Petitions

I recently posted about petitions. I realize now maybe I should take a step back.

There are petitions and then there are petitions. There are online petitions, people power petitions, workplace petitions, people lurking around Safeway that are pushing ballot referendums petitions and then things that lawyers draw up such as a "petition for writ of certiorari".

Many of these non-ballot referundum or non-lawyerly petitions have no legal power, of course.
But there is a petition that employees can sign that does have standing. It's commonly known as a deauthorization petition. It sets up an election to choose whether to remove the requirement in the CBA to pay dues or fees just to keep your job. It's in the National Labor Relations Act, Section 9(e). 30% of bargaining-unit employees must sign this petition to move to the next stage: a secret-ballot election monitored by the federal government.

So if you are approached by a person with a petition, and he or she is being careful that it is a non-work area on non-work time (to avoid any charges of unlawful employer support), and they start talking about dues, they just might be talking about a legally-sanctioned procedure to remove the dues requirement. When the petition is turned in to the federal government, they will not push it back in the petitioners face like the "my (boy)friend is a popular supervisor and you changed his schedule" petition at Covenant Aviation Security. It will be processed and checked for compliance.

Then the real work begins. If the petition is approved and moves to the election stage, 50%+1 of the bargaining unit must vote "Yes" for the petitioner to win. So, hypothetically, if there are 900 eligible voters, 451 must vote "Yes" to effectively end the dues requirement. Any ballots not returned, or not cast, obviously don't help the petitioner.

30%, 50%+1. These numbers may be more important to TSO's than 40/40/I forgot.