(The Center Square) – Crude oil drivers for Sunoco Logistics Partners have successfully removed United Steelworkers union bosses from their place of employment in four states.
As a result, more than 420 oil transportation drivers from roughly 30 Sunoco Logistics facilities in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and New Mexico are free from union control.
Sunoco LP is a leading energy infrastructure and fuel distributor operating in over 40 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, Europe and Mexico. Its general partner is owned by Energy Transfer LP, which operates one of the largest and most diversified portfolios of energy assets in the U.S., including more than 130,000 miles of pipeline and associated energy infrastructure.
Removing USW from Sunoco LP came after Texas resident and oil transport driver Jay Fifer gathered signatures from the majority of his coworkers to terminate union representation.
Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana are right to work states, which prohibit unions from enforcing contracts that require employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. New Mexico workers don’t have the same protections and can be forced to pay union dues or be fired. Despite this, under federal law in right to work and non-right to work states, union officials are allowed to impose “representation” on workers in a work unit, regardless if they want to be represented by the union.
After a landmark 2019 National Labor Relations Board decision in a case won by the National Right to Work Foundation, workers who want to remove union officials from their place of employment can do so by submitting a majority-backed petition asking their employer to stop recognizing the union. The NLRB enforces federal labor law in the private sector and administers votes to install or remove unions from workplaces.
In this case, a Texan led the effort to petition USW removal, which the NLRB recognized this month. As a result, USW union officials are stripped of their monopoly bargaining power and can no longer enforce bargaining obligations against Sunoco LP.
“I’m glad that my coworkers and I were able to band together to force this Steelworkers union out,” Fifer said. “The union was not a positive force in our workplace, and we are better off without it. I am lucky to live in the Right to Work state of Texas where I could at least choose to stop sending my money to this union while it was still in power, but unfortunately the same can’t be said for all of my fellow drivers.”
“Rank-and-file workers across the country like Mr. Fifer and his fellow drivers don’t enjoy the same structural and legal advantages that union officials do under American labor law. That makes it all the more impressive that he and his colleagues were able to gather signatures across a huge work unit and break free of the Steelworkers union’s control,” National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix said. “American workers’ increasing interest in escaping union ‘representation’ should serve as a reminder to the Trump Administration that it should pursue labor policy that enhances workers’ freedom to escape unwanted union affiliation.”
The separation in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and New Mexico comes after the NRWF has helped workers in other states remove USW union bosses from their places of employment. They include healthcare workers at the Mayo Clinic in Austin, Minn.; metal workers at Latrobe Specialty Metals Company in Venango County, Penn.; chemical employees at GEO Specialty Chemicals in Louisiana and Gold Bond Building Products in New Jersey, all with NRWF assistance.
“Workers across the country are increasingly exercising their right to vote out union officials they oppose, and we at the Foundation are happy to aid them,” Mix has argued.
Worker-filed petitions seeking union decertification votes have increased by more than 50% over the past five years, according to NLRB data.
