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XPO-run logistics facility latest to bounce Teamsters

Vote to decertify union in New Jersey was 16-2 and comes soon after a similar rejection of an in-place union in Southern California

Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves

The Teamsters have been voted out of representing workers at an XPO Logistics (NYSE: XPO) facility in New Jersey.

For the second time in a relatively short period, the move to push the Teamsters out of representing workers came with the assistance of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. 

The vote to decertify the Teamsters was confirmed in a certification notice posted Monday by the National Labor Relations Board. “It is certified that a majority of the valid ballots has not been cast for any organization and that no labor organization is the exclusive representative of the employees in the bargaining unit described below,” the statement said.

XPO announced the decertification vote March 17. However, it did not become official until the NLRB decertification. 


According to the NLRB, the employees affected by the vote were full-time and regular part-time driver sales representatives, city employees and linehaul employees at the XPO facility in Cinnaminson, New Jersey. Cinnaminson is on the Delaware River and would be considered a south New Jersey suburb of Philadelphia.

The vote to decertify the Teamsters at the XPO facility comes not long after a similar vote at KWK Trucking, a small DHL-affiliated delivery service in Southern California. The Teamsters did not challenge that election, a lack of action that the Right to Work foundation viewed as a direct result of changes in federal law regarding the ability to make such challenges. 

Additionally, this is the third XPO Teamsters unit in the past 15 months to have decertified representation by the Teamsters. The others were in Aurora, Illinois, and  Laredo, Texas. XPO currently lists approximately 210 employees out of a 46,000-member workforce as being represented by the Teamsters.

A spokeswoman for the foundation said attorneys for the Teamsters had delayed the vote by raising the question of whether the vote needed to take place in person or could be by mail as part of COVID-19 safety protocols. But once the vote took place, the union did not challenge the results. 


The vote in favor of decertification was 16-2, the foundation said. A Teamsters spokesman declined comment on the action at Cinnaminson.

Workers had petitioned the NLRB for a vote in late December. Any delay caused by the hearing over mail vs. in person ultimately proved to be brief, though the foundation said challenges before the Trump administration rules changes on challenges could often create a “multi-year delay … under the old rules.”

“Union bosses take every chance they get to maintain control over workers, even when they are overwhelmingly opposed by those they claim to represent,” Mark Mix, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation president, said in a prepared statement.

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10 Comments

  1. Bryan

    There’s no guarantee that they would get any of that, it all has to be negotiated. Union membership has been declining for many years, if it’s so beneficial to join a union why is that happening?

  2. Scott

    I work for ABF and while I appreciate what the union does for me I do not appreciate the stranglehold they put on companies especially when it comes to firing useless worthless workers and that is where the union loses all respect from outsiders. When a company has a justifiable reason to fire someone the union should back the company and not the worker.

  3. Benjamin

    So they voted against a pension, Supreme benefits, seniority rights? And most of a voice in the workplace?
    Yes we all know unions are not perfect, but I choose to look at the big picture!

    I’m 44 yrs old been a Teamster since I was 18 and in about 10 years can retire with a full pension & dignity!
    Have fun driving a truck into your 70’s suckers!

  4. Janet Yellen

    If only the workers at YELLOW would do the same thing, maybe that organization would stop being a welfare queen sponging on government handouts.

    1. Chad Hildebrand

      Lol Janet I have been with the union 26 yrs I have free insurance I make 30hr I have 6 weeks vacation and a full pension …WHAT DO YOU HAVE ..

  5. Ken Snead

    That’s not only a union employers all over put those requirements in place, per fed. guidelines.
    A long time ago !
    So, What does kicking out the union do for the employees?

Comments are closed.

John Kingston

John has an almost 40-year career covering commodities, most of the time at S&P Global Platts. He created the Dated Brent benchmark, now the world’s most important crude oil marker. He was Director of Oil, Director of News, the editor in chief of Platts Oilgram News and the “talking head” for Platts on numerous media outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and Canada’s BNN. He covered metals before joining Platts and then spent a year running Platts’ metals business as well. He was awarded the International Association of Energy Economics Award for Excellence in Written Journalism in 2015. In 2010, he won two Corporate Achievement Awards from McGraw-Hill, an extremely rare accomplishment, one for steering coverage of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and the other for the launch of a public affairs television show, Platts Energy Week.