Union Organizing
What Every HR Professional Should Know
Thomas C. Wigand, Esq. / SPHR
December 2, 2010
tomw@wigandassociates.com
© 2010 Wigand Associates LLP
Insight
Understanding …
Not just the theory,
but the “real world” practice …
Enables sound decision-making
Current “Targeted” Industries
“Jobs that can’t be ‘off-shored’”
Public sector / government contractors
Health Care – nursing homes; home health aides
Hospitals – nurses; CNA’s; support staff
Hospitality – Tourism - Restaurants
Banking (tellers)
Janitorial etc. – low-skilled / immigrants
Even well-run organizations in a targeted industry and/or
geographic area can be a target
What is your personal attitude
concerning labor unions?
What is your company’s attitude
concerning labor unions?
What is that of your employees?
The Power of Narrative
Repetition w/o challenge breeds the
“conventional wisdom”
Conventional wisdom frames perceptions
“Perception is ‘reality’”
1984: “Newspeak” - “Doublethink”
“The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium
of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to
the devotees … but to make all other modes of thought
impossible.”
-1984 by George Orwell
Doublethink: “The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in
one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them...”
“To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to
forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when
it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for
just so long as it is needed”
- 1984 by George Orwell
Management
Labor
Labor & Management Battling
Is the Natural Order of the Universe
And Without a Union ...
Workers Will Be Exploited By
Management
Union Myths
(More of the “narrative”)
•
Union is the underdog
•
“VOICE” in the workplace
•
Most employees want a union
•
Unions created the middle class
•
The “union premium” for wages & benefits
•
Union represents employees -- only has workers’ best
interests at heart
How Organizing Works
(or is supposed to)
“Showing of Interest” – 30% by “community of interest”
Voluntary employer recognition of “majority support” -- (50%
+1) OR …
Secret ballot election conducted by NLRB after campaign
(note that the union controls timing)
Certification by NLRB of employee representative to
collectively bargain over “wages, hours and working
conditions”
How Organizing Often Works
(The Reality)
“Corporate campaign” (a/k/a “comprehensive
campaign”) to organize the employer and obtain
“neutrality agreement” and/or “card check agreement”
Employees solicited by professional organizers and/or
coworkers trained by professional organizers
NLRB certification of union as employee
representative to collectively bargain over “wages,
hours and working conditions”
Current Union Organizing Arsenal
Corporate Campaigns – “organize the employer”
“Neutrality Agreements” (employer gag orders)
Card check “agreements” (a/k/a “majority sign up”)
Research vulnerabilities: lawsuits; financing sources;
customers
Front groups: ACORN / “Jobs with Justice” /
Ministers
“Reports” by independent entities / hospital debt
collection practices / flood emergency rooms
“Living Wage” Ordinances (e.g., LAX Hilton)
Target largest and/or best paying employer in market
Current Union Organizing Arsenal (con’t)
Legal – regulatory complaints (Wage / OT; OSHA;
EPA; zoning
“Salts”
Tactical use of ULP’s (“unfair labor practices”) charges
by union
“Blitz” campaigns
Engineer employee firings
Identify workplace issues and exploit them – and if
little is available attempt to foment issues
“Corporate Campaign” Tactics
“Today UNITE-HERE is no less aggressive. For instance, last April
during its campaign to organize Milum Textile Services, a Phoenixbased linen service, UNITE-HERE alleged that the company mixed
restaurant linen with linen from health care facilities, including sheets
contaminated with blood and human waste. It also claimed that the
company has not always kept soiled and clean linens adequately
separated. That got the public’s attention.”
“The union campaign also had the effect of getting the attention of
Milum’s retail customers — who were being questioned by their
customers.”
Source: “UNITE-HERE on the Attack” - Capital Research Center - July 2006
More Corporate Campaign Tactics
July 24, 2006: Unite Here, a New York union that represents hotel and
hospitality workers, has been ordered to pay $17.3 million to Sutter
Health for defaming the nonprofit hospital giant.
A Placer County Superior Court jury found that Unite Here acted with
"fraud, malice or oppression" when it mailed defamatory postcards to
consumers last year in communities served by Sutter hospitals …
The suit followed a mass mailing in Northern California of a postcard
by the union to women of childbearing age, Sutter officials said. The
direct mail piece suggested that Sutter hospitals used linens that were
inadequately cleaned by an outside commercial laundry. At the time,
Unite Here was involved in a labor dispute against the laundry service,
Angelica Textile Services.
SEIU “Terrorizing” Child
SEIU “Terrorizing” Child
“Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our
toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded
with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a
mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is
deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of
America, a senior executive based in Washington, D.C.
And that -- in the minds of the organizers at the politically
influential Service Employees International Union and a
Chicago outfit called National Political Action -- makes
his family fair game.”
SEIU “Terrorizing” Child
“Waving signs denouncing bank ‘greed,’ hordes of
invaders poured out of 14 school buses, up Baer's steps,
and onto his front porch. As bullhorns rattled with stories
of debtor calls and foreclosed homes, Baer's teenage
son Jack -- alone in the house -- locked himself in the
bathroom. ‘When are they going to leave?’ Jack pleaded
when I called to check on him.”
SEIU “Terrorizing” Child
“Baer, on his way home from a Little League game, parked
his car around the corner, called the police, and made a
quick calculation to leave his younger son behind while
he tried to rescue his increasingly distressed teen. He
made his way through a din of barked demands and
insults from the activists who proudly ‘outed’ him, and
slipped through his front door … Excuse me,’ Baer told
his accusers, ‘I need to get into the house. I have a child
who is alone in there and frightened.”
SEIU “Terrorizing” Child
“Now this event would accurately be called a ‘protest’ if it
were taking place at, say, a bank or the U.S. Capitol. But
when hundreds of loud and angry strangers are
descending on your family, your children, and your home,
a more apt description of this assemblage would be
‘mob.’ Intimidation was the whole point of this exercise,
and it worked-even on the police. A trio of officers who
belatedly answered our calls confessed a fear that
arrests might ‘incite’ these trespassers.”
SEIU “Terrorizing” Child
“SEIU has said it wants to organize bank tellers and call
centers -- and its critics point out that a great way to
worsen employee morale, thereby making workers more
susceptible to union calls, is to batter a bank's image
through protest.”
Teamsters Organizing
Teamsters Organizing
WE WILL NOT brandish or carry any
weapon of any kind, including, but not
limited to, guns, knives, slingshots,
rocks, ball bearings, liquid-filled
balloons or other projectiles, sledge
hammers, bricks, sticks, or two by
fours at or near any picket line,
handbilling effort, rally or in any
vehicle engaged in ambulatory picketing
of any Overnite vehicle or following
the private vehicle of any Overnite
employee.
Teamsters Organizing
WE WILL NOT use or threaten to use a
weapon of any kind, including but not
limited to guns, knives, slingshots,
rocks, ball bearings, liquid-filled
balloons or other projectiles, picket
signs, sticks, sledge hammers, bricks,
hot coffee, bottles, two by fours, lit
cigarettes, eggs, or bags or balloons
filled with excrement against any nonstriking Overnite employee or security
guard in the presence any Overnite
employee.
“Newspeak”= Union “Turnspeak”
“Democratic majority sign-up procedures are necessary to
avoid anti-democratic employer coercion through the NLRB
election process.”
“The NLRB election process makes matters worse by
enabling management to wage lengthy and bitter anti-union
campaigns, during which workers can expect harassment,
intimidation, threats and firings. By avoiding these inherently
coercive and anti-democratic anti-union campaigns, majorityrule majority sign-up procedures help employees make freer
choices under less duress.”
Source: “American Rights at Work” ( pro-union group)
“Card Check”
EFCA – “Employee Free Choice Act”
Mandatory “card check” - effective elimination of
secret ballot elections in union organizing
Increased penalties for employer (but not union!)
“unfair labor practices”
MANDATORY ARBITRATION - imposition of initial
contract after 120 days
Authorization Cards
Don’t have to be “cards”
Good for 1 year –
presumably “pre-EFCA” cards could be used!!
“The unreliability of the cards is not dependent upon the
possible use of misrepresentation and threats . . . It is
inherent, as we have noted, in the absence of secrecy
and in the natural inclinations of most people to avoid
stands which appear to be nonconformist and
antagonistic to friends and fellow employees.”
NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., Inc., 395 U.S. 575 (1969)
Typical Authorization Card
Typical Authorization Card
TESTIMONY OF JEN JASON
FORMER UNITE-HERE ORGANIZER
BEFORE THE HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON
HEALTH, EMPLOYMENT, LABOR AND
PENSIONS
February 8, 2007
“As an Organizer for UNITE, I primarily
worked on and later led ‘card check’
organizing campaigns.
A ‘card check’ campaign begins with
union organizers going to the homes of
workers over a weekend, a tactic
called ‘housecalling,’ with the sole
intent of having those workers sign
authorization cards.”
Called a ‘blitz’ by the unions, it entails
teams of two or more organizers going
directly to the homes of workers.
The workers’ personal information and
home addresses used during the blitz
was obtained from license plates and
other sources that were used to create
a master list.”
“As an organizer working under a ‘card
check’ system versus an election
system, I knew that ‘card check’ gave
me the ability to quickly agitate a set of
workers into signing cards.
I did not have to prove the union’s
case, answer more informed questions
from workers or be held accountable
for the service record of my union.”
“Furthermore, my experience is that in
jurisdictions in which ‘card check’ was
actually legislated, organizers tended
to be even more willing to harass, lie
and use fear tactics to intimidate
workers into signing cards.
I have personally heard from workers
that they signed the union card simply
to get the organizer to leave their home
and not harass them further.”
“I began to appreciate that promises
made by organizers at a worker’s
house had little to do with how the
union actually functions as a ‘service’
organization.
For example, we rarely showed workers
what an actual union contract looked
like because we knew that it wouldn’t
necessarily reflect what a worker would
want to see.”
“We were trained to avoid
topics such as dues increases,
strike histories, etc. and to
constantly move the worker
back to what the organizer
identified as his or her ‘issues’
during the first part of the
housecall.
This technique was commonly
referred to as ‘re-agitation’ during
organizer training sessions.
The logic follows that if you can
keep workers agitated and direct
that anger at their boss, you can
get them to sign the card.”
Don’t Assume That You’re Not
A Potential Target
Procrastination = Unionization
“If the bill is enacted, unions say they will
try to organize workers by quietly getting
a majority to sign pro-union cards before
companies can begin an anti-union
campaign.”
The New York Times, January 8, 2009
What Might Be Coming
(EFCA by regulation?)
•
“Equal access”
•
“Snap elections”
•
Electronic voting
•
“Weingarten Rights”
•
Employer penalties (but not for union)
•
•
Reporting of employer fees paid to outside
consultants / attorneys and company personnel
Erode “right to work” and advantages those
states have (public safety workers; government
contractors)
Consequences of Unionization
The same organization willing to employ “corporate” organizing
tactics could be on your premises for decades
Unions foster workplace disharmony and animosity –
“us” vs. “them” (unions can be political)
Employer and employees can become pawn in larger union
agenda
Management distraction and expense due to grievances,
contract negotiations, etc.
Strikes: actual and threat of …
“Do Nows”
OPTIONS BECOME LIMITED once an organizing
drive is active
Vulnerability Assessment
Policy Implementation
Training - management, supervisors, employees
Communications Program
Be aware of “SECTION 7” rights
Secure Employee Records!
Human Resources Office
Vulnerability Assessments
Policies
Employee Relations
Discipline and Promotion
Potential Bargaining Units
Management Training
Legal and regulatory compliance
“Do Nows”
POLICIES
Non-solicitation / non-distribution: internal and
external.
Non-employee / employee access to premises.
Workplace posting – bulletin boards - EMAIL
Training - management, supervisors, employees
Communications Program
Progressive Discipline
Typical Management Training
•
Identifying signs of possible union organizing activity
•
“TIPS”
•
DON’T accept petitions or cards
•
FAQ’s
•
How to communicate with employees / answer questions
•
How union election process works
•
Union Info – “what they don’t want employees to know”
•
Union contracts
•
Union Constitution & LM-2’s
•
Dues – Strikes – Union Discipline
•
ULP’s – lawsuits against union by members
•
Union Corruption
Goals of Management Training
•
•
•
•
Build their own confidence
They are the face of the company – for better or worse they
often determine employee relations and trust
A personal way of communicating FACTS and credible
information to the workforce, so that the workforce can make
an INFORMED DECISION / GIVE “INFORMED CONSENT”
They are the front-line and first to hear “what is going on”
and what is on employees’ minds
The reality is ...
With Smart Management
A Union Is Totally Unnecessary
The Bottom Line
It’s not about keeping the unions
out -- but fostering a direct,
mutually advantageous
relationship between
management and employees.