A hearing on the petition is scheduled for June 23.

In March of last year, Thomas Built Buses recognized the union after a majority of the workers signed authorization cards in support of UAW representation. The union recognition was rescinded earlier this year, however, after the National Right to Work Defense Foundation, a pro-boss outfit, filed a petition with the NLRB challenging the “card check.”

Thousands of workers have joined the United Auto Workers at the Freightliner plants in Mount Holly, Gastonia, and Cleveland, North Carolina, as well as parts workers in Atlanta and Memphis, according to the UAW’s website. The company employs about 8,200 workers in North Carolina, a third of its national workforce.

UAW officials, like other union tops, have relied on “card check” authorization agreements to try to stem the decline in membership as a substitute for mobilizing the labor movement—including workers inside the targeted plants—to win union-organizing fights. The Thomas Built Buses plant was one of the few unionized plants in the Greensboro and Winston-Salem region, according to the Greensboro News-Record.

Union membership overall continues to decline across the state. According to the 2004 Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, only 3.6 percent of workers in North Carolina are unionized, the lowest percentage in the country.  
 
 
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