A union organizing campaign can be an incredibly divisive and destructive experience for your organization or business. 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. 20.Stefan Marculewicz and Brent Wilton, Employer Freedom of Opinion and Expression Within the Context of Union OrganizingA Fresh Perspective from the ILO, Littler, November 10, 2010, available at littler.com/publication-press/publication/employer-freedom-opinion-and-expression-within-context-union. Prevent Costly and Disruptive Union Organizing Campaigns. Don't forget to like us! 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. Since Littler was founded in San Francisco in 1942, union avoidance has been a major area of its expertise. This is why the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which passed the House of Representatives earlier this month, is desperately needed to safeguard workers choice. 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. Like Littler, it has expanded by opening its own overseas offices, rather than engaging in alliances with other management law firms. January 18, 2023. 574-237-1125, F
1.John Logan, The Union Avoidance Industry in the United States, British Journal of Industrial Relations 44, no. Our passion is to preserve a client's freedom to manage and to assist our clients in helping them remain union-free. An effective union avoidance strategy involves a number of other components, including: F
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. E-mail or other means of communication), do not disclose information you regard Our site is With the assistance of Ogletree Deakins, it resisted union campaigns in 1989, 1998, 2000, and 2001. Our labor relations training for supervisors is conducted on site and is typically completed in just three hours. Often the easiest way to solve a problem is to avoid it entirely, and avoiding a union is no different. You might hear your bosses call this "union avoidance," but it basically just means "Union busting, in a suit." Three: Delay, delay, delay 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. All Rights Reserved. Union-avoidance specialists, and the employers that hire them, must disclose their arrangements to the Labor Department. In 2018, Littler employed over 1000 attorneys in the United . Reduced Jackson Lewis rate: $379 per night. . Under international law, information from employers . Union Avoidance. In June 2020, after widespread criticism of its lackluster response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Amazon hired two corporate health and safety experts from one of the country . In the early 1970s, "a cottage industry of union-avoidance firms mushroomed into a gigantic industry," says Jane McAlevey, a longtime labor organizer and senior policy fellow at UC Berkeley . 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 . "A lot of the money companies spend on this kind of activity isn't disclosed." April 21, 2021. Employees in favor of unionizing there cited overtime pay cuts, fewer breaks and wage gaps as the main reasons for organizing with the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers . These strategies can include active intimidation and surveillance of union supporters, exploiting divisions within the workforce to stir up opposition to the union or spreading misinformation about the . This guy, Russ Brown, is looking to. . These firms often provide so-called union vulnerability assessments, which are usually based . Faced with a wave of worker activism in its warehouses last year, Amazon paid anti-union consultants roughly $4.3 million in an effort to beat back union organizing campaigns, according to new filings with the U.S. Department of Labor. Tracking the union avoidance firms behind anti-union campaigns is intentionally made difficult by firms that subcontract out work to other firms that hire independent contractors to avoid federal reporting requirements laid out by the Department of Labor and shield themselves from public scrutiny. . 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. For example, evidence reviewed by Motherboard . Why Cant College Coaches Embrace the Reality of Players Being Paid Through NIL? provided for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal Smith has worked for several anti-union consultant firms, including LRI, East Coast Labor Relations (formed by Joe Brock, which is also affiliated with LRI) and Reliant Labor Consultants. to attack global union federations by making their financial records publicly available. Teamster Avoidance: Since leaving the Teamsters to join the ranks of its adversaries in 2007, Rebecca Smith has been involved in several anti-union campaigns against her former employer, as well as against multiple other unions in transportation, manufacturing, building trades and others. Smith has an extensive background in conservative political circles: she has published an anti-union book, Union Hypocrisy, which is written in the nature of [right-wing] political authors Laura Ingraham and Michelle Malkin and she has been a Contributor to the ultra-conservative Brenner Brief podcast. John Logan, "Consultants, Lawyers, and the 'Union Free' Movement in . 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. 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. 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. Leaked files from IRI Consultants, a union avoidance firm, obtained by Vice's Motherboard show the disturbing lengths to which companies will go in order to derail workplace organizing. 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 . . The union avoidance industry continued to grow, and LRA served as a breeding ground for several future superstars of the union-free movement. After all, you cant lose a union election that doesnt happen. Thomas McKibbin, a . From policy making to the shop floor, we know that third party interference makes business less productive and less competitive. 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. By clicking any link on this page you are giving your consent for us to use cookies. When it comes to unionizing, many can . Under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, it is illegal for employers to intimidate, retaliate against, or ask workers whether they support a union drive. . In the absence of negotiated voice and dispute resolution mechanisms to balance employer and worker interests, non-union firms have grappled with strategic decisions regarding how and when to provide workers with formal voice and dispute-resolution options." The five alternatives Avgar proposes are: avoidance configuration; protective . She's fourth generation union, raised in an activist-union household. After leaving the Teamsters reportedly fired for gross incompetence Smith started working as a anti-union consultant. 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. Select a quiz below to take the Union Vulnerability Quiz that best matches your organizational structure. 101. In what they called a fresh perspectives from the ILO, Littler attorneys (who have represented Delta on labor issues) wrote that the Delta decision was of tremendous significance and the first definitive statement by the ILO to confirm that the right of employers to express their opinion about labor unions trying to organize their employees under U.S. law is consistent with international law. Jackson Lewis concluded that, with the Delta decision, the ILO had effectively endorsed employers use of third-party persuaders or management consultants to communicate directly with employees about managements opposition to unionization.20 International labor organizations protested their interpretation of the Delta decision, but union avoidance law firms have continued to cite it in policy briefs, newsletters, conference presentations, blog posts, and at every other opportunity. 8.Littler Mendelson, International Practice Group, available at https://www.littler.com/files/ms_region_downloads/international_practice_group_brochure_english.pdf. Edge According to a filing with the Department of Labor, Amazon engaged the services of LIS starting January 3, 2021, for the purpose of "conducting meetings with employees in the voting bargaining unit to discuss the realities of signing authorization cards and voting in the upcoming . The EPI estimates that the "union avoidance" industry, through which companies hire outside firms to defeat organizing efforts, is now worth $340 million per year. In 2015, American Apparel hired the union-avoidance firm Cruz & Associates and paid at total of $462,343; During 2015-2016, New York, New York Hotel & Casino paid union-avoidance consultants at Balance Incorporated . 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 . . Copyright document.write(/\d{4}/.exec(Date())[0]) by LaborLab | All Rights ReservedCreated with NationBuilder, https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/id/10377.pdf, https://www.law.com/dailyreportonline/2019/04/11/strong-demand-fuels-growth-for-big-four-labor-and-employment-firms/?slreturn=20191021070945, https://ogletree.com/solutions/practice-areas/cross-border/, https://www.jacksonlewis.com/media/pnc/0/media.1230.pdf, https://www.fisherphillips.com/services-international-employment, https://www.littler.com/files/ms_region_downloads/international_practice_group_brochure_english.pdf, https://fedsoc.org/contributors/harold-coxson, https://ogletree.com/solutions/practice-areas/traditional-labor-relations/, https://www.acc.com/sites/default/files/resources/vl/membersonly/ProgramMaterial/1303944_1.pdf, https://s3.amazonaws.com/documents.jdsupra.com/0d5fdc2e-10a9-4dbe-b379-c416b499d0bf.pdf, https://www.hoganlovells.com/~/media/hogan-lovells/pdf/publication/theinternationalcomparativelegalguidetoemploymentandlabourlaw_pdf.pdf, https://www.slideserve.com/sean-fox/stefen-marculewicz, https://edlabor.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Marculewicz%20Testimony.pdf, https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/the-littler-report-the-2011-global-empl-95500/, https://www.uscib.org/docs/090317_marculewicz_article.pdf, littler.com/publication-press/publication/employer-freedom-opinion-and-expression-within-context-union. For example, under the Obama Administration, Brown wrote against the Employee Free Choice Act lobbied against pro-labor changes to the FFA Reauthorization Act and testified against the Obama NLRB efforts to streamline the union certification process to prevent employers from using delay to undermine union campaigns. For nearly 30 years, Adams Nash Haskell & Sheridan has provided winning services, campaigns, and insights for clients across the country. We will get you through this - our professionals have worked with employers from coast-to-coast, across most industries and with most of the major unions. Like Smith and Brown, Brock has a long-time association with Oklahoma-based LRI, and he includes Teamster Avoidance in his areas of expertise. In these emails, you will receive updates on company proceedings, relevant news in the industry, and messages from our President & CEO, William R. Adams. 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