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. With ANHS, we make sure you stay union-free. 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 . Other anti-union consultants claim years of experience working for organized labor, including for the Teamsters, steelworkers, laborers and AFL-CIO. The firm also provides comprehensive counseling related to drafting, review and revisions of employer handbooks and manuals. 15.Littler Mendelson, The U.S. NCP and Developments on Extraterritoriality, available at https://www.slideserve.com/sean-fox/stefen-marculewicz. Google hired IRI Consultants, a firm known for its anti-union activities, for advice on how to deal with growing worker unrest. We also know how to help you avoid unions all together: by maintaining a positive relationship with your employees. following terms. With 30 years of experience as union avoidance consultants, we know what it takes to avert a disaster for your business. inquiries or information received by Barnes & Thornburg LLP will not be regarded Money and decision-making power are the two primary reasons why companies want to avoid unionization. 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. 1. 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%. 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 . 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. Our passion is to preserve a client's freedom to manage and to assist our clients in helping them remain union-free. 616-742-3999, F 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. 3.Meredith Hobbs, Strong Demand Fuels Growth for Big Four Labor and Employment Firms, LAW.COM Daily Report, April 11, 2019, available at https://www.law.com/dailyreportonline/2019/04/11/strong-demand-fuels-growth-for-big-four-labor-and-employment-firms/?slreturn=20191021070945. Both Russ Brown and Rebecca Smith have worked for LRI directly, and continued to do so, even after establishing their own anti-union consultant firms. Seaton is a well-known union-avoidance consultant, otherwise known as a "persuader" or, more accurately, a union buster. . If employees have trust and a connection to the team, they are less likely to feel unhappy and seek out a third party. Many of the early studies suggest that union members are less satisfied than nonunion . to attack global union federations by making their financial records publicly available. By clicking any link on this page you are giving your consent for us to use cookies. 10.Ogletree Deakins, Traditional Labor Relations, available at https://ogletree.com/solutions/practice-areas/traditional-labor-relations/. Brown is a former Vice President at LRI while Smith is a former lead consultant at LRI. necessary.17. Terms of Use & Disclaimer. Opera. 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 . 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 . 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. In September 2020, almost 1000 nurses voted to join the NNU in a landslide victory, thereby providing the labor movements largest hospital victory in the South since 1975. But union avoidance firms and law . Should you choose to contact an attorney at Barnes & Thornburg LLP (via 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. LIS is a long-established union avoidance firm that also operates under the name, The Burke Group, or TBG. After leaving the Teamsters reportedly fired for gross incompetence Smith started working as a anti-union consultant. I have written about the message during captive meetings in greater detail elsewhere. 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. . Once again, communication is critical here, and your first line of defense is managers handling of employee concerns. Finding new ways to help clients identify solutions and new business opportunities, across industries, is at our core. . This guy, Russ Brown, is looking to. Brown has repeatedly lobbied for and written in support of rule changes under the Trump Administration that would have facilitated decertification under the Railway Labor Act. as confidential. [i]. January 18, 2023. Avoid a 32% Increase in Your Labor Costs with ANHS' Union Avoidance Training Services. There seems little doubt that when the campaign at Bessemer is finally over, Amazon will have paid millions of dollars to its law firm and its union avoidance consultants. Amazons Huge Expenditure on the Bessemer Anti-Union Campaign: Amazon is paying a small fortune for its anti-union consultants. None of these global union federations comply with the requirements of the LMRDA [Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act].16 Thus, union avoidance law firms have opposed using the 1959 LMRDA to require financial reporting from union avoidance firms and employers that hire theman original intent of the lawbut support using it to regulate global union federations, over which U.S. law has no jurisdiction. The Starbucks Workers United union campaign has now won over 164 National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) elections, and over 300 stores have petitioned for NLRB elections. 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. Early intervention and maintaining a positive relationship with your employees from the beginning is key. Often the easiest way to solve a problem is to avoid it entirely, and avoiding a union is no different. We understand what keeps you up at night and work collaboratively to find practical and creative solutions, at the heart of business. 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. For nearly 30 years, Adams Nash Haskell & Sheridan has provided winning services, campaigns, and insights for clients across the country. 12.Jackson Lewis, Global Preventive Strategies for the Cross-Border Workplace.. . They face highly motivated, well-resourced "union avoidance firms" that deploy any means possible to prevent workers from organizing. The nations third and fourth largest management-side law firms specializing in union avoidance, Jackson Lewis and Fisher Phillips, have adopted a different model of international expansion. 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. . . Over the past decade, the four largest management-side law firms specializing in union avoidance have internationalized their operations. Dont ignore the early warning signs of union organizing: huddles that disperse when a manager approaches, increased use of union terminology, new worker alliances, increased complaining, and more. 21.Daily Labor Report, Nissan Rejects State Department Offer to Mediate Over UAW Anti-Union Complaint, February 3, 2015. We have the experience, depth and understanding to deal with any situation at a moment's notice. 17.The Littler Report: The 2011 Global Employer: Highlights of Littlers Fourth Annual Global Employer Institute, available at https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/the-littler-report-the-2011-global-empl-95500/. kill organized labor in aviation. . For this to happen, much depends on the employees day-to-day relationship with their immediate supervisor. "That's very likely an underestimate of how big the industry really is," Poydock said. Lawyers and consultants devise strategies for managers to maintain union-free workplaces. He has published widely on employer opposition to unionization and on anti-union law and consultant firms. In fact, research shows that even a few supervisors with poor interpersonal skills can be the cause for instigating union organizing campaigns, grievances, litigations, and other costly disruptions. Crushing Unions With Consultants, "Explainer Videos" and "Heat Maps". You might hear your bosses call this "union avoidance," but it basically just means "Union busting, in a suit." Three: Delay, delay, delay Supported for the latest versions of: . Labor Relations Training for Supervisors (best way to reduce your risks). 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. 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. 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. 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. John Logan is Professor and Director of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University. . 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. According to The Pew Research Center, 92% of Millennials owned , Adams Nash Haskell & Sheridanis a group of labor professionals , HELP WANTED!!! 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. Chrome At the completion of the employee relations assessment process, Hutchison Group will carefully analyze the employee inputs derived from each session and provide the company with a comprehensive report regarding our findings, along with specific recommendations for employee relations improvements. Dont think there wont be repercussions. CHICAGO. 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. Since Littler was founded in San Francisco in 1942, union avoidance has been a major area of its expertise. At ANHS, we know unions. 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 . 13.Donald C. Dowling, How to Align an International Labor Strategy for Overseas Unions, Works Councils and Other Workers Representatives, Littler, September 2017, available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/documents.jdsupra.com/0d5fdc2e-10a9-4dbe-b379-c416b499d0bf.pdf. 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. 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. The firm, which raked in more than half a billion dollars in revenue in 2021, has advised large corporations including Ikea and more recently museums, nonprofits, and universities on their anti-union efforts. 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