Teamsters officials threatened a medical waste service worker to join the union or get fired, the employee claimed in a new labor complaint.
Veolia Environmental Services worker Alexus Villanueva claimed the Teamsters Local 63 demanded she fill out her paperwork and pay dues in a tense interaction inside a company facility on Jan. 13, according to a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.
Officials failed to provide legally required information about how non-political dues were calculated, she said in the complaint, obtained by The Post.
“Teamsters union bosses never gave me any kind of information on what my rights were – they simply demanded I join the union or lose my job,” Villanueva said in an interview. “Teamsters aren’t respecting me or my coworkers by trying to coerce us like this.”
The worker claimed she was called into a supervisor’s office at Veolia’s Colton facility, with her boss slipping her an envelope and telling her to fill out the application inside so they could start collecting her dues.
“You do know that if you don’t sign the application, we’re going to have to let you go,” she was told, according to her claims.
She took the envelope back to her desk and found a notice inside telling her she would also be on the hook for retroactive dues from October to December 2025, the complaint said.
The complaint alleges that the union did not comply with procedural protections outlined in the Supreme Court’s 1988 Communication Workers of America v. Beck decision, which limits how much union dues can be collected from employees who do not wish to support union political activity.
Among the alleged violations, Villanueva said she was not provided with a notice of how non-chargeable fees were calculated or the opportunity to challenge those calculations through an impartial review.
The NLRB, which enforces federal labor law in the private sector, prohibits union officials from threatening workers with termination for refusing membership.
California does not have Right to Work protections, meaning unions can legally require employees to pay dues or fees as a condition of employment. By contrast, neighboring states such as Nevada and Arizona prohibit mandatory union membership or financial support.
Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation, criticized the Teamsters for allegedly attempting to coerce employees.
“Instead of seeking to win workers over voluntarily, Teamsters Local 63 union bosses continue to flout federal labor law in pursuit of more control and more dues money,” Mix said. “No worker should be forced to subsidize any part of union bosses’ agenda just to keep their job.”
Teamsters Local 63 did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.
National right to work says this pattern is recurring in Southern California of workers challenging Teamsters Local 63. In 2024, a Dependable Highway Express driver successfully challenged the union after retaliation claims, and in 2021, Los Angeles XPO Logistics employees won a decertification vote with Foundation assistance, according to the press release.
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