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. Dont think there wont be repercussions. Like Littler, it has expanded by opening its own overseas offices, rather than engaging in alliances with other management law firms. Learn how to create an environment at your business where your employees will feel no need to seek outside representation with our union avoidance training. The company claims it can't afford to raise workers' pay but spends millions on anti-union consultants. Documents show Johns Hopkins Hospital hired a union-busting firm that frequently hires consultants from another union-busting firm with alt-right sympathies. The key to sound employer policies and procedures begins with a clear and legally compliant employee handbook. When managers are ineffective, organizations become vulnerable to union organizing. The benefits of this program include: Again, supervisors are in the best position to create and maintain a positive work environment; helping to reduce the frustrations and resentments that often lead to union activity. 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 . Under the Obama Administration, the failure of the Employee Free Choice Act demonstrated that labor cannot withstand the lobbying of the anti-union right under normal circumstances. Barnes & Thornburg LLP appreciates your visit to the firms web site. February 26, 2023 by Sara Blackwell. Jane McAlevey has spent most of her life as an organizer and negotiator. Best Lawyers 2022 "Best Law Firms" List. 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. advice. 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. Tracking the union avoidance firms behind anti-union campaigns is intentionally made difficult by firms that subcontract out work to other firms that hire independent contractors to avoid federal reporting requirements laid out by the Department of Labor and shield themselves from public scrutiny. 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. You might hear your bosses call this "union avoidance," but it basically just means "Union busting, in a suit." Three: Delay, delay, delay Unfortunately, as critical as the supervisors role is, our union relations consultants have found that many companies spend very little time training and educating their supervisors. 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. waiving employer rights . Often the easiest way to solve a problem is to avoid it entirely, and avoiding a union is no different. LIS is a long-established union avoidance firm that also operates under the name, The Burke Group, or TBG. We will work to guide you in the best ways to educate your employees about the dangers and problems of unionization and address underlying issues in your workplace. Reduced Jackson Lewis rate: $379 per night. Reassure the Board of Directors and Shareholders. Information is found on slide 7. . The PRO Act has already encountered stiff opposition, but if Amazons conduct at Bessemer comes under intense public scrutiny, this time could be different. Three of the biggest law firms that do this work are Littler Mendelson, Ogletree and Jackson Lewis, which have grown from regional operations into global union avoidance behemoths. 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. Several states have tried to outlaw them in recent years, and Russ Brown actively opposed Connecticuts 2019 anti-captive audience bill. Identify and Address Areas of Concern Before they Become a Problem, By addressing problems proactively, not only can the company demonstrate that it cares about employee concerns, but they can deny union representatives potential foot holds that they might otherwise use to support their organizing efforts. Littler Global opened its first overseas office in Venezuela in 2010, its first European office in 2015, and now it has offices in over twenty countries. 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. Smith has worked for several anti-union consultant firms, including LRI, East Coast Labor Relations (formed by Joe Brock, which is also affiliated with LRI) and Reliant Labor Consultants. Even with taking these steps, employees might still erroneously think a union is a viable solution to their issues. With twenty six of its eighty-one offices located overseas, Littler has been the union avoidance firm most aggressive in expanding internationally. . The most important point is to practice good employee relations, Davis said. She's fourth generation union, raised in an activist-union household. 2013-2023 Adams, Nash & Haskell, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The firm also provides comprehensive counseling related to drafting, review and revisions of employer handbooks and manuals. Do you want to receive more valuable insights directly in your inbox? Right now, corporations can secretly hire firms designed to destroy union efforts. Once again, communication is critical here, and your first line of defense is managers handling of employee concerns. Often the easiest way to solve a problem is to avoid it entirely . In addition, Amazon is using one of the nations most expensive law firms that specializes in union avoidance, Morgan Lewis. Soft Opening for EPAs Green Bank Funding to Reduce Emissions, Partner Tina Dorr Named President of the Georgia Asian Pacific American Bar Association, Rare Victory for California Employers: Ninth Circuit Says State Arbitration Law Preempted By Federal Law. 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.. The chief result of the hearings, under the guidance of chief counsel Robert Kennedy, resulted in the enactment 1959 Labor-Management Relations and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), which targeted unions, not union-busting firms. 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. Fewer problems arise when employees have faith and trust in their organizational superiors. In these emails, you will receive updates on company proceedings, relevant news in the industry, and messages from our President & CEO, William R. Adams. . 3 (2002): 197-214. . We use cookies on this site to enhance your user experience. The first nationally prominent consultant was Chicago-based Nathan Shefferman, who, as Sanford Jacoby described in Modern Manors (1997), worked for Sears Roebuck before establishing his own consulting firm, Labor Relations Associates (LRA). 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. 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. John Logan is Professor and Director of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University. getty. Labor rights is an issue whose time has come. . . 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. 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. The disclosures from Amazon offer a glimpse into how far the online retailer is willing to go to stay union-free. persons or entities involved in the matter and that the firm is willing to consider is not only welcome, but also . Avoid a 32% Increase in Your Labor Costs with ANHS' Union Avoidance Training Services. 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 . 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. 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. After leaving the Teamsters reportedly fired for gross incompetence Smith started working as a anti-union consultant. Pro-union workers who challenge their claims have had their ID badges photographed. When addressed early, organizing is avoidable. In 1984, Japanese auto manufacturer Nissan started making cars in the United States at a plant in Smyrna, Tennessee. Public Integrity reviewed public records to see how much U.S. corporations paid union-avoidance firms in recent years. 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 . 3. She spent the first half of her organizing life . Edge 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. In the 1970s and 1980s, 3M conducted thousands of anti-union campaigns with over 70 anti-union consultants, including Marty Levitt, who renounced his former profession in the late 1980s and published a tell-all memoir, Confessions of a Union Buster, in which he detailed a dirty business which was populated by bullies and built on deceit.. Consultants . It is also helpful for the entire company to nourish a sense of community and make everyone feel theyre on the same team. "That's very likely an underestimate of how big the industry really is," Poydock said. 4.Ogletree Deakins, Cross-Border Practice, available at https://ogletree.com/solutions/practice-areas/cross-border/. 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. [iv] https://www.amazon.com/Union-Hypocrisy-Organized-Standard-Business/dp/1478275162(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/). Pitt reduced payments to "union avoidance" law firm Ballard Spahr following faculty unionization, but continues to pay hundreds of thousands to firms with labor management services as efforts to organize staff and graduate student unions persist. Littler Mendelson is the world's largest management-side law firm focusing exclusively on labor and employment 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. 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 . Go . 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 . The NLRBs recently implemented quickie election rule has many repercussions for employers. Your labor relations training was excellent, providing our supervisors with useful information and practical tools to help reduce the risk of potential union organizing at our nonunion operations Along with the AFL-CIO, the Association of Flight Attendants-Communication Workers of America filed a complaint with the CFA stating that the policy on non-votes enabled hostile employers to manipulate the process to defeat union campaigns. Labor relations consultants specializing in union avoidance activities have been operated in the United States since at least the 1940s. Fortunately, you don't have to know the answer -- because we do. Monitoring the NLRB and Other Pro-Labor Legislation and Regulations. Leaked files from IRI Consultants, a union avoidance firm, obtained by Vice's Motherboard show the disturbing lengths to which companies will go in order to derail workplace organizing. 310-284-3894, F Brown is a former Vice President at LRI while Smith is a former lead consultant at LRI. Kumho Tires: Numerous and Egregious Anti-Union Practices: Brown and Smith also conducted an anti-union campaign at Kumho Tires in Macon, Georgia, between 2017-2019. Smith and Rock Creek have been involved in several other anti-union campaign at hospitals a specialty for several union avoidance consultants including St Joseph Regional Medical Center and Mad River Community Hospital. In a move the U.S. National Contact Point (NCP) described as regretful, Nissan refused its offer of a non-binding mediation process. Since Littler was founded in San Francisco in 1942, union avoidance has been a major area of its expertise. 10.Ogletree Deakins, Traditional Labor Relations, available at https://ogletree.com/solutions/practice-areas/traditional-labor-relations/. 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. Select a quiz below to take the Union Vulnerability Quiz that best matches your organizational structure. Undeterred by this setback, Brown and Smith were involved in a bitter decertification campaign involving pilots at Flexjet LLC in 2018. A union flyer was posted on one of your facility's employee bulletin board last night. This is why the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which passed the House of Representatives earlier this month, is desperately needed to safeguard workers choice. These firms often provide so-called union vulnerability assessments, which are usually based . When it comes to unionizing, many can . Since the 1990s, not much in management's union-avoidance playbook has changed. 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. Employees in favor of unionizing there cited overtime pay cuts, fewer breaks and wage gaps as the main reasons for organizing with the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers . Google's Union-Busting Methods Revealed - THE TOP 25 MOST CENSORED STORIES OF 2020-2021. The LM-20 form filled by Russ Brown states that three consultants will be paid a daily fee of $3,200 plus expenses for the duration of the campaign, which started in January. With top of the line labor . Littler Mendelson is the worlds largest management-side law firm focusing exclusively on labor and employment issues. Hutchison Group is a nationally recognized HR and labor relations consulting firm. January 18, 2023. The result is a more capable management team and a more effective workforce. kill organized labor in aviation. . 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. Censored STORIES of 2020-2021 setback, Brown and Smith were involved in the matter that. The same team and legally compliant employee handbook several States have tried to outlaw them recent. At https: //www.amazon.com/Union-Hypocrisy-Organized-Standard-Business/dp/1478275162 ( https: //www.acc.com/sites/default/files/resources/vl/membersonly/ProgramMaterial/1303944_1.pdf Director of labor and employment issues might still erroneously think union! 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