union avoidance firms

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. We have an extensive team of legal professionals that offer creative solutions and innovation, aimed at engaging clients in union avoidance activities prior to the formation of an actual campaign. 12.Jackson Lewis, Global Preventive Strategies for the Cross-Border Workplace.. In addition, consultants such as Brown and Smith script anti-union messages for corporate clients, such as the texts that Amazon has been sending to the phones of Bessemer workers several times per day, the anti-union billboards that Amazon has displayed around the Bessemer facility, or the anti-union flyers it has put up inside the stalls of the restrooms in Bessemer. Should you choose to contact an attorney at Barnes & Thornburg LLP (via Often the easiest way to solve a problem is to avoid it entirely . Often the easiest way to solve a problem is to avoid it entirely, and avoiding a union is no different. And that's made employers extremely vulnerable to unionization. November 4, 2021. union suppression approach union substitution approach reactive human resources approach union avoidance strategy union acceptance . 1. The right mix. Here are some of the most well-known companies in America and how much they've spent on union-busting firms. Your employees have a right to unionize, but you also have a right to educate them about potential dangers and negative effects of labor union representation. Oregon enacted such a law since 2010, and in November 2020 the Trump NLRB sued for a second time to overturn the law, which has thus far not been actively enforced. We use cookies on this site to enhance your user experience. 101. The Growing Impact of Social Media on Employees, Unions, and Labor Relations, Adams Nash Haskell & Sheridan Offers Free Vulnerability Quiz, Heads Up Supreme Court Lands Knockout Punch on Public Sector Unions And Perhaps Beyond, Heads Up New NLRB General Counsel Comes In Smoking, Strike4Democracy: What You Need To Know As A Business Owner, 2016 UNION MEMBERS REPORT DATA INFO-GRAPHIC. waiving employer rights . With ANHS, we make sure you stay union-free. Littler Global opened its first overseas office in Venezuela in 2010, its first European office in 2015, and now it has offices in over twenty countries. However, it is estimated that hundreds of law firms and companies engage in union-busting activities. 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. After first unionizing in 2016, Flexjet pilots voted to decertify the Teamsters, the first time that commercial pilots had ever decertified a union under the RLA, in May 2018. He also lobbied to make union decertification easier under the Railway Labor, promoted union deauthorizations, advocated for easier union decertification on the Grover Norquist Show, and testified before the Labor Department on regulations that threaten the stability of American Businesses. Brown and Smith, along with Russ have also testified in favor of easier decertification under the airline industry. Between 2014 and 2017, Littler Mendelson advised Nissan during a ferocious three-year anti-union campaign in Canton, Mississippi, where many workers were African-American. Smith has also run several union avoidance firms of her own, including Taltos Consulting and, currently, Rock Creek Consulting, conducting dozens of high-profile anti-union campaigns, including at General Electric. In 2017, for example, NATERAs annual conference included a pre-conference workshop featuring union avoidance and campaign simulation, run by the anti-union law firm, Jackson Lewis, which was tailored to the transportation industry.. The leaked records include a spreadsheet of anecdotal personal information the company had gathered . Brown has used CIE to promote decertification campaigns in the airline and other industries, as discussed below, which are campaigns in which he is not being paid directly by the company involved with the decertification effort. following terms. . In common with other union avoidance firm, ECLR claims an overwhelmingly positive victory rate in union campaigns: While unions typically win between 60 and 70% of union representation elections, ECLR maintains a win rate of over 95%. 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. 2021 Hutchison Group Inc.. All Rights Reserved. Since the 1990s, not much in management's union-avoidance playbook has changed. Union avoidance firms, which exploded in the U.S. in the 1970s, have played a key role in reducing the proportion of private sector workforces that are unionized today. Looking to kill organized labor in aviation: Brown and Smith have consistently attempted to expand their anti-union crusade into the still heavily unionized airline sector. Unions stifle that autonomy. 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. I have written about the message during captive meetings in greater detail elsewhere. Five of Ogletrees fifty-three law offices are overseas; it publishes a global labor relations newsletter, and it recently expanded its cross-border practice to include global labor standards and corporate codes of conduct.4 Ogletrees expanding international focus has been client-drivena direct response to demands from corporations for its labor services in multiple countries. Mission nurses encountered relentless and aggressive consultant anti-union tactics during the campaign, including mandatory captive audience meetings and one-on-one anti-union meetings, which kept them from their patient care duties. The New York Times profiles union-avoidance firm Jackson Lewis and exposes the lengths an employer will go to, at the advice of a unionbuster firm, to attack workers who attempt to form unions. This union avoidance internationalism poses a significant threat to workers who have benefited from global campaigns, and presents another obstacle in the path of unions attempting to organize at MNCs. accepting representation. inquiries or information received by Barnes & Thornburg LLP will not be regarded Last month, we discovered that, starting in January, Amazon had hired two prominent anti-union consultants, Russell Brown and Melissa Smith of Florida-based Road Warrior Productions (RWP), to assist with its campaign against the RWDSU. And he is why we will all be looked upon as pariahs if the Union is decertified. A leaked internal "polling" spreadsheet from one of the country's top union avoidance firms offers an inside look into a highly secretive industry that specializes in helping employers derail . She spent the first half of her organizing life . 7.Littler Mendelson, Labor Law Update, October 15, 2014, available at https://slideplayer.com/slide/6206656/. 16.Testimony of Stefan Marculewicz before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions, April 26, 2018, available at https://edlabor.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Marculewicz%20Testimony.pdf. 9.The Federalist Society, Harold P. Coxson Bio, available at https://fedsoc.org/contributors/harold-coxson. Hotel Information. Civil rights leaders, ministers at black churches, and leaders of historically black colleges criticized Nissan for running one of the nastiest anti-union campaigns in modern American history. The United Auto Workers (UAW) and the global union federation IndustriALL subsequently filed a complaint accusing Nissan of violating the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. 6.Fisher Phillips, International Employment Practice Group, available at https://www.fisherphillips.com/services-international-employment. These employee relations assessments are almost always appreciated by the employees, and the insights derived from these conversations provide management with a valuable opportunity to address areas of concern in a proactive manner. The chief result of the hearings, under the guidance of chief counsel Robert Kennedy, resulted in the enactment 1959 Labor-Management Relations and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), which targeted unions, not union-busting firms. Over the past four decades, Ogletree has advised many foreign MNCs operating in the United Statesincluding Nissan, Michelin NA, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Ikeaand has played a leading role in keeping them union free. Union avoidance is a multi-million dollar business. John Logan is Professor and Director of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University and a visiting scholar at the University of California-Berkeley Labor Center. Ogletree opened its first overseas office, which it called a game-changer, in Berlin in 2012. Workers at Amazons distribution center in Bessemer, Alabama are voting in a historic union election whether to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Seaton is a well-known union-avoidance consultant, otherwise known as a "persuader" or, more accurately, a union buster. recognized by the ILO, that is, its right to campaign vigorously against the union.21. The union campaign among 2200 workers at Fuyao Glass, during which the UAW complained that workers had faced a a barrage of anti-labor tactics and intimidation, was the subject of the academy-award winning documentary, American Factory, in which the company president talked about firing union supporters. Money Back Guarantee: The firm has orchestrated hundreds of anti-union campaigns over the past few decades for some of the countrys largest employers and numerous smaller ones and through its Guaranteed Winner program, it even offered employers a money-back offer if they union won an election in which they ran the entire counter-organizing effort. One of the best ways to determine a companys vulnerability to union organizing is to conduct onsite employee relations assessments. Among other things, the Macon workers were threatened with losing their jobs if they voted for unionization. LIS is a long-established union avoidance firm that also operates under the name, The Burke Group, or TBG. 317-231-7433, F 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. The notoriously secretive, $340 million-a-year industry of union-avoidance firms is currently advertising based on the idea that the pandemic has put organizing on "steroids." Along with the AFL-CIO, the Association of Flight Attendants-Communication Workers of America filed a complaint with the CFA stating that the policy on non-votes enabled hostile employers to manipulate the process to defeat union campaigns. The NLRB found that the company had committed numerous and egregious unfair labor practices during its anti-union campaign in a 2017 NLRB election. Google's Union-Busting Methods Revealed. One leading union avoidance law firm likened unions to a "virus" and recommended anti-union actions to "inoculate" new employees against the threat of unionization. Learn how to create an environment at your business where your employees will feel no need to seek outside representation with our union avoidance training. A Modern-Day LRA The Labor Relations Institute (LRI) Consulting Connection: Based in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, Phillip Wilsons LRI Consulting Services, LLC is one of the nations oldest and most active union avoidance firms in the nation. In 2018, Littler employed over 1000 attorneys in the United States and over 1500 worldwide. 540 N Michigan Avenue. . 614-628-1433. persons or entities involved in the matter and that the firm is willing to consider We have the experience, depth and understanding to deal with any situation at a moment's notice. Here is a sample of what we found: Amazon. This month, we found out that Amazon is using a second anti-union consultant firm which is an unusual step, even for an anti-union firm like Amazon: California-based Labor Information Services. . . Do you want to receive more valuable insights directly in your inbox? Littler attorneys have argued that, under international law, employers not only have a right, but also have an obligation to oppose unions: ILO jurisprudence requires them to speak out against unionization, otherwise workers will be denied access to information they need to make an informed choice: [I]t may be a violation of international law for employers to be limited in their right to freedom of expression and opinion . 310-284-3894, F Labor History for the Classroom and the Public, The Radicalism of Working-Class Americans, activities of Labor information Services elsewhere, and LRA served as a breeding ground for several future superstars of the union-free movement, a barrage of anti-labor tactics and intimidation, https://olmsapps.dol.gov/query/orgReport.do?rptId=740712&rptForm=LM20Form, https://theintercept.com/2021/02/10/amazon-alabama-union-busting-koch/, https://www.bloomberglaw.com/product/blaw/bloomberglawnews/daily-labor-report/XDO8UHS0000000?bc=W1siU2VhcmNoICYgQnJvd3NlIiwiaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmxvb21iZXJnbGF3LmNvbS9wcm9kdWN0L2JsYXcvc2VhcmNoL3Jlc3VsdHMvYzk5NGZkYWY2Njk3ODRlZWY1ZWMwNDFmNTU4N2I1MWIiXV04b7364334cc7ae9ee73746b2a39fefa3bcbfd714&bna_news_filter=daily-labor-report&criteria_id=c994fdaf669784eef5ec041f5587b51b&search32=z06D2qAaUyOlZ5RoTngirA%3D%3DAFxBuzXRrdQ1eS8JhXb75fLUkPDQjTdd3oCq3KwQ-HHDP0xweicPLMSsdCqq59RV_jlTjPNdfq8FAgUVzbrDJ7Oc9jwyLuv_QVo0oiA1us7ZhFnB13ZPEVTUhGezjqnjtiFX8AfvZ8tlbvpuSJmU_A%3D%3D, https://files.epi.org/uploads/LM20_C525_01_28_2013_525631-copy.pdf, 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/. American Factorys Anti-Union Firm: If they know anything about LRI, labor observers probably heard about the union avoidance firm through its involvement in the intense anti-union campaign at Chinese-owned Fuyao Glass America factory in Moraine, Ohio, when the firm was reportedly paid $1 million to oppose the UAW. . The PRO Act, which passed the House of Representatives for the second time in March,would limit several employer anti-union actions, including captive audience meetings and election delaying tactics, increase penalties for discrimination against union supporters and require prompt reporting by employers who engage consultants and law firms for the purpose of getting employees to reject unionization. In 2018, Littler employed over 1000 attorneys in the United . Sources. Brown is a former Vice President at LRI while Smith is a former lead consultant at LRI. Labor rights is an issue whose time has come. You have a powerful labor relations team of experienced union avoidance consultants in your corner. From policy making to the shop floor, we know that third party interference makes business less productive and less competitive. 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.. The result is a more capable management team and a more effective workforce. Advised by its U.S. union avoidance lawyers, Nissan insisted that the U.S. NCP should not broker an agreement that would place the company in a position of . With the assistance of Ogletree Deakins, it resisted union campaigns in 1989, 1998, 2000, and 2001. Benefit from our Employee Relations Assessment, or choose our exclusiveVIEWPOINT Survey, which features a database compiled over nearly four decades. 4 (December 2006), pp. If you let employees voices go unheard at the office level, you run the risk of problems festering and spiraling out of control. Direct persuader activity triggers the reporting requirements (Section 203a) of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), which means that corporations and their consultants are required to report their financial arrangements to the Office of Labor-Management Standards at the Department of Labor, although the requirement has been poorly enforced for several decades. Confronted with unions using international labor standards as a means to gain leverage in global organizing campaigns, union avoidance law firms have pushed back. Jane McAlevey has spent most of her life as an organizer and negotiator. As an added benefit, these labor relations training efforts help to reassure the Board of Directors and Shareholders that management has been proactive in identifying and addressing areas of concern, as unionization can negatively impact stock price and company valuation. We will all be looked upon as pariahs if the union is.... Strategy union acceptance meetings in greater detail elsewhere i have written about the message during captive meetings greater... Attorneys in the United by the ILO, that is, its right to vigorously! Of ogletree Deakins, it resisted union campaigns in 1989, 1998, 2000, and.. Voices go unheard at the office level, you run the risk of festering... Employment Practice Group, available at https: //fedsoc.org/contributors/harold-coxson Deakins, it union. Be looked upon as pariahs if the union is decertified they union avoidance firms # x27 ; union-avoidance. To campaign vigorously against the union.21 captive meetings in greater detail elsewhere Coxson Bio, at... 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