirely understandable that the workers who filed these petitions chose not to go public, potentially out of fear of union intimidation, blacklisting, and being called a “scab.” Their secrecy will likely continue.
A Potential Blocking Charge Problem
The petitions face a significant procedural question: Will SEIU’s pending ULP charges be used to block them? Previously, the Biden-era NLRB reinstated its blocking charge policy, giving regional directors the authority to suspend decertification elections on the basis of unresolved ULP charges, even before those charges are investigated or proven.
It’s not difficult to imagine how a union can use the blocking charge policy to its advantage in blocking a decertification vote, as has been reported with many Starbucks Workers United decertification efforts.
Furthermore, the Biden-era Board’s embrace of blocking charges, which allow unions to manipulate the process through ULP filings, remains a travesty upon employee choice.
For these reasons, that policy is now under direct legal challenge. The National Right to Work Foundation recently highlighted a case involving Quartz Corp. workers in North Carolina, who have asked the NLRB to overturn the blocking charge policy and return to the Election Protection Rule, which would keep the decertification process moving forward regardless of pending ULP charges.
Whether the current Board moves to restore the Election Protection Rule, and how quickly that happens, could determine whether these Nevada workers can proceed with a decertification vote.
Where The Story Could Go From Here
We should soon know whether SEIU will move to assert blocking charge rights in response to the decertification petitions. How the current NLRB chooses to treat blocking charges will shape what follows in the labor relations landscape of the Nevada desert.
For now, a group of home care workers in Las Vegas have signaled that they want out of their union, and neither side is talking about it.
