Apparently it’s OK to unionize but not to get rid of our labor union. We learned this lesson on Oct. 8, when the National Labor Relations Board dismissed our petition to hold a decertification election at the store where we work. The bureaucrats say our employer might have acted unfairly, but what’s really unfair is saving the union by denying our rights.

We’ve both worked at Trader Joe’s for 10 years. In 2022 our store became the first in the company to unionize. Both of us opposed it, but we were outnumbered: 45 of our fellow crew members voted to join Trader Joe’s United, while 31 of us voted against it and seven abstained.

But the union hasn’t been what many of our co-workers expected. The officers basically selected themselves. They then delayed negotiations with Trader Joe’s while forfeiting our annual bonus retirement contribution. Amid growing discontent in the store, the two of us attended a bargaining session in February 2023, which the union president invited all crew members to join. We were shocked at what we saw.

We thought the union would focus on things that matter, like wages and benefits. Instead, union representatives negotiated over things like “pronoun pins,” which the company already provides. They demanded that Trader Joe’s cover abortion and “gender-affirming care.” The company’s response: The health plan already covers that. Either the union negotiators were embarrassingly uninformed, or they were playing a political game with workers as the pawns. Either way, our team deserved better.

We wrote up what we saw at the bargaining session and posted it in the break room. Within hours, the union asked the store captain to take it down. He refused. We then showed up to the next bargaining session in April 2023, only for our own union to deny us entry and ask security to escort us from the building. Why don’t the people who have a legal duty to represent our interests want us to see what they’re saying and doing?

Our frustration kept building, so last November, we told our fellow crew members that we were gathering signatures to hold a decertification election. We need the support of only 30% of the bargaining unit to force another election. We thought this would be tough, since many of our colleagues told us they were afraid of union reprisals and would sign only if we kept their names secret. Yet by July of this year, 46% of our co-workers had signed our petition. We felt we had a real shot, especially since a majority of the crew members who initially voted for unionization have since left. In July, we filed our petition with the National Labor Relations Board.

Two months later, our hopes were dashed. The NLRB’s regional director dismissed our petition on grounds that Trader Joe’s is under investigation for unfair labor practices at our store. The company is accused of everything from having an “overly broad” dress code to giving one of our co-workers a “negative appraisal.” The union has also claimed that managers in our store made “threats,” though in our experience they did nothing of the kind.

We’re floored. Most of the allegations against the company took place before the initial unionization election. If Trader Joe’s was acting unfairly, which our experience disputes, why didn’t the NLRB intervene before we voted? What’s more, labor unions often file bogus complaints about unfair labor practices as a negotiating tactic. If the mere allegation prevents us from holding a decertification election, it’s hard to see an election ever moving forward. All union officers have to do is keep filing complaints, thereby trapping us in a union that a growing number of us want to ditch.

It’s hard not to conclude that the NLRB cares more about protecting unions than it does about workers’ rights. We haven’t merely met the threshold of support to force a decertification election; we’ve dramatically exceeded it. Surely if we have the right to unionize, we also have the right to get rid of our union. Until we’re allowed to hold that vote, our rights might as well not exist.