Posts Tagged ‘union avoidance’

How does Wall Street react when the word gets out that a publicly traded company lost a union election?

The National Bureau of Economic Research found an estimated abnormal post-election returns of about negative 10% in companies where unions won certification elections, measured over the two-year period following the union’s victory.

The study analyzed all publicly traded firms that had NLRB union elections between 1961 and 1999. The data-set includes 6,114 elections gleaned from a database of nearly 200,000 certification elections.

The study’s authors analyzed stock market returns for each company for the 24 months prior to the certification election event, and for another 24 months following the election. The pre-election data were used to develop a predictive model for post-election returns for two panels of companies: those in which the union won; and those where the union lost the certification election. The predictive model accurately tracked actual returns in both panels in the 24 months before the election, and is viewed as an excellent predictor of what returns would have been during the next 24 months had an election not occurred.

The study firms’ average returns are quite close to the predicted returns every month leading up to the election, for both the panel of firms where unions were victorious, as well as those where unions ultimately lost.

But at precisely the time of the election, the actual and predicted returns diverge for companies that lost elections. The pace of the value adjustment is slow, but steady and significant over the 24 months following the election.

In contrast, companies that beat the union continued to exhibit positive returns that track closely with the predicted values.
The amount of decline in union victory firms is correlated with the union margin of victory. The largest negative returns were experienced in companies in which unions won their elections by large margins. When unions win with greater than 60% of the vote, the cumulative return is -20 to -30%.

Big labor is finally pushing organizers to use the web to develop issues, recruit sympathetic employees and conduct organizing campaigns. Recently, the Teamsters conducted a workshop to….

“….introduce you (the organizer) to ways you can use your own web site and other free web applications to organize workers or mobilize supporters for both online and offline action”

In addition to teaching organizers about how to leverage social media and email, unions like the Teamsters have taken it one step further and set up a www.teamsteractive.com that they defined as:

“the ultimate tool for Teamster organizations to maintain a professional web presence with up-to-the minute information and powerful membership communication tools.”

Along with the web building tools, the Teamsters provide instructions and down loadable presentations that instruct organizers on how to use the web to identify targets, issues, and sympathetic employees. This is Big Labor’s version of Web 2.0 for union organizers. It challenges organizers to consider:

• What are your goals?
• Who are you trying to reach?
• What actions do you want them to take?
• Who are the “influentials?”
• How will you spread word about the resources on your site?

Who are “influentials?” The Teamsters define them as:

• Water cooler experts
• Read and write Blogs
• Politically active – online or off
• Regularly participate in email actions
• Active online social networkers MySpace, FaceBook, Listservs

Big labor is clearly looking to introduce unions to the younger, more internet savvy generation. Businesses should take note and ensure they are ready to take their campaign tactics to the next level to meet the new threats.

The Department of Labor announced it will hire an additional 250 people to help police employers and ensure they follow labor laws. This was in response to a recent study that showed rampant violations of virtually every labor law imaginable.

While on the surface the study is troubling, it should be noted that, a number of labor organizations and unions including the Teamsters and the SEIU were named advisers to the team of academics who conducted the study. This begs the question “Is this one more way for the Obama Administration to pay back big labor?

The study included surveying over 4,000 hourly workers in LA, Chicago, and New York to determine if their employers followed wage and hour laws. The study found, among other things that:

“Many employment and labor laws are regularly and systematically violated, impacting a significant part of the low-wage labor force in the nation’s largest cities….

…Fully 26 percent of workers in our sample were paid less than the legally required minimum wage ƒƒin the previous work week….

…Over a quarter of our respondents worked more than 40 hours during the previous week. Of ƒƒthose, 76 percent were not paid the legally required overtime rate by their employers….

…ƒƒNearly a quarter of the workers in our sample came in early and/or stayed late after their shift during the previous work week. Of these workers, 70 percent did not receive any pay at all for the work they performed outside of their regular shift….

…The large majority of our respondents (86 percent) worked enough consecutive hours to be ƒƒlegally entitled to at least one meal break during the previous week. Of these workers, more than two-thirds (69 percent) received no break at all, had their break shortened, were interrupted by their employer, or worked during the break—all of which constitute a violation of meal break law….

ƒƒ…We found that when workers complained about their working conditions or tried to organize a union, employers often responded by retaliating against them. Just as important, many workers never made complaints in the first place, often because they feared retaliation by their employer….

…One in five workers in our sample reported that they had made a complaint to their employer or ƒƒattempted to form a union in the last year. Of those, 43 percent experienced one or more forms of illegal retaliation from their employer or supervisor….”

This study will clearly be ammo for unions trying to organize low wage earners. Employers must ensure they obey all the laws and keep in mind that the penalty for not following these regulations could be very costly.

Many expected news about EFCA coming out of the AFL-CIO’s national convention in Pittsburgh and they were not disappointed.  In an interview with the Washington Post yesterday, Arlin Specter outlined many of the key components of his revisions to EFCA, which he expects will pass before year’s end. Key parts of Specter’s revisions include:

• Keeping the secret ballot so employees will be able to vote privately
• Sharply reducing the time between petitioning for election and the vote
• Guaranteeing union access to employees, on company time & company property,  if they are required to attend anti-union meetings
• Tripling employer fines for unfair labor practices
• Baseball arbitration after an undefined period of contract negotiations

There are still a number of questions left unanswered.  How long will a company have to run an election?  What will trigger arbitration?  Will organizers be allowed to visit employees homes?  Will triple penalties apply to employers only or will unions come under the same penalties?

At this point, smart employers will focus on training their management team to avoid unfair labor practices and teach them how to talk with employees about unions.  Employers should also survey their employees and conduct threat assessments to identify issues and address them before an organizer attacks on those vulnerable areas.    Finally, employers should work with their leadership team on exercising best practices when dealing with their workforce.

Remember, in the vast majority of union elections, employees do not vote for unions, they vote against management.

The Teamsters, right now, are descending on Washington DC and pushing every Senator to support the Employee Free Choice Act.  An email went out this morning from the Teamsters.  In part it said:

“Our Day of Action JUST started – we need your help!

Do your part to fight greedy CEO’s and corporate lobbyists who are trying to kill the Employee Free Choice Act.

DIAL 1-888-650-9715 and tell your Senators to support the Employee Free Choice Act!

A year after Lehman Brothers, AIG, and the rest of the finance industry nearly brought the U.S. economy to its knees, CEO’s are back at it, lining their pockets and hurting the American worker.

That’s why we need the Employee Free Choice Act – a bill in Congress that would help more people negotiate for better wages, health care, and working conditions by forming a union.

As you read this, over 300 state leaders from around the country, including Teamster volunteers, are descending on Capitol Hill for a massive Day of Action to meet with Senators and urge them to support this important bill………..”

The real fight over EFCA has now started.

If you were a union organizer how would you pick your next target?  I would look at the stats below and figure it out from there.  As you will see, manufacturers with less than 50 employees have the highest union win rate and currently have the most union activity.

Many times, small business owners think they do not have to worry about union organizers.  The numbers below seem to indicate that isn’t the case. Recently, a group specializing in training union organizers published a study to help future organizers pick their targets.  Use these to help determine your risk of your business becoming a prime target for a union organizer:

Number Employees               <50             50 -99           100-199           200-500          >500

% Union Elections                 65%             16%                 10%                     6%              2%

% Union Wins                        58%             47%                40%                   38%            38%

What industries are unions targeting?  The same union organizer trainers also published this:

Industry     % Union Elections    % Union Wins

Business Svcs            6%                          65%

Health Care               16%                         63%

Entertainment          2%                           62%

Other Svcs                 8%                          61%

Construction             10%                         54%

Transportation          13%                          53%

Hotels                         2%                          51%

Trade                        12%                           50%

Telecom/Utils            6%                           49%

Manufacturing          25%                        41%

Like the old saying goes, the numbers don’t lie.  Where does your organization fall in the two sets of numbers above.  Are you prepared?  Are your leaders trained?  Have you told your employees what your stance on unions is?  Remember the Boy Scout Motto – Be Prepared.

Recently, a nationally known pro-union web site, Strategic Organizing, attacked Metreks as a “union buster who’s first tactic is to drive a wedge between supervisors and employee.” I laughed out loud when I read it. They were responding to my recent post on “How To Win A 5 Day Union Campaign.”

The post discusses how companies CAN stay union free even if EFCA passes in the next few weeks. The part the union felt was “driving a wedge between supervisors and employees,” was where I said that the first thing a company should do is to educate their management team on how to improve labor relations and union avoidance basics.  The point of Metreks’ training is to cover topics every supervisor should know such as:

• Tell employees to get “union promises” in writing
• Remind employees of their rights to privacy even when unions ask for personal information or tries to visit them at home
• Explain that a union card is a contract between the union and the employee and when signed, gives that union power of attorney to represent that employee in future bargaining actions
• Talk about how Unions are in business to make money and they make money by collecting dues, fines, and assessments from union members

What part of this is “driving a wedge between supervisors and employees.”  Teaching the truth and instructing supervisors how to legally conduct themselves in an organizing effort is not driving a wedge but spreading the truth and helping to stop needless legal actions that costs companies millions every year.

If this is what unions call “Union Busting”, then I’m guilty.  Then again, can anyone think of one instance where a union did anything other than harm companies they organize?  What if we called unions “Company Killers.”  How does that help employees?  Think I’m wrong?  Look at the record.  Ask anybody who use to be a member of a union if they would rather work for a company that is unionized or union free and see what they say.

One final point.  When you are in the business of helping companies stay union free, and you get attacked by a union, you must be doing a good job.  Thanks for the endorsement!

Over the recent weeks, as the debate over health care has raged on, you may have noticed that big labor has come out strongly supporting the new health care legislation. The question is why.

Why is are the country’s biggest unions coming out so strongly for health care reform? If you’ve ever dealt with a union you know that health benefits are a big part of what they go after and they are pretty successful at getting it in the labor agreements. Many trade unions have very good benefits.

So if unions have such good benefits, why are they supporting health care reform? For the good of the common man? To punish the greedy insurance industry? To support the Democratic agenda?

No, that isn’t why.  Big unions are supporting health care reform because buried deep within the 1,000+ page health care bill is a provision giving retirement health funds, many of which are union-run, $10 billion to bailout their ailing funds.

The Detroit News reports:

They’re both talking about a $10-billion provision tucked deep inside thousands of pages of health care overhaul bills that could help the UAW’s retiree health-care plan and other union-backed plans.

It would see the government — at least temporarily — pay 80 cents on the dollar to corporate and union insurance plans for claims between $15,000 and $90,000 for retirees age 55 to 64. Big businesses with union workers are twice as likely to offer retiree benefits as nonunion ones.

According to the News, the UAW’s pension fund has only 30% of the funds necessary to pay the 850,000 members. Unions are working hard to pass health care reform so they can get bailed out, just like many banks and car companies have.

As Paul Harvey use to say “Now you know the rest of the story. Good day!”

SEIU sent out emails today urging all members to sign up for mobile alerts so the SEIU can immediately rally their members “When your Senator or Congressman needs to hear our voices on the health insurance reform, Employee Free Choice, or immigration debates.

When our members — your brothers and sisters — require support at the workplace, the state capitol, or in the streets.”

This is more evidence of big labor investing and building infrastructure to sway political opinions and organize non-union businesses. Like the old song says, “these times, they are a chang’n”. Is your business keeping up? Do you have a Strategic Labor Relations plan to deal with all the legal changes, threats, and union tactics? If not, you need to take action now. The times may be changing, but time stands still for no man.

In today’s world, it isn’t unusual to find employers who will have a workforce that is made up of 80-90% of one ethnic group. Often the majority of the people will not even know basic English, but they are “supervised” by someone that only speaks English.

Before I go on, I want to say that my experience has been that new immigrants are great people to hire. They typically have an unbelievable work ethic, are very dependable, and produce high quality results. However, there is a risk if you allow one, non-English speaking, ethnicity to dominate your workforce.

Unions have and will target minority workforces like this and they will have an organizing team that is fluent in their language. Their “sales pitch” will be something like “You want to be a true American, join a union. We will protect you and ensure you don’t have any problems staying in this country.”

It is very compelling argument and if it takes hold, you could have an uphill battle on your hands before you know it. To make matters worse, when you start the anti-union campaign, you will discover that you really can’t communicate to your workforce so it will be very difficult to sway them your way.

To avoid this, think diversity and make sure that everyone you hire can speak English or that the MAJORITY of your facility’s management staff is fluent in the language used by their employees. By the way, having one out of five members of management that can speak the language won’t help. You have to have coverage and be able to communicate the message, repeatedly, throughout the campaign.

Successful companies will embrace and support diversity but that means having a fully diverse team. This means your workforce and your management team come from many different ethnic backgrounds and all can communicate with each other.