“The labor-busting law firms and consultants that keep Google, Amazon and other workplaces union-free”, 24 August 2020

American companies have been very successful at preventing their workers from organizing into unions in recent decades, one of the reasons unionization in the private sector is at a record low.

… [A] handful of little-known law and consulting firms do much of the dirty work that keeps companies and other organizations union-free.

Avoiding unions 101

The Labor Relations Institute offered clients a money-back guarantee that it could successfully prevent employees from forming a union in a brochure from the 2000s.

… About 75% of all U.S. employers have engaged the services of a consultant or law firm to stymie efforts by workers to organize – and are spending an estimated US$340 million a year to do so.

Three of the biggest law firms that do this work are Littler Mendelson, Ogletree and Jackson Lewis … Consultants such as IRI and the Labor Relations Institute have also developed a reputation for union avoidance expertise in recent decades…

Monitoring unrest in the workplace

[C]ompanies hire these firms … to conduct union vulnerability audits, intended to analyze a workforce to see which departments, locations or demographic groups are most likely to organize.

… Anti-union monitoring software can help management squash organizing before it starts … Amazon recently used heat maps to show which of its Whole Foods grocery stories and distribution warehouses were most at risk of unionization.

Union inoculation

The anti-union firms advise companies to treat unions like a “virus” and to “inoculate” employees with messaging about the purported consequences of organizing early and often.

… Firms provide … companies with anti-union materials…

For example, Nissan, Volkswagen and other carmakers have used billboards as part of their campaigns to prevent unionizing at plants in the U.S…

Captivating workers

A third technique is what union avoidance consultants call direct explainer activity, such as conducting mandatory anti-union staff meetings.

Using these and other tactics, consultants claim overwhelming success rates in preventing unionization, often 95% or higher. While it’s impossible to empirically verify these claims, most labor relations researchers believe they are highly effective.