SPRING HILL, Fla. – Staff at the Lakewood Plaza Wells Fargo branch in Spring Hill are officially entering the work week without a union.
The shift comes after a push by employees to remove Communications Workers of America (CWA) officials from their workplace ended not with a formal ballot, but with the union stepping away entirely.
The process began earlier this month when bank employee Virginia Fenton filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Backed by legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Fenton gathered enough signatures from her coworkers to trigger a federally supervised decertification vote. The election, which was set to include tellers and personal bankers, was scheduled for March 30.
However, the high-stakes vote never actually happened. Just days before the deadline, CWA officials—operating under the name “Wells Fargo Workers United”—filed a “disclaimer of interest.” By doing so, the union effectively admitted it no longer sought to represent the branch, leading the NLRB to acknowledge the move on March 27 and cancel the election.
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Because Florida is a Right-to-Work state, these employees already had the right to opt out of paying union dues.
However, the union’s exit means the staff is no longer bound by “exclusive representation,” a rule that typically requires all employees to follow a single, union-negotiated contract regardless of whether they support the union or not.
This marks the second time in a month that Wells Fargo employees have successfully moved to boot the CWA. Workers in Apex, North Carolina, recently voted the union out in a landslide, and similar efforts are currently gaining steam at a branch in Casper, Wyoming.
“CWA union bosses’ campaign at Wells Fargo started with great fanfare, but now, when faced with the reality of the CWA’s so-called ‘representation,’ employees across the country seem to be coming to the conclusion that they would be better off without the union,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. Mix added that the NLRB should continue reforming regulations to make it easier for workers to exercise their right to vote out officials who “haven’t served their interests.”
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