Even with the new election rules, the NLRB election process will remain stacked in favor of corporations and their highly-paid "union avoidance" consultants. Unions have filed OECD complaints during several global organizing campaigns, including those at Nissan, T-Mobile, DHL, and Ikea. Labor Relations Training for Supervisors (best way to reduce your risks). 11.Jackson Lewis, Surveying the New Labor Law Landscape, 2011, available at https://www.acc.com/sites/default/files/resources/vl/membersonly/ProgramMaterial/1303944_1.pdf. The biggest being that the quickie elections leave little to no time for strong, effective anti union campaigns. LIS is a long-established union avoidance firm that also operates under the name, The Burke Group, or TBG. The Burke Group [TBG], established in 1982, is the international leader in guiding management during union organizing (recognition) and union card signing campaigns. 2021 Hutchison Group Inc.. All Rights Reserved. Training and Strategy Captivating Workers: Captive meetings mandatory group anti-union meetings which employees can be fired for refusing to attend have been a central feature of Amazons anti-union campaign at Bessemer. Our passion is to preserve a client's freedom to manage and to assist our clients in helping them remain union-free. kill organized labor in aviation. Our team has also helped companies avoid hundreds of campaigns across the country, including UAW, Steelworkers, Teamsters, CWA, IBEW, UFCW, UNITE-HERE, IAM, AFTRA, SEIU, The Laborers, GMPP, Sheet Metal Workers, 1199, just to name a few. Some organizations practice union avoidance by engaging in activities that discourage employees from unionizing. Union membership in the United States has declined dramatically over the last several decades, with just 6.2% of private sector workers belonging to a union in 2019, compared to 16.8% in 1983. provided for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal The nations third and fourth largest management-side law firms specializing in union avoidance, Jackson Lewis and Fisher Phillips, have adopted a different model of international expansion. Thus, just as Nathan Sheffermans LRA spawned anti-union consultants and firms that dominated the business in the 1960s and 1970s, so too has LRI acted as a breeding ground for new union avoidance experts over the past two decades. The first nationally prominent consultant was Chicago-based Nathan Shefferman, who, as Sanford Jacoby described in Modern Manors (1997), worked for Sears Roebuck before establishing his own consulting firm, Labor Relations Associates (LRA). Look out for these emails and check out our website for more information on how to remain union-free! One of the best ways to determine a companys vulnerability to union organizing is to conduct onsite employee relations assessments. Rebecca Smith: A second consultant working with Russ Brown at Amazon, Rebecca Smith, claims to have worked for unions 20 years, 16 years with the Teamsters, including as Executive Director of Training for Southern Nevada. Unfortunately, as critical as the supervisors role is, our union relations consultants have found that many companies spend very little time training and educating their supervisors. Our goal is to engage clients in union avoidance activities prior to an actual campaign - to avoid campaigns altogether. . One of the biggest spenders in recent years is Amazon. Thanks to the video criticizing Amazons anti-unionism tweeted by President Biden and the RWDSUs inspirational campaign at Bessemer, the PRO Act is arguably now in a league that EFCA failed to achieve. The LM-20 form filled by Russ Brown states that three consultants will be paid a daily fee of $3,200 plus expenses for the duration of the campaign, which started in January. One consultant writes in his LinkedIn profile: To start, I want to make it clear that I own a consulting firm that works exclusively for management to stay union free and promote positive employee relations, but my story did start on the union side with nearly 24 years of experience for unions.. In May 2010, the ILOs Committee on Freedom of Association (CFA) issued a decision that the U.S. employer community has interpreted as an endorsement for American-style anti-union campaigns. 7.Littler Mendelson, Labor Law Update, October 15, 2014, available at https://slideplayer.com/slide/6206656/. November 4, 2021. Amazon Campaign Demonstrates Urgent Need for PRO Act. These activities can include holding mandatory meetings where managers discuss the negative aspects of unions, distributing . In 2019, Google hired IRI Consultants, a union avoidance firm, "amid a wave of unprecedented worker organizing at the company," as Vice's Motherboard put it in January 2021, while reporting on leaked files from IRI that provided a disturbing picture of how far Google may have strayed in its . The "Big Four" Union Avoidance Law Firms Go Global. The right mix. Our site is 2.Michael Fichter and Dimitris Stevis, Global Framework Agreements in a Union-Hostile Environment: The Case of the USA, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, November 2013, available at https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/id/10377.pdf. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like 1) The term labour-management relations refers to: A) the process of labour- management contract negotiations and . 3. Fortunately, you don't have to know the answer -- because we do. Pitt reduced payments to "union avoidance" law firm Ballard Spahr following faculty unionization, but continues to pay hundreds of thousands to firms with labor management services as efforts to organize staff and graduate student unions persist. Often the easiest way to solve a problem is to avoid it entirely, and avoiding a union is no different. It is also helpful for the entire company to nourish a sense of community and make everyone feel theyre on the same team. . From policy making to the shop floor, we know that third party interference makes business less productive and less competitive. Beginning in the 1950s, an industry of consultants and law firms started advising companies on how to avoid unionization campaigns. Amazons relentless anti-union campaign will likely play a central role in union messaging on the PRO Act now that they have gotten the countrys attention. The key to any union avoidance plan lies with front-line supervisors and their ability to deal with issues immediately and constructively. During the winter, The Hershey's Company hired six union-avoidance firms to block organizing efforts at its chocolate factory in Stuarts Draft, Virginia. John Logan is Professor and Director of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University. Monitoring the NLRB and Other Pro-Labor Legislation and Regulations. Pro-union workers who challenge their claims have had their ID badges photographed. Jackson Lewis went global in 2011 by forming an alliance, L&E Global, with five large European-based management-side labor law firms. After orchestrating hundreds of anti-union campaigns for some of the nations largest companies, LRA was effectively forced out of business due to the negative publicity from the high-profile McClellan Committee hearings, after it detailed LRAs complicity in corruption. However, it is estimated that hundreds of law firms and companies engage in union-busting activities. 3 (2002): 197-214. 6.Fisher Phillips, International Employment Practice Group, available at https://www.fisherphillips.com/services-international-employment. It is extremely important to stay ahead of the tide in order protect your Union-Free Privilege. They have also engaged in the debate over global standards and predicted that U.S.-style counter-organizing campaigns may take hold overseas. 21.Daily Labor Report, Nissan Rejects State Department Offer to Mediate Over UAW Anti-Union Complaint, February 3, 2015. Public Integrity reviewed public records to see how much U.S. corporations paid union-avoidance firms in recent years. 312-759-5646, F Framework agreements, the firm cautioned, are especially problematic for public-facing retail brands.14, Union avoidance attorneys have advised employers to deploy global standards offensively against labor organizations. Often, its your efforts that can protect them from unwittingly putting everything on the line. In more recent campaigns, the firm has offered employers a 50% refund in its fees if the union wins[iii] One could not invent better examples to illustrate that, under the current union certification process, the employer and not the employees gets to decide on whether a workplace becomes unionized. Should you choose to contact an attorney at Barnes & Thornburg LLP (via We can provide a strategic response to labor union organization efforts, ensuring your work place stays union free and your business or organization is protected. Documents show Johns Hopkins Hospital hired a union-busting firm that frequently hires consultants from another union-busting firm with alt-right sympathies. One major difference between union avoidance law firms such as Morgan Lewis and consultant firms such as Road Warrior Productions and Labor Information Services is that consultants conduct so-called direct persuader activity i.e., they have face-to-face contact with employees while the law firms generally avoid this. The United States is alone among rich democracies in allowing an enormous industry of law firms dedicated to defeating union organizing campaigns and keeping their clientsincluding many multinational corporations (MNCs)union free. Having worked with both union and nonunion companies over the past 30 years, our labor and employment consulting firm have learned to identify key warning signs and recommend proactive steps to remain union free. However, while arguing that neutrality agreements violate workers freedom of association because they do not get to hear both sides of the story, union avoidance firms have consistently opposed union access to the workplace in order to make the case in favor of unionization.18 Thus, labor neutrality and union access agreements, they have argued, are bad for both corporations and their workers and also violate international law. Russ Brown: Russ Brown is a long-time anti-union consultant, who worked for many years in labor relations at Delta Airlines, before starting as an anti-union consultant for Oklahoma-based Labor Relations Institute (LRI), Inc. and now runs his own firm, Road Warrior Productions (RWP) Labor, LLC, based in Florida. You might hear your bosses call this "union avoidance," but it basically just means "Union busting, in a suit." Three: Delay, delay, delay Over the past decade, the four largest management-side law firms specializing in union avoidance have internationalized their operations. As a result of the growing importance of MNCs, both in the United States and worldwide, American unions such as the Service Employees International Union, United Food and Commercial Workers and others have participated in global organizing campaigns.2 Conducted with the assistance of UNI Global Union, International Transport Federation, and other global union federations, these multifaceted campaigns have stressed corporate violations of core ILO conventions and have utilized soft law instruments such as the United Nations Global Compact and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Corporations. Whether you choose one-on-one mentoring, group training, or The Union-Free Privilege Academy, our union avoidance management consultants tailor seminars and workshops to meet the specific needs of your organization. A proposed rule change would expose such anti-union expenses the last thing the union busters themselves want. It is estimated that companies spend between $500 million and $2 billion per year on union-busting activities. Soft Opening for EPAs Green Bank Funding to Reduce Emissions, Partner Tina Dorr Named President of the Georgia Asian Pacific American Bar Association, Rare Victory for California Employers: Ninth Circuit Says State Arbitration Law Preempted By Federal Law. According to forms filed with the Labor Department in connection with several anti-union campaigns over the past decade, Brown and Smith have worked under Philip Wilson, CEO of LRI. According to The Pew Research Center, 92% of Millennials owned , Adams Nash Haskell & Sheridanis a group of labor professionals , HELP WANTED!!! We use cookies on this site to enhance your user experience. Despite switching sides on union campaigns, Smith claims she wants to support and give a voice to working people. Crushing Unions With Consultants, "Explainer Videos" and "Heat Maps". A major component of our union avoidance strategy is to train supervisors and alert them to the skills necessary to avoid unions, skills they can use each day in their interaction with employees. [iv] https://www.amazon.com/Union-Hypocrisy-Organized-Standard-Business/dp/1478275162(https://www.amazon.com/Union-Hypocrisy-Organized-Standard-Business/dp/1478275162), (https://tunein.com/podcasts/Conservative-Talk/The-Brenner-Brief-w-Sara-Marie-Brenner-p514156/) (https://www.rwplabor.com/consultant-bios/rebecca-smith/). Her Reliant bio page states: As a consultant, Rebecca has led numerous anti-union campaigns, resulting in a winning record for the companies with whom she partnered, including but not limited to government, non-profit, and for profit organizations within airline, transportation, healthcare, hospitality, energy and retail industries. following terms. Kara Fox-LaRose, president and general manager of ilani, a casino . As with the Amazon campaign, Rebecca Smiths anti-union work on these campaigns was conducted through Russ Browns Road Warrior Productions. We will work to guide you in the best ways to educate your employees about the dangers and problems of unionization and address underlying issues in your workplace. Mission Hospital: A Relentless anti-union campaign during the pandemic: In addition to the Amazon campaign, Brown and Smith have worked on several other recent high-profile anti-union campaigns, including among nurses at Mission Hospital, owned since 2019 by the for-profit healthcare system HCA, in Asheville, North Carolina. 540 N Michigan Avenue. 3.Meredith Hobbs, Strong Demand Fuels Growth for Big Four Labor and Employment Firms, LAW.COM Daily Report, April 11, 2019, available at https://www.law.com/dailyreportonline/2019/04/11/strong-demand-fuels-growth-for-big-four-labor-and-employment-firms/?slreturn=20191021070945. Google's Union-Busting Methods Revealed - THE TOP 25 MOST CENSORED STORIES OF 2020-2021. With ANHS, we make sure you stay union-free. When addressed early, organizing is avoidable. 17.The Littler Report: The 2011 Global Employer: Highlights of Littlers Fourth Annual Global Employer Institute, available at https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/the-littler-report-the-2011-global-empl-95500/. These numbers represent just the tip of the iceberg during the Trump administration, officials at the Department of Labor stopped requiring companies to disclose how much they spend on union avoidance consultants. But union avoidance firms and law . . 10.Ogletree Deakins, Traditional Labor Relations, available at https://ogletree.com/solutions/practice-areas/traditional-labor-relations/. 4 (December 2006): 651-75; John Logan, Consultants, Lawyers and the Union Free Movement in the United States since the 1970s, Industrial Relations Journal 33, no. From policy making to the shop floor, we make sure you stay union-free Other! Your union-free Privilege ; Explainer Videos & quot ; union avoidance firm that also operates the... 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