How Workers Vote Out a Union: Decertification Explained

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Workers can gather enough support to challenge a union and still have to wait for an election. An existing labor contract can limit when they ask the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a decertification vote, which decides whether the union will keep bargaining for the group.

A successful vote can leave the employer free to change employment terms, including wages. Voting out a union is therefore a decision about who bargains for workers, with no promise of a better paycheck.

Leaving a union and removing it are different decisions

A union must represent everyone in its bargaining unit fairly, in good faith and without discrimination, whether they are union members or not. That unit is the group covered by the union’s representation, so leaving membership does not by itself remove the representative for coworkers.

Decertification is the process for voting out that representative, and the employee petition used to request it is called an RD petition.

A separate process, deauthorization, removes the union’s authority to require payments as a condition of employment. It does not let individual employees withdraw from the bargaining unit. For someone concerned about compulsory payments, asking about deauthorization rather than decertification can identify the actual issue.

The NLRB process applies to covered private workplaces

The NLRB’s jurisdiction covers the great majority of non-government employers in the United States, including nonprofits and employee-owned businesses. Its governing law, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), excludes federal, state and local government employees, agricultural and domestic workers, independent contractors, and workers employed by a parent or spouse.

Supervisors are generally excluded as well, although supervisors punished for refusing to violate the NLRA may be covered. Airline and railroad employees covered by the Railway Labor Act follow a different representation system administered by the National Mediation Board. A government employee or airline worker should therefore check the applicable system before relying on NLRB filing rules.

Employees may file an RD petition when they believe support for the union has diminished. The NLRB lists initiating the petition, soliciting employee signatures, or giving it more than minimal support or approval among prohibited employer conduct. Keeping the effort independent of management is part of preserving employees’ choice.

Federal law protects employees’ right to organize and bargain through representatives of their choosing, and their right to refrain from those activities, subject to lawful union-security agreements. A union-security agreement is a provision making certain payments to the union a condition of employment, the authority a deauthorization vote addresses.

Check the filing window before collecting signatures

Enough signatures do not overcome a legal bar to an election. The NLRB investigates a petition to check jurisdiction and whether a labor contract or recent election prevents a vote. Bring the contract’s expiration date and the dates of any election, certification or voluntary recognition to the Regional Office when asking about timing.

Once an agreement passes the three-year mark or expires, that contract no longer prevents employees from seeking a decertification election. That removes the contract barrier, not every other possible barrier in the table.

Voluntary recognition means the employer accepts the union as representative based on majority support without an NLRB election. The six-month-to-one-year bargaining bar applies to voluntary recognition on or after September 30, 2024. For an older recognition or a disputed window, ask the Regional Office which rule applies to the particular dates.

Turn employee support into a properly filed petition

An RD petition needs signatures from at least 30 percent of workers in the bargaining unit. The threshold concerns the represented group, not just employees who pay dues or the people willing to sign. It is enough support to request an election, rather than proof that the union has already been voted out.

Support cards or a signature list should say that employees no longer want the union to represent them, or authorize the petitioner to file a decertification petition. Date each signature, preferably beside the signer’s name. The NLRB identifies its Regional Office information officers as a source of help with filing. That is also the place to check the unit and filing window before submitting the paperwork.

1. Complete the signed and dated NLRB Form 502(RD), the decertification petition.
2. Send the petition, a blank Form 505 Statement of Position, and Form 4812 Description of Procedures to the employer and any other involved labor organization by email, fax, overnight delivery or hand delivery.
3. Complete Form 5544 Certificate of Service to document that service.
4. File the signed and dated petition and certificate of service, together with the showing of interest, with the Regional Office by E-File, fax, overnight delivery or hand delivery. The showing of interest is the employee support submitted to justify holding the election.
5. A copy of the support is sufficient to file initially, but within two business days, mail, overnight-deliver or hand-deliver the original showing of interest to the Regional Office.

Do not send the showing of interest to the employer or labor organization. The petition and related service documents go to the parties; the employee support goes to the NLRB.

The regional office arranges a secret-ballot election

The parties can agree on the unit and the method, date, time and place of the election, or the regional director or Board can direct it. When a pre-election hearing is needed, it addresses whether a representation question exists and can consider jurisdiction, election bars and unit issues. Disputes over individual voters’ eligibility ordinarily do not have to be resolved before the election.

Ordinarily, voters must belong to the appropriate unit on the established eligibility date, usually during the payroll period before the election agreement or direction, and still be employees on election day. Check the eligibility rules for the particular election rather than assuming that every person who signed the petition can vote.

At an in-person election, a voter marks the ballot in a booth, folds it and places it in the ballot box without showing the choice to anyone. A party or the Board agent can challenge a voter’s eligibility for good cause, and that voter’s ballot goes into a special envelope.

The union must win a majority of the votes cast for representation to continue. In a two-choice election, a tie therefore does not give the union the majority it needs. Petition signatures and election votes do different jobs: the first support holding the election, and the second decide representation.

Employers may not interfere with employee rights through threats, coercive questioning, spying or promises of benefits if employees reject the union. Views and arguments about representation do not violate the NLRA when they contain no threat of reprisal or force and no promise of benefit.

A blocking charge alleges an unfair labor practice, a violation of federal labor law. A party asking the NLRB to block the vote must provide an offer of proof, a written description of supporting witnesses and their expected testimony, and promptly make those witnesses available. If the evidence, if proven, would interfere with employee free choice, the regional director ordinarily holds the petition pending further action, absent special circumstances. An allegation is not a finding that misconduct occurred, but the rule can affect when the vote takes place.

The count must survive objections and ballot challenges

The regional director must arrange a hearing when challenged ballots could change the result and raise substantial, material factual issues. A count with unresolved decisive ballots does not yet establish which side won.

Election objections must be filed with the regional director within five business days after the tally of ballots is prepared. The filing must give a short statement of reasons and a written offer of proof, although the director may extend the proof deadline for good cause. The objecting party must serve each other party the objections and reasons, but not the offer of proof, and include a certificate of service with the filing. A ballot challenge and an objection are different: one concerns a voter’s eligibility, while the other concerns the election or conduct affecting its results.

If no timely objections, outcome-changing ballot challenges or runoff remain, the regional director issues a certification of the results. Under a consent election agreement the parties accept the director’s post-election rulings as final, while a stipulated agreement allows a request for Board review. Where Board review is available, file the request with the Board no later than ten business days after the regional director’s final disposition. Final disposition means dismissal of the petition or issuance of a certification of results.

Employer or union conduct that creates confusion or fear of reprisals and interferes with free choice can cause the election result to be set aside.

Decertification ends representation, with limits on what follows

If the union receives the required majority, it remains the bargaining representative. A failed decertification effort does not let the employer treat the unit as unrepresented.

Successful decertification removes the union as representative, and the existing agreement becomes unenforceable by the union. The employer no longer bargains with that union on behalf of the unit. Employment terms can change after decertification, including wages.

Some benefit-fund contribution obligations can survive the vote, even after the union loses its right to enforce the contract. In its December 20, 2016 decision in Midwest Operating Engineers Welfare Fund v. Cleveland Quarry, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit explained that RiverStone’s five-year fund-contribution obligation continued after decertification. Before assuming a pension or other fund payment ends with representation, check the agreement and the fund’s separately enforceable rights.

Because decertification ends the union’s right to enforce the bargaining agreement, its union-security provision no longer makes paying that union a condition of keeping the job. The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation reported on October 29, 2024 that employees at Michigan’s Hydra-Lock Corp. no longer owed dues as an employment condition after their decertification win. That compulsory-payment obligation is distinct from the signed authorization for payroll deductions. Employers may not remit dues without a validly executed dues-checkoff authorization, and must honor a timely revocation of that authorization. If deductions continue after the result, obtain the signed authorization and ask the Regional Office how the result and any revocation rules apply. Do not treat collecting signatures, an initial tally and a finalized decertification as interchangeable payroll instructions.

Covered employees retain the right to act together over wages, benefits and other working conditions, and employers cannot punish protected concerted activity. Removing a bargaining representative does not remove that underlying federal protection.

Another representation election is barred if a valid election took place in the unit within the preceding 12 months. Workers who later want representation again must account for that election bar, just as workers seeking to remove a union must account for the rules that give bargaining relationships time to operate.

Removing the bargaining representative settles the collective choice; determining which fund obligations and individual rights survive still depends on the agreements and laws governing those rights.