If Your Company is Engaged in "Union Avoidance" You May Want to Read This!
I have been in Ops, HR/Personnel, & OHS for over 50 years. In college I took several courses in Labor Relations. I grew up in the UAW as both parents were long time members and worked my way through college in UAW plants. For 15 years post college I was a Supervisor, General Foreman, and Personnel Manager in a large UAW foundry for 15 years. Managed the grievance procedure and was on the company Bargaining Team for a few contracts.
However, I am bit rusty in union environments. I have not worked in a union shop since I moved here to WI in 1990. The company I worked for the last 25 years had an active Union Avoidance Program. I have been on the company side of at least two organizational efforts. The company won the one were we had an election, and that was from my old friends in the UAW. Prior today I thought my knowledge of Labor Law was only exceeded by a good Labor Attorney, especially tactically. The 2 major Fed Laws are the National Labor Relation Act (The Wagner Act 1933) and its modification the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. There are smaller modifications like the Landrum-Griffin Act of 1959 or the "Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act" which tried to make Labor Relations more transparent. In large part it is targeted to keep the Communists, the Mob, and other groups out of Union governance. That is what I knew up today.
Today I learned with the LMDRA Congress gave a "bone to the unions" by requiring companies that hire consultants (in my case it was always attorneys) to disclose these consultants to the government if the consultants are engaging in what I call union avoidance for the company. My parents would have called it something else!
You learn something everyday!
The US Dept of Labor is issuing a Final Rule on all this!
Sound familiar if you deal with OSHA.
https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OLMS/regs/compliance/LM-10_Contractor_Checkbox_Fact_Sheet_Final%20Draft_07-27-2023.pdf
Comments (1)
In my former corporation this reporting is handled at Corporate by the company legal team. Site HR would no do this. If a site HR Manager hired a PI or someone like that for union surveillance they must get Corporate Legal approval. You would never do it on your own!
Back in the old days in the foundry we would would actually hire PIs to get "hired" as employees to report to us of the activities out in the plant. Things like drugs, gambling, and weapons to give examples. Sometimes local management did not even know! I have also heard of companies that would hire "spies" to infiltrate union organization.