Walgreens Boots Alliance d/b/a Walgreens Co. and Denise Bentley and United Food and Commercial Workers District Union Local One, case number 03-RD-321385, before the National Labor Relations Board Region 3.

The NLRB left the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) on the shelves long past its sell-by date at several western New York Walgreens locations.

Over a year ago, in July 2023, petitioner Denise Bentley, a Walgreens employee, filed a petition with the NLRB seeking to decertify the UFCW affiliate in her area in western New York. In response to the petition to decertify, the Regional Director ordered that members of the bargaining unit could hold a vote to voice their interest—or disinterest—in remaining under the UFCW’s control. The Regional Director ordered the vote to take place on September 1, 2023, at which point bargaining unit members (that is, the petitioner’s fellow employees) could vote to decertify the union.

On the eve of the vote, however, the UFCW filed an unfair labor charge with the NLRB against Walgreens and asked the NLRB to block the decertification election (a tactic known as a “blocking charge”). UFCW alleged that a Walgreens store manager had promised to give workers a wage hike if they signed a petition to oust the union. The Regional Director obliged and ordered that the employees’ ballots be impounded to give the NLRB “an opportunity to investigate the allegations of the charge.”

As a result, despite the ballots potentially revealing that the employees had voted to decertify the union, the employees’ ballots were impounded, leaving the employees in limbo while UFCW’s last-ditch unfair labor practice charge was investigated. Then, while the UFCW’s charge was pending, the NLRB dismissed the decertification petition and forced the petitioner to wait to re-raise the decertification issue until after the NLRB disposed of the labor charge.

In April 2024—eight months after the employees cast their votes and before a ruling had been made on the UFCW’s charge—the UFCW disclaimed interest in the petitioner’s bargaining unit and withdrew its unfair labor practice charges against Walgreens. Rather than granting decertification based on the employees’ vote, the NLRB dismissed the decertification petition on the basis that the Union’s disclaimer of interest effectively mooted the employees’ vote.

By cutting its losses and disclaiming interest rather than facing the decertification vote, the UFCW has potentially made it easier to seek to be recognized in the future. The UFCW’s decision to disclaim interest shows that the union was aware of the wishes of the employees it represented—that is, to dissolve the union—and ignored those wishes for months before finally bowing out.