300 words for each question, due Monday

Chapter 7 Union Organizing and Bargaining Structures

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How a Union Local is Established

A. A union local does not exist until is it certified as the exclusive representative of the employees 1. Normally, a union must win an election to be certified as the exclusive

representative of the employees 2. An employer may voluntarily recognize a union if the union can

demonstrate that it represents a majority of the employees

B. Below we will consider how a union local comes into being.

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Phase 1: Initiation of Unionization Attempt

A. Who initiates a unionization attempt? 1. Sometimes workers interested in unionizing seek out a particular union to

provide them with advice and support in unionizing. If the union thinks a majority of workers might vote for a union, and the union believes the cost of organizing is worth it, the union might provide support from their national staff organizers to help convince workers to support the union.

2. Sometimes a union targets, for strategic reasons, a particular employer for unionization and sends out staff organizers to try to get workers interested in joining the union.

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Initiation of Unionization Attempt (cont)

A. What makes workers inclined to consider unionizing? 1. Relations between employees and management are bad 2. They do not trust management 3. They believe management shows little concern for employees 4. They dislike their job 5. They are dissatisfied with their influence and the workplace 6. They believe management is unwilling to share power

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Phase 2: Card Authorization Collection Phase

A. Once an attempt at unionization starts, the next step is the collection of union authorization cards. These cards are signed by individual workers showing they are interested in having a union.

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Card Authorization Collection Phase (cont)

A. This phases might take months. And, before a union starts to collect these cards, they might spend months or years building support for the union (but not collecting cards yet).

B. The above is often done in secret. C. At other times, a union publicly says it is seeking to organize some

workplace. 1. Unions sometime develop a public relations campaign against the firm,

seeking to undercut the public perception of the firm and increase public support for unionization.

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Card Authorization Collection Phase (cont)

A. Union options after they collect authorization cards 1. Once 30% of workers sign authorization cards, a union is permitted to ask that the

NLRB run a union certification election. But unions typically consider 30% far too few to ask for an election.

2. If 50% or more of workers sign authorization cards, a union can ask an employer for recognition. a. An employer can recognize the union, but this is not typical. b. If the employer rejects the request to recognize the union, the union (or employer) asks the

NLRB to hold a union certification election. 3. Experience shows that the percent of workers voting for a union in a certification

election is often far smaller than the percent of workers who have signed authorization cards. This is because some workers change their minds after an employer campaign attacks the union. As a result, unions often aim to get far more than 50% of workers to sign authorization cards before the union approaches the employer.

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Phase 3: NLRB Gets Involved

A. Once the NLRB is notified about the collection of authorization cards, it acts. 1. It determines whether election should be held. Various conditions must be

satisfied before the NLRB decides an election is legally required. 2. It next determines the election unit/“appropriate bargaining unit.

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NLRB Gets Involved (cont)

A. Election Unit/Appropriate Bargaining Unit 1. This is the group of employees that the NLRB determines is eligible to vote

in the upcoming certification election and to then be in the union. 2. The determination of such election/bargaining units has long been debated,

in part because unions and firms often disagree about who should be in and out of these units.

3. The primary criteria for inclusion into an election unit/bargaining unit is that those (a) in the unit share common interests and (b) that the interests of those outside the unit are sufficiently different from those in the bargaining unit.

(note: the above is based on a 2019 NLRB decision and what appears in the reading is a bit different.)

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NLRB Gets Involved (cont)

A. After determining that an election should be held and after determining the proper election/bargaining unit, the NLRB sets the date for a secret-ballot election. 1. Typically, unions want an election held quickly, before they lose many votes

because of the anti-union campaign of the employer. 2. Employers, on the other hand, like to delay the election so they have more

time to turn workers against the union. One way to accomplish a delay is to dispute the determination of the bargaining unit. The evidence is that the longer the delay, the fewer votes the union gets. So, businesses have an incentive to do whatever they can to delay a vote.

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Phase 4: The Campaigns

A. Both before and after the NLRB sets the election date, the union and the employer campaign to get workers to vote their way.

B. Extensive NLRB rules exist restricting what unions and employers can do and say during these campaigns in order to, in theory, allow workers to make free, uncoerced decisions.

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The Campaigns: Union

A. Unions commonly rely on organizers to rally employee support during election campaigns 1. Organizers are often paid and full-time staff who travel from campaign to

campaign 2. Group meetings are often held after work hours in a local church or

community meeting room 3. Union supporters have an opportunity to move around the worksite during

work hours to spread the message (unless it interferes with business operations)

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The Campaign: Management

A. Far ahead of any union certification election, 1. Many firms have in place personnel and other corporate policies in advance

of any election to dissuade employees from favoring union representation. Some of these were discussed previously as part of the HRM pattern.

2. They might set their wages and benefit at least equal, or above, what they are in the local region.

3. As also previously noted, firms sometimes have spread out their production facilities in different locations to make possible a shift of production away from the facility facing a vote for a union. They can’t overtly threaten to shift production away, but everyone knows they can.

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The Campaign: Management (cont)

A. Not infrequently, employers engage in illegal conduct during the campaign period. 1. This signals to workers that even if the union gets voted in, the firm will do

everything possible to undercut the union. And, it also signals that the firm will do anything to keep a first contract from being negotiated. Of course, illegal acts, such as firing pro-union workers, might also intimidate workers.

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Phase 5: The Election

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Phase 5: The Election (cont)

A. A secret-ballot election is held, and the winner is announced. B. After the election concludes, and a winner is determined, the loser

often objects to how the election was conducted and files an appeal with the NLRB to overturn the election results.

C. If, after all appeals are decided, the union wins the election, the NLRB certifies the union as the exclusive bargaining agent for the employees. At this point, the employer has the obligation to begin negotiating a first contract.

D. On the other hand, if the employer wins the election, the union is rejected. Not other certification election can be held for 12 months.

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Phase 6: After the Certification of the Union (if that happens) A. The employer must negotiate with the union “in good faith.” However,

nothing requires that a new contract be agreed to. B. One third of the time, a newly certified union fails to get a first contract

because of management unwillingness to find common ground. C. After 12 months has passed since the election, workers have the right to

set in motion a new election, but this one to decertify the union. This can happen when a newly certified union fails to get a contract. Some anti- union workers, and those unhappy that the union has failed to get a contract, might support decertifying the union. If this election is held, and the anti-union side wins, the union is eliminated.

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Recent Changes

A. As is clear, unions face great difficulties in organizing workers within the process specified by the NLRA. Largely, this is because management has found ways to make unionization very difficult. This is contrary, however, to the intent of the NLRA.

B. Many union advocates have pressed Congress to change the NLRA to shift to unions more power. One key proposal is to increase the penalties for unfair labor practices, particular for ULP that have the potential to shift the results of a unionization election.

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Other responses working within the NLRA System A. Representation Election Employer Neutrality: Unions sometimes get

employers to agree to not intervene in union election, that is, to remain neutral.

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Other responses working within the NLRA System (cont) A. Change characteristics of organizers: younger and better educated. B. Get other community groups such as churches as part of organizing from

the beginning. C. Focus more on issues of more recent concern such as childcare and

equality (gender, race, ethnicity). D. Give local organizers more freedom to improvise based on the local

conditions (instead of following procedures required by national union). E. The AFL-CIO created a new training system to help current (and new)

organizers counteract the difficulties unions confronted when organizing. a. https://aflcio.org/about-us/programs/organizing-institute

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Outside the NLRA/NLRB

A. The law does not require that attempts to organize workers must follow the NLRA/NLRB processes. In particular, unions need not use the election process specified in NRLA.

B. Because of the difficulty in organizing workers within the NLRA/NRLB processes, some unions (and others) have attempted to organize workers outside these processes.

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Outside NLRA: Corporate Campaigns

A. Corporate Campaigns involve unions bringing public, financial or political pressures on top management independent of NLRA/NLRB. 1. First successful large-scale corporate campaign was against J.P. Stevens

Company in the 1970s, by The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) a. Followed years of Stevens being found violating NLRA and Stevens ignoring directives

from NLRB. b. After this, union waged a (successful) national boycott of Stevens products, protested

at shareholder meetings, attempted to embarrass company directors, threatened to withdraw union pension funds from banks used by Stevens, and more to put pressure on company.

c. Eventually, Stevens agreed to accept the union and a contract was achieved.

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Outside NLRA: Justice for Janitors Campaign

A. The SEIU ‘Justice for Janitors’ campaign tried to organize on a regional basis (with multiple employers) by inducing employers to voluntarily recognize the union. 1. Janitorial services is often highly competitive, and so attempting to organize one

firm (facing high competition) faces the problem that any wage increase will not allow this firm to survive. SEIU solution: attempt to unionize all janitorial service companies in a city.

2. Instead of targeting the actual janitorial service companies, SEUI targeted large commercial property owners who contracted out cleaning services to the janitorial companies.

3. Campaign used alliances with community groups such as churches to gain public support for organizing efforts, carried out PR campaign revealing poor wages and working conditions of janitorial workers, held picket campaigns, and more.

4. Successful in many cities, with workers getting higher wages and health insurance.

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“Independent Contractors” organizations

A. Unions can only represent employees, but many people now are “independent contractors” who work under bad conditions

B. Some organizations have appeared to provide benefits and help to independent contractors 1. Freelancers’ Union: https://www.freelancersunion.org/about/

a. Provides access to many benefits such as healthcare insurance as “group rate” 2. Independent Drivers Guild for Uber drivers in NYC:

https://driversguild.org/about-us/

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Stop reading at Bargaining Structure p. 178

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