Corporations tell workers that forming a union will hurt business.

[Uncle Joe]

Link to tweet

2019 has been a historic year for the labor movement in tech. Google contractors in Pittsburgh unionized. Kickstarter launched a campaign to form what could become the first union at a major tech company. Amazon warehouse workers, Uber drivers, and Instacart grocery delivery workers went on strike.

Tech companies haven’t stood idly by—even those that have long touted progressive values. Google, for one, hired an anti-union consulting firm IRI Consultants in the spring, and fired four workers last month who were organizing for changes at the company. Kickstarter fired two employees who were leading a union campaign at the crowd-sourcing company in September. (Kickstarter claims the workers were fired for performance-related reasons, and denies any retaliation for union organizing.)

A new report on employer opposition to union campaigns released today by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that employers spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year against union organizing efforts, and were charged with breaking federal labor laws in 41.5 percent of union campaigns in 2016 and 2017. While the authors of the report, who gained access to unfair labor complaints through FOIA requests, could not comment on specific cases, they say the newly organized tech industry is no exception.

“Tech companies have traditionally set themselves aside as a cutting-edge employers. But what you’re seeing increasingly is that they behave the same way as Walmarts and Targets,” Celine McNicholas, one of the report’s authors who reviewed thousands of complaints filed with the NLRB, told Motherboard.. “When faced with demands of improved working conditions and respecting workers’ voices, they turn to union avoidance consultants. They’d rather spend the money there than on addressing the demands of their workforce.”

(snip)

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/akwwvb/us-employers-spend-dollar340-million-a-year-busting-unions

[LakeArenal]

1. Propaganda. Lies and misleads.

Unions are great for business.

[PatrickforO]

2. Nice post. Funny how that works. Any time any worker ever

nicely asks for better working conditions, more money or better benefits, all of a sudden s/he either gets fired or smeared as being some kind of communist.

[George II]

3. Anecdotal. I belonged to three unions over my working career, ....

One was unionized just months prior to me getting the job, another while I was working there. None of the employers discouraged union membership. I also worked for three corporations in non-union jobs that had union shops. Same thing.

I'm sure there are some who try to discourage unions, but considering the magnitude of the workforce in the US spending $340 million (if it's really true) is maybe $3-4 per worker over the course of a year. Yeah, that's a massive anti-union campaign.

But it makes for good headlines.

[Wellstone ruled]

5. Same here,

as someone who has sat across the bargaining table from these Brooks Brothers Suit Crowd of Union Busters,I for one know the value added a Organized Shop adds to the Corporate bottom line.

Proud to say that I had the privilege to be involved with Organizing a couple of Shops as well along the way. And we all have seen great Companies go bust and never was it the cost of Labor. It was truly bad Management or a take over to eliminate competition.

[turbinetree]

4. And corporations paying nothing in taxes while the right wing supreme court attacks workers

and then having the courts siding with arbitration laws BS.....................

[Uncle Joe]

7. I do believe until/unless things dramatically change at the top,

the fix is in and it won't get any better.

[BigmanPigman]

6. I was a rep at my school while teaching.

Two teachers were anti-union since it was closed shop. They bitched and complained but then when they got a COLA due to union efforts, did they bitch and complain about that? Hell, no!

I tried to get Macy's unionized in 1991 during my break time and someone reported it to the store manager and I got called into the office. When the store closed I was happy and san "Springtime for Hitler" with my friend while all the salesgirls were crying. I had a party to celebrate the demise and vowed to change to a career which was unionized...teaching.