Amazon Campaign Demonstrates Urgent Need for PRO Act. 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 . A) union avoidance strategy B) union acceptance strategy C) union substitution approach D) proactive human resources approach E) union suppression approach and more. 18.Stefan Jan Marculewicz, Elimination of the Secret Ballot Union Election and Compulsory Arbitration under the Employee Free Choice Act: A Violation of Fundamental Principles of International Labor Law, available at https://www.uscib.org/docs/090317_marculewicz_article.pdf. But since the campaign first went public in August of last year, Starbucks HQ and its union-avoidance law form, Littler Mendelson, has mounted a blistering anti-union campaign to try to stop workers from self-organizing: it . 15.Littler Mendelson, The U.S. NCP and Developments on Extraterritoriality, available at https://www.slideserve.com/sean-fox/stefen-marculewicz. "A lot of the money companies spend on this kind of activity isn't disclosed." The decision involved an anti-union campaign at Delta airlines in which the company advised employees to destroy their ballot papers (shred it!) because under the Railway Labor Act, non-votes were counted as votes against the union. "That's very likely an underestimate of how big the industry really is," Poydock said. We estimate our team has helped manage hundreds of union organizing attempts and/or campaigns, and our clients have obtained favorable results in more than 96% of the campaigns in which we have been involved. Equip your managers with the skills they need. Like Littler, it has expanded by opening its own overseas offices, rather than engaging in alliances with other management law firms. Here are some of the most well-known companies in America and how much they've spent on union-busting firms. Sources. 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. 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 "Big Four" Union Avoidance Law Firms Go Global. It is a form of union avoidance that involves tactics such as intimidation, misinformation, and legal challenges to limit or . The Center for Individual Employees: In addition to running the RWP consulting firm, Brown is president of the Center for Individual Employees (CIE), a 501c(3) non-profit legal defense foundation. CIE, which claims to be active in all 50 states, is a legal defense foundation that provides free legal services to workers against unionization Although the organization is secretive about its funders, we know that CIE received $18,000 from the anti-union, billionaire Koch Brothers in 2017. Go . 614-628-1433. According to The Pew Research Center, 92% of Millennials owned , Adams Nash Haskell & Sheridanis a group of labor professionals , HELP WANTED!!! It is estimated that companies spend between $500 million and $2 billion per year on union-busting activities. As a result, employees are far less likely to seek out union representation, and the union is denied potential inroads or issues they might otherwise exploit in their attempt to organize the workforce. Union avoidance law firms immediately publicized the CFAs decision. Factor in geography. 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 firm also provides comprehensive counseling related to drafting, review and revisions of employer handbooks and manuals. . Unions stifle that autonomy. Your employees are, too. . 4 Issues In Play As New Biden . But who are Amazons anti-union consultants? Littler Mendelson is the world's largest management-side law firm focusing exclusively on labor and employment issues. . 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. 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 . One commentator wrote about Brown on an online airline pilots forum: This guy is the reason American, Southwest, UPS and now ALPA are sending out letters letting us know they are watching this. Brown is a former Vice President at LRI while Smith is a former lead consultant at LRI. With centuries of combined labor relations experience, our consultants equip you with the knowledge you need. With 30 years of experience as union avoidance consultants, we know what it takes to avert a disaster for your business. Lawyers and consultants devise strategies for managers to maintain union-free workplaces. You need to emphasize to employees from the beginning that a third party is never necessary when there is a problem. 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. 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 . 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. Look out for these emails and check out our website for more information on how to remain union-free! Select a quiz below to take the Union Vulnerability Quiz that best matches your organizational structure. With 30 years of experience as union avoidance consultants, we know what it takes to avert a disaster for your business. Part of that strategy involves training of key supervisors. Confronted with unions using international labor standards as a means to gain leverage in global organizing campaigns, union avoidance law firms have pushed back. 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. 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 understand that every company has different goals and objectives, so our labor relations consultants start our planning process by meeting with senior management to ensure our labor relations training program for supervisors addresses their specific areas of concern. 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. To underscore this finding, a recent survey by the Pew Research Center reported that the popularity of labor unions has grown in recent years, citing that their favorability hit 60% in January 2017, with only 35% percent of Americans viewing them unfavorably. 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/. Labor relations consultants specializing in union avoidance activities have been operated in the United States since at least the 1940s. 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. Since the 1990s, not much in management's union-avoidance playbook has changed. 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. Among other things, the Macon workers were threatened with losing their jobs if they voted for unionization. A union organizing campaign can be an incredibly divisive and destructive experience for your organization or business. These firms include IRI Consultants, recently hired by Google, and the anodyne-sounding Labor Relations Institute, which the report says is one of the nation's largest union-avoidance firms. Like Smith and Brown, Brock has a long-time association with Oklahoma-based LRI, and he includes Teamster Avoidance in his areas of expertise. Research on union avoidance firms Power structure analysis and strategy Mission-driven sectors of the economy (health care and education) About Jane. Union-Free Strategies and Considerations In the 'New Normal', Federal Court Orders Starbucks to Re-Hire Terminated Union Supporters, The Price for Refusing to Bargain May Soon be Going Up for Employers, Say It Aint So (Trader) Joes: Grocery Chain Workers File Union Petition, NLRB General Counsel Takes Aim at Employer Free Speech, Supreme Court Favors Employer Property Rights Over Union Access To Employees, Goodbye NY: No Union For Uber DriversFor Now, $250,000 in Grants Awarded to Five Nonprofit Organizations, Illinois Employers on Notice: BIPA Claims Accrue With Each Scan or Transmission, Court Says. Finding new ways to help clients identify solutions and new business opportunities, across industries, is at our core. Our passion is to preserve a client's freedom to manage and to assist our clients in helping them remain union-free. Open communication between employer, employees is crucial for maintaining a healthy working environment. Should you choose to contact an attorney at Barnes & Thornburg LLP (via These firms often provide so-called union vulnerability assessments, which are usually based . For those organizations with a non-union workforce, Hutchison Group can help to discreetly determine your vulnerability to potential union organizing and reduce your risk of having to endure a union campaign. Even before it engaged the services of these two anti-union consultant firms, Amazon had hired Morgan Lewis, one of the nations largest law firms specializing in union avoidance activities. Monitoring the NLRB and Other Pro-Labor Legislation and Regulations. In the 1960s and 1970s, the industry was spurred on by multiple former LRA personnel, including attorneys Louis Jackson and Robert Lewis of New York-based Jackson Lewis, one of the biggest anti-union law firms of the past four decades, along with Chicago-based consultant John Sheridan and Herbert Melnick, founder and chairman of the notorious Modern Management Methods (3M) firm. Firefox Use a tool that provides enough detail to identify actual and potential issues. 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. The federal PRO Act, which passed the House this month, would prohibit captive audience meetings. 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. Opera. At ANHS, we know unions. 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. To help clients identify solutions and new business opportunities, across industries is... Campaign can be an incredibly divisive and destructive experience for your organization business. Union-Busting activities provides enough detail to identify actual and potential issues to identify actual and potential issues the,... At our core we know what it takes to avert a disaster for your.. 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