VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hi, my name is Jack Merinar and I’m a labor lawyer with Steptoe & Johnson. If you’re watching this video, it’s probably because at some point you had a concern about union organizing. Today, I’m going to share with you five tips that I think make a union organizer’s job more difficult.
Point No. 1 - Train your supervisors. Now I’m particularly thinking of new supervisors - people who do not have a lot of experience or people who were promoted from within who one day were working alongside their friends, and the next day they were put in charge. It’s tough to do. They need training. If you think these people are going to be able to hold the people they used to work for accountable for performance and treat them consistently and with respect, they’re going to need training. It’s not something that comes naturally to everyone.
Point No. 2 – Get out of your office. If you’re a senior manager and you’ve been focused on the numbers on a project and you haven’t been out of your office, right now, get out and talk to people and get to know them. Let them get to know you. Some day soon, you may have to go out and explain to these people why it is that a union is a bad idea. If they don’t know you, and haven’t seen you, that message is gonna fall flat. Get out of your office now while you have the opportunity.
Point No. 3 – If you have difficult messages to share, don’t assume that the message got through just because you passed it down the chain of command, and here I’m talking about things like pay freezes, benefit cuts. These are the things that managers have had to pass down over the past couple of years because we’ve been in difficult times. I know managers have a vision that the sacrifices employees are making are all for the purpose of better times ahead. Most likely, you have that vision. The question you have to ask yourself is was that vision communicated adequately to every last person out on the floor or did you just assume the supervisors and managers were going to do that for you? I don’t think you can make that assumption if it’s a hard message - it has to be delivered personally. Go do it!
Point No. 4 – Provide the necessary support to get the work done. Nothing delights a union organizer more than being able to point to absurdity in the workplace. For instance, employees are asked to keep the plant clean but they don’t have cleaning supplies adequate to do the job. They are asked to maintain a machine, but they don’t have the necessary parts to do it. They complain or they ask for support, but they don’t get it. A union organizer loves that sort of situation. Don’t let it grow and develop in your workplace. And while I’m at it, they also like it when employers don’t supply support like adequate locker space, break rooms or clean restrooms. Those things are easy to take care of without it affecting your bottom line in a big way and they have a huge, huge effect on a union organizer’s ability to gain a foothold where you work. So go take care of it!
My last point, Point No. 5 today, this goes back to supervisors. I talked about new supervisors and the fact that they need to be trained. This is bigger. All of your supervisors need to know the people who work for them. They need to know something about them – what their concerns are – what their issues are – what their strengths and weaknesses are – they need to show an interest in helping to develop those people who are, who have sufficient attitude to be developable. They need to show that they care. If they can do that, then a union organizer who wants to gain such a personal connection with your employee is going to find that it’s very difficult. So those are my five points and I hope that they help you make a union organizer’s life difficult where you work.