Thirty-eight fuel workers at San Antonio International Airport just voted to kick the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers out of their workplace. But here's the detail that makes it: the union didn't even show up for the results. Support for decertification was so overwhelming that IAM District 142 officials packed up and left rather than face the final count.
When the middleman fires himself before you can fire him, you know the relationship was already over.
Matthew Garwood, the Allied Aviation Fueling Company employee who led the decertification petition, didn't mince words. "The IAM was not negotiating in our best interests," Garwood said. "We are grateful to have regained control over our workplace after being confronted with a poorly-written contract." He filed with the National Labor Relations Board after gathering signatures from more than 30% of the workforce — the threshold required to trigger a decertification vote.
The case was handled by the National Right to Work Foundation, and it wasn't a one-off. This marks the 13th NRWF case won or settled in Texas since January 1, 2023. Thirteen times in three and a half years, Texas workers decided the union collecting their dues wasn't delivering enough to justify the cut.
Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation, framed it in terms the workers themselves would recognize. "Union bosses have no shortage of tricks to use when trying to maintain their stranglehold on hardworking Americans' paychecks," Mix said. The NRWF provided free legal counsel to Garwood throughout the petition process.
Texas is already a right-to-work state, meaning nobody can be forced to join a union as a condition of employment. But decertification goes further — it removes the union from the workplace entirely. No more negotiations on your behalf that you didn't ask for. No more contracts you didn't write. No more representation fees dressed up as voluntary contributions.
The pattern isn't limited to airport tarmacs. The Foundation also recently won a $1 million judgment for Charlene Carter, a Southwest Airlines flight attendant in Dallas who spent nine years fighting back after her union targeted her. Carter had been forced to pay union dues for 13 years after withdrawing her membership. Nine years of litigation to get back money she never wanted to spend.
Organized labor's pitch has always been simple: you need us. We negotiate for you. We protect you. The problem is that pitch only works when workers actually believe it. When 38 fuel workers on the ground in San Antonio look at their union contract, look at their dues, and decide they'd rather represent themselves — and the union can't even mount a defense — the pitch has collapsed.
