Majorities of Penske Truck Rental employees at locations in Minnesota and Tennessee have voted to remove the International Association of Machinists (IAM) union from their respective workplaces.
Penske states the decertification petitions were filed by workers with free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation in April with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), asking the agency to hold votes to formally remove IAM union officials’ monopoly bargaining power.
On May 1 in Minneapolis, Minn., workers voted 26 to 7 to remove IAM District Lodge No. 77 union officials. The NLRB-supervised decertification election took place after Penske employee Kyle Fulkerson submitted a petition on April 4, 2024, signed by a majority of his coworkers asking the NLRB to hold a vote to remove the union from the facility.
“This lopsided vote is a testament to the fact that after having seen the IAM up close and personal in our workplace, my colleagues and I are confident that we are better off without union officials so-called ‘representation,” says Fulkerson about the outcome, which became final on May 8 after a one week objection period passed with no union challenge to the outcome being filed.
In Tennessee, Penske employee David Saylor filed his decertification petition on April 11 backed by a majority of the employees at the downtown Nashville Penske location. On May 8, they voted 15 to 8 to oust IAM District Lodge No. 735. Om May 15, 2024, the vote became finalized absent a last ditch attempt by union officials to overturn the workers’ vote.
“Workers across the country are increasingly exercising their rights to remove unwanted unions, with more decertification elections held last year than in any year since 2017,” says National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “No worker anywhere should be forced under the so-called ‘representation’ of a union they oppose, and Foundation staff attorneys stand ready to assist workers wanting to hold a decertification election to oust a union they oppose and believe they would be better off without.”
