One frustrated employee, two petitions, and a pay raise that sank the Board's case
Workers at an Illinois truck dealership voted their union out twice - and a federal appeals court said the NLRB cannot undo it.
The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on September 18 affirmed the denial of a Section 10(j) preliminary injunction that would have compelled Laborforce LLC - a staffing firm leasing employees to M&K Truck Centers dealerships - to reinstate Automobile Mechanics' Local 701, which had represented the facility's workforce since the 1950s.
It started with one frustrated employee. In 2022, a parts department worker at the Summit, Illinois dealership began collecting signatures to decertify the union, citing its "improper representation." By July 2023, 19 of 31 parts department employees had signed on. Not one of the 51 service department workers joined.
Laborforce did not wait around. It withdrew recognition for parts employees and rolled out new pay rates, a no-co-pay health plan, and a 401(k) with a 3% company match. The NLRB had denied the company's petition to split the parts department into its own bargaining unit - but Laborforce went ahead anyway.
Then came round two. A second petition in June 2024 pulled a combined majority across both departments - 36 of 70. Laborforce withdrew recognition entirely.
The NLRB's regional director sought a Section 10(j) injunction - the rarely used provision that lets the Board ask a federal court to step in while its own proceedings unfold. She argued the union's position was eroding beyond repair.
The Seventh Circuit was not persuaded. In a 2-1 decision, the court held the director had not shown specific irreparable harm - the threshold the Supreme Court's 2024 Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney decision now demands. Generalized claims about fading union support were not enough.
Workers themselves drove the decertification, the court noted, and their compensation improved since. Reinstating the union, the majority wrote, "might just as well defeat the employees' right to refrain from unionizing."
The dissenting judge warned the majority's approach effectively rewards employers who raise wages while engaging in allegedly unlawful decertification - echoing concerns the Supreme Court raised in its 1944 Medo Photo Supply decision.
For HR and labor relations teams, the practical signal is clear: post-Starbucks, the bar for NLRB emergency injunctions is rising, and employee-driven decertification backed by real pay improvements makes the Board's case harder to bring.
