Ontario Trucking Employee Who Revealed Union Boss Salaries Files Federal Charges Against Teamsters for Retaliatory Actions

John Cwiek, an employee of Dependable Highway Express, a Los Angeles-based transportation company, recently filed federal charges against the Teamsters Local 63 union. Cwiek maintains that Teamsters union officials retaliated against him for revealing truthful but unfavorable information about the union to his coworkers.

Cwiek sent letters to his coworkers in January with details about union boss salaries – information Cwiek pulled from Teamsters LM-2 filings. LM-2s are public documents filed by unions and maintained for public access by the U.S. Department of Labor. In retaliation for Cwiek sending the letters, a union official appeared at Cwiek’s workplace the next day, made accusations against him, and threatened that Cwiek wouldn’t be working at Dependable Highway Express by the next contract period.

The federal statute that governs private sector labor relations, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), protects both employee speech critical of unions and union officials and protects employees’ right to refrain from any or all union activities if they so choose.

According to the lawsuit, Teamsters Local 63 violated the NLRA when its agents appeared at the Cwiek’s worksite, interrogated him, and threatened his employment, as well as making false and defamatory accusations against him in retaliation for engaging in protected activities. He is receiving free legal representation from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys.

“I am deeply troubled by the blatant retaliatory actions taken by officials at Teamsters Local 63 in response to expressing the views of myself and several other hard-working drivers at Dependable Highway Express,” Cwiek said. “We will not be deterred by their bullying tactics and the baseless accusations they levy against myself and others. I hope that the actions of the officials from Teamsters Local 63 serve as a clear example to my colleagues that the union cannot dispute the facts of their incompetence in representing us, so they must resort to intimidation and slanderous accusations. We will remain steadfast in our pursuit of a better future for ourselves and our families.”

Ontario Trucking Employee’s Charges Latest in String of Challenges to Teamster Power in SoCal

This isn’t the National Right to Work Foundation’s first rodeo. The staff attorneys have recently aided other trucking industry employees in Southern California oppose unwanted Teamsters union influence, which the Globe has covered.

In October 2021, XPO Logistics employee Ozvaldo Gutierrez and his coworkers forced Teamsters Local 63 officials out of a Fashion District-area XPO facility.

Teamsters Local 848 union officials were similarly ousted by Angel Herrera and his colleagues at an Airgas facility in Ventura, CA, in September 2021. In both cases, the union officials departed the workplaces before employees had an opportunity to vote them out through the NLRB’s “decertification election” process – likely to avoid embarrassing election results.

Long Beach-area Savage Services employee Nelson Medina also won a NRTW-backed settlement in February 2022 ordering Teamsters Local 848 union officials to pay back thousands of dollars in illegal dues they seized from about 60 of his coworkers who objected to union membership and to funding the union’s political activity.

“Trucking workers across Southern California continue to express displeasure with union officials’ combative and illegal behavior, which makes it all the more unfortunate that California private sector workers aren’t covered by a Right to Work law,” said National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix. “In non-Right to Work California, union bosses can enforce contracts that force workers to pay dues or fees as a condition of keeping their jobs, meaning workers like Mr. Cwiek can be forced to fund the same union hierarchy that violates their rights.”

“While Foundation staff attorneys will fight to defend Mr. Cwiek’s rights under federal labor law, all American workers should have the Right to Work freedom to decide for themselves whether union bosses have earned their financial support,” Mix added.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation  is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year. Its web address is www.nrtw.org.