Unions see their star rising

The AFL-CIO's chief organizer sees increased desire in the US for union representation.

By David R. Francis

from the March 12, 2007 edition

Page 1 of 2

American corporate executives spend several hundred million dollars a year on "union avoidance" lawyers and consultants (less politely called "union busters,") to keep their companies union-free.

Other costs involved in campaigns against trade unions may well boost the bill above $1 billion a year, estimates management professor John Logan.

The United States, says Mr. Logan of the London School of Economics, is the only industrialized nation to have a "union avoidance" industry of any size engaged in helping management resist unionization, undermine union strength, or unload existing unions.

This industry, consisting of dozens of law firms and consultancies, has ballooned since the 1970s. Its success is one reason why trade union membership has declined to 7.4 percent of nonsupervisory workers in the private sector and 35 percent of nonsupervisory government workers, or 12 percent overall in 2006, down from 12.5 percent in 2005.

That success, say trade union supporters, hangs on intimidating workers with bullying techniques that are accommodated by toothless laws and pro-management federal institutions.

But Stewart Acuff, organizing director of the AFL-CIO, the confederation of American trade unions, is not discouraged. Public opinion polls show, he says in an interview, that over the past eight or nine years more and more American workers want union representation.

A 2006 poll finds that, given a choice between a union and no representation at all, 32 percent of nonunion workers would vote for a trade union. And 90 percent of unionized workers would vote to keep their union.

Perhaps that's no surprise. Studies find that unionized workers are paid better on average than nonunion workers in the same industry. And that fact explains in some degree why management figures it's worth hiring "union avoidance" professionals to keep union organizers at bay. In fact, 70 percent of firms facing a union organizing campaign hire them.

Further, these "union busters" create demand for their services by stirring up management fears that unionization could have dire consequences for their firms, says Logan. They contribute to the aggressive and adversarial nature of US labor-management relations, he says.

Page 1 | 2 | Next Page