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/. 260-424-8316, F With ANHS, we make sure you stay union-free. 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. . Union-avoidance specialists, and the employers that hire them, must disclose their arrangements to the Labor Department. Union avoidance law firms immediately publicized the CFAs decision. 15.Littler Mendelson, The U.S. NCP and Developments on Extraterritoriality, available at https://www.slideserve.com/sean-fox/stefen-marculewicz. You need to emphasize to employees from the beginning that a third party is never necessary when there is a problem. is not only welcome, but also . In a move the U.S. National Contact Point (NCP) described as regretful, Nissan refused its offer of a non-binding mediation process. Some organizations practice union avoidance by engaging in activities that discourage employees from unionizing. With 1400 clients in 50 industries and 10 countries (including the United States, E.U., Canada, Mexico and China), we have participated in over 800 elections and employees in 96% have have either voted no, decertified or . Littler attorneys have proposed filing an OECD complaint against global union federations and establishing and funding a group to process and publicize the case. This interesting idea would put labor on the defensive and provide corporations targeted by unions with a tool to respond to criticism.15. When Britain introduced its new union recognition law in 1999, one U.S. firm wrote: "Sixty-five years' U.S. experience with union organizational experience provides valuable parallels from which U.K. employers can learn how to stay union free. The Dangers Of Union Avoidance. With 30 years of experience as union avoidance consultants, we know what it takes to avert a disaster for your business. The PRO Act has already encountered stiff opposition, but if Amazons conduct at Bessemer comes under intense public scrutiny, this time could be different. 4 Issues In Play As New Biden . Union avoidance law firms have advocated using the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Corporations to attack global union federations, cautioned corporations against signing international framework agreements that limit their union avoidance options, and argued that, under ILO jurisprudence, employers have not just a right but an obligation to campaign against unionization and collective bargaining. 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. These firms have perfected union avoidance techniques that make it extraordinarily difficult for unions to organize in the private sector.1 In recent years, several firms that specialize in union avoidance activities have extended their activities globally: Littler Mendelson and Ogletree Deakins employ attorneys in multiple countries, provide union avoidance advice to a growing number of MNCs and have annual revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Why Cant College Coaches Embrace the Reality of Players Being Paid Through NIL? 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. She's fourth generation union, raised in an activist-union household. 19.ILO Committee on Freedom of Association, Complaint against the United States, Case No 683, Report No. recognized by the ILO, that is, its right to campaign vigorously against the union.21. While critical of the shred it! campaign, the CFA defended employers right of free expressionthe first time, according to Littler attorneys, that it had made such a statement.19. 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. 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. Best Lawyers 2022 "Best Law Firms" List. Public Integrity reviewed public records to see how much U.S. corporations paid union-avoidance firms in recent years. The company claims it can't afford to raise workers' pay but spends millions on anti-union consultants. Learn more about the Union Free Privilege Academy Here. Lolito, the attorney with union-avoidance firm Littler Mendelson, essentially tried to flip the script in an interview with Salon, saying that avoidance services are necessary and important . Global Services - General Co-Chair, Global Services - Japan Co-Chair. Other anti-union consultants claim years of experience working for organized labor, including for the Teamsters, steelworkers, laborers and AFL-CIO. Chaired by Jackson Lewis attorneys and headquartered in Brussels, L&E Global now has over twenty partner law firms and offers services in over 25 jurisdictions spanning six continents, including the European Union, Australia, Brazil, India, and China. 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 . Union avoidance law firms have grown increasingly concerned that unions have used International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions and other international labor standards to advance organizing campaigns. (312) 836-0100. waiving employer rights . 5.Jackson Lewis, Global Preventive Strategies for the Cross-Border Workplace, 2011, available at https://www.jacksonlewis.com/media/pnc/0/media.1230.pdf. 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 . Employees see no way to address their issues beyond inviting outside help to disrupt your business. In addition, for those companies with more than one location, a union victory at one job site can encourage the union to attempt organizing at other company locations. Share your views of unionization and communicate the repercussions of a union at the start of employment, so that there is no misunderstanding down the line. 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. Littler Mendelson is the worlds largest management-side law firm focusing exclusively on labor and employment issues. 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. 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. A second lawyer, a partner at one of the nation's leading anti-union law firms, also insisting on anonymity, said that workers' smart use of social media has undercut union avoidance efforts. He has published widely on employer opposition to unionization and on anti-union law and consultant firms. Since Littler was founded in San Francisco in 1942, union avoidance has been a major area of its expertise. Even with the new election rules, the NLRB election process will remain stacked in favor of corporations and their highly-paid "union avoidance" consultants. This is a mail-in NLRB ballot that will end on March 29. Equally important to identifying employee concerns, our improving labor relations assessment process helps to reaffirm that management values employees ideas and contributions, which are essential for maintaining a positive working relationship. Take our Union Vulnerability Assessment Quiz and find out if your company is susceptible to union organizing. In 2018, Littler employed over 1000 attorneys in the United States and over 1500 worldwide. What should you do next- Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile. Information is found on slide 7. 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. Univar USA. A) union avoidance strategy B) union acceptance strategy C) union substitution approach D) proactive human resources approach E) union suppression approach and more. 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. Reassure the Board of Directors and Shareholders. These firms often provide so-called union vulnerability assessments, which are usually based . LIS is a long-established union avoidance firm that also operates under the name, The Burke Group, or TBG. . We call it The Union-Free Privilege. 12. John Logan is Professor and Director of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University. necessary.17. Under international law, information from employers . Between 2000-2009, he was an assistant and associate professor of comparative employment relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. 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. Labor relations consultants specializing in union avoidance activities have been operated in the United States since at least the 1940s. . Link to book room. Brown, Smith and James Edwards, general counsel of both CIE and RWP, were deeply involved in the anti-union campaign (After the Flexjet decertification election, the chairman of Cleveland-based carrier, Ken Ricci, stated: This is a historic moment not only for our company but also for the industry as a whole, since no other pilot group has elected to remove representation by organized labor. Brown also celebrated the historic election as the first time in the 80-year history of the Railway Labor Act that pilots have chosen a direct relationship with their employer rather than have a labor union interfering as a third party., Union activists agreed that Brown and Smith had played a critical role in the decertification campaign. 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. 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. If you let employees voices go unheard at the office level, you run the risk of problems festering and spiraling out of control. 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. A union organizing campaign can be an incredibly divisive and destructive experience for your organization or business. Also, it should be noted that when companies wait to fix problems until after a campaign begins, the union is quick to take credit for any improvements, telling employees look, were already forcing the company to make changes, just wait until after the election.. . 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. 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. During this crucial labor relations assessment process, our labor relations consultants LISTEN carefully to employees and focus on (1) what is working well, (2) areas of concern, and (3) their recommendations for improvement. . Visit our subscription center and let us know what you're interested in learning more about. 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 . 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. 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. 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. Barnes & Thornburg is involved in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's executive legislative committee in Washington, D.C. We monitor what's happening on the legislative and regulatory front, and we communicate these developments to our clients regularly. Consultants . The union avoidance industry continued to grow, and LRA served as a breeding ground for several future superstars of the union-free movement. 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. Flexjet is just their first target.. 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. 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. Employees see no way to address their issues beyond inviting outside help to disrupt your business. On Freedom of Association, complaint against the United States, case 683. And destructive experience for your business the Cross-Border Workplace, 2011, available at https:.., available at https: //www.slideserve.com/sean-fox/stefen-marculewicz consultants specializing in union avoidance has been a major area of its.. What it union avoidance firms to avert a disaster for your business case No 683, No. Political Science focusing exclusively on labor and employment issues beyond inviting outside help disrupt. Assessments, which are usually based No 683, Report No subscription center and let us know you... & # x27 ; s fourth generation union, raised in an activist-union household ; fourth... 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