Protolabs Stay Informed

Understanding your legal rights is the first step in making an informed, educated decision about unionization and how it might impact you and your family.

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Our Philosophy

It is in the best interest of Protolabs and our team members to maintain direct one-to-one relationships with their leaders that are free from third-party intervention.

Where We Stand

Your Benefits

Your benefits are a valuable part of working at Protolabs.

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Get the facts

Dues & Fees

A union is a business with a major source of revenue: the dues, fees, special assessments and fines they charge their members.

Your Signature

Union organizers and pro-union coworkers may tell you that you have to sign an authorization card to get more information, but that’s not true.

Collective Bargaining

FAQs: Can a union guarantee changes or improvements with a union contract? What is collective bargaining? Who determines what the contract says?

Dues & Fees

A union is a business with a major source of revenue: the dues, fees, special assessments and fines they charge their members.

Your Signature

Union organizers and pro-union coworkers may tell you that you have to sign an authorization card to get more information, but that’s not true.

Collective Bargaining

FAQs: Can a union guarantee changes or improvements with a union contract? What is collective bargaining?

Organizing Tactics

Union Claim: “By signing this document, we’ll be able to stop all of the changes around here.”

Fact: Unions make numerous promises but there are no guarantees. Any change would have to be negotiated with and agreed to by the employer. In contract negotiations, you could end up with the same, more, or less than you currently have.

Union Claim: “If you fill out this card/petition/online form we can send you more information about the union and what we can do for you.”

Fact: You can get more information about unions without signing a union authorization card/petition/online form. Information is available from your manager, Human Resources, and on the Internet. Information from the union should also be available without having to sign a legally binding document.

Union Claim: “We just need your signature to show the union there is enough interest to talk to us about unionizing.”

Fact: Signing a union authorization card/petition/online form isn’t about talking to the union. Your signature, and that of other employees, may be giving the union the ability to file a petition for election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) if they collect enough signatures. Read the small print and do not sign a card if you are not sure that you want a union to represent you.

Union Claim: “You need to sign a card so you can vote if there’s an election.”

Fact: You don’t need to sign a union authorization card/petition/online form to vote in an election if there is one. Only the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has the authority to determine which employees are part of the eligible bargaining unit and therefore able to vote in any election that may occur.

Union Claim: “Try the union for a while. If you don’t like it, we’ll leave.”

Fact: It’s not that easy. Removing a union is a very difficult process once it is in place. Once the union is voted in, they are in place for a one-year minimum even without a contract. After the first year, if employees want to get the union out, they would have to gather enough signatures to file a decertification petition with the NLRB. However, if the Union has negotiated a contract in the meantime, that contract blocks any decertification petition until shortly before it expires (or for three years, whichever is sooner). Whenever employees get one of these opportunities to decertify, employees would be responsible for initiating and organizing this effort on their own and, according to the law, Protolabs could not assist.

Union Claim: “You should sign…everyone has but you.”

Fact: If everyone else had signed, the organizer wouldn’t need your signature. He or she would already have enough signatures to petition the NLRB for an election or to approach the organization for voluntary recognition. The decision to sign – or not – is a personal one and should be based strictly on your own desire to be represented by a union, not on what the union says other employees have done.