Final briefs filed in Mountaire employee lawsuit

SELBYVILLE, Del. – The National Labor Relations Board will soon rule on a case originally out of Mountaire in Selbyville  after staff attorneys filed their final briefs this week.

The case was born when Oscar Cruz Sosa, a Mountaire employee, collected signatures and votes from his co workers seeking to remove a union from their workplace. The Union in the dispute, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 27, argued that a contract bar prevented those votes from being counted. But lawyers from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, who represent Cruz Sosa, say that contract bar shouldn’t be upheld because of an illegal contract.

Now with those final briefs filed, the decision lies in the hands of the National Labor Relations Board.

“If the NLRB rules that the contract bar is valid, then those vote would be just thrown in the trash, if the NLRB rules that The regional director was correct in the contract bar shouldn’t apply in this situation, then the votes would be counted,” Mark Mix, the President of the National Right to Work Foundation, said.

Previously, a Regional Director with the National Labor Relations Board previously agreed with the Right to Work Foundation, saying the contract bar should not be upheld. The union appealed that decision and that is why the case is now going to the entire Labor Relations Board.