Yves here. This post provides a useful update on the illegal tactics that big companies like Apple and Starbucks use to try to block unions. This comes despite labor laws expressly prohibiting retaliation against workers involved in labor organizing. The attitude is that if organizations can make union drives expensive enough for campaigning workers in the short term, the long term (backlogs, fines and restitution) doesn’t matter.
This article does not say that the rights that Americans enjoy come at a very high cost to early leaders. The violence used, including hanging, has been glaringly omitted from most accounts of US history. One example: The Pinkertons were a private force whose large-scale business undermined organizational efforts. From Teen Vogue (almost alone in the media for having a staff columnist):
…few enemies of the working class have proved greater than the Pinkertons. The Pinkerton National Detective Agency was founded as a private police force in Chicago in 1850, and quickly expanded its reach; its detectives initially focused on catching thieves and burglars, but soon fell prey to the labor movement for their work as zealous, ruthless burglars. Throughout the Civil War era and the decades that followed, Pinkerton workers left their bloody mark in strikes, protests, and mass murders, and earned a ruthless reputation for protecting moneyed interests by any means necessary. As one columnist put it, “No man in his right mind would join the ranks of the Hessian mercenary of the plutocracy, expecting to shoot his brothers for money.”
That 2020 article later explained how Pinkertons was continuing its labor-intensive ways, with the latter seeing deals with Amazon in Europe. So this is an established trend that powerful companies see no reason to stop.
By Sonali Kolhatkar, an award-winning multimedia journalist. He is the creator, host, and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a weekly television and radio program that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica. His latest book is Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights Books, 2023). He is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute and the racial justice and civil liberties editor for Yes! Magazine. She serves as co-director of the non-profit organization Afghan Women’s Mission and is the co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan. He also sits on the board of directors of the Justice Action Center, an immigrant rights organization. Produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute
Workers in Towson, Maryland, earned the distinction of being the first Apple store workers in the country to vote to strike because of failed union negotiations with their employer. About 100 Apple workers also became the first in the nation to successfully form a union. They did this in 2022, as the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees (CORE), joining the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). Two-thirds of the store’s workers voted to join the union, a surprising victory for a company that has long blocked unionization.
Apple could have accepted the Towson store union, respecting the legal right of its workers to collectively bargain for their rights. Instead, the company chose the pressure-sensitive method of using its economic power to violate labor laws and oppose the union at all costs.
Among Apple’s first tactics, bold even by corporate standards, was to offer all but the workers at the Towson store new educational and medical benefits, saying the fledgling union would have to negotiate those benefits while non-union workers would be able to enjoy them immediately. . IAM CORE members say it was a “calculated” move by Apple, timed just before the second union vote at the store in Penn Square, Oklahoma, apparently as a warning to those workers, and any others considering unionization efforts, that they might lose. The National Labor Relations Board, which under President Joe Biden has often upheld its mandate to protect workers, has accused the company of violating workers’ rights. Fortunately, the bid failed and most of Penn Square’s Apple employees chose to unionize.
Apple’s bad strategy was similar to that of Starbucks the following year. The coffee shop has raised hourly wages for all but union workers. The NLRB also ruled against Starbucks.
Both Apple and Starbucks may have learned such tactics from Littler Mendelson PC, a company notorious for union busting that both companies have retained in labor organizing. Starbucks alone has used the legal services of a 110-lawyer firm to resist the wrath of organized labor in its stores. Former National Labor Relations Board attorney Matthew Bodie called the large army of anti-union lawyers “unprecedented.” On his website, Littler boasts about his work “shaping workplace practices in favor of employers.”
Union-busting is lucrative, generating more than $400 million a year for anti-union law firms like Littler Mendelson and Morgan Lewis (Amazon’s go-to union buster). Not surprisingly, a large part of their work is advising corporate employers on how best to break the rules. Starbucks, for example, is a repeat offender. And so are Apple and Amazon.
The practice of violating labor laws in counting union affiliation is so widespread that the Economic Policy Institute found in 2019 that “Employers were charged with violating federal law in 41.5 percent of all union election campaigns.” Given that this is a formal violation that has gone through the reporting and adjudication process, the number is likely to be underestimated.
The reason these big companies choose to be lawless is that it often works to their advantage. A company like Apple may see millions of dollars in union-busting lawyers as money well spent. After all, breaking the law costs very little, and the fines for breaking the labor law are relatively small. There is probably some cold, hard math behind the cost-benefit analysis of violating labor laws versus allowing workers to organize what they want.
Although workers at two Apple stores successfully unionized, Apple won in Short Hills, New Jersey where workers organized under the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and failed to win a union vote. Before the vote, the CWA accused Apple of illegally retaliating against the union against one of the Short Hills workers who led the union’s campaign. For Apple, such illegal behavior was probably worth the price. Although individual employees are at risk, the company has nothing to lose except a few thousand dollars.
It’s not just about money but power (which ultimately translates to more money). Workers who want to be represented by unions are not only fighting for better wages and benefits but also for humane treatment. Business profitability is built on employee insecurity, the ability to hire and fire at will, and to offer unpredictable shifts that work best for the company. Indeed, shift planning is key to sticking to IAM CORE’s negotiations with Apple over its Towson store workers who voted to strike.
There are good reasons why companies fight unions: hundreds of studies point to the negative impact unions have on business profitability. Conversely, there is a clear correlation between unions and higher wages, benefits, and worker protections. What is most encouraging is that unions lead to better wages even for non-union workers, putting greater pressure on employers to compete with unionized workers.
Many modern anti-union corporate employers advertise themselves as liberal and pro-worker. Apple touts itself as one of the largest job creators in the US, responsible for 2 million jobs in all 50 states, and boasts that “unlike most companies, full-time or part-time employees are eligible for benefits such as health insurance, matching retirement contributions, and to buy stock for workers.”
But, when forced to live up to their stated ideals, those companies turn into profit-hungry gangsters. So companies with a progressive brand offer free, built-in help in labor organizing campaigns,” writes labor journalist Hamilton Nolan. “There is nothing that will force the employer to do everything he said about taking care of the workers faster than to demand the respect of the union.”
Some companies choose to stick to their stated liberal principles, most notably Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, which refreshingly decided to accept the new Scoopers United union instead of letting union-busting law firms out of its workers.
Even Microsoft, a major technology company with a history of being what the New York Times called “the poster child for corporate brutality,” appears to be choosing a union-friendly approach. The company’s vice chairman and president, Brad Smith announced in 2022 that Microsoft will work in partnership with unions.
The Times speculated that Microsoft’s decision to embrace unions was an attempt to please the Biden administration ahead of the company’s acquisition of the video game company. Regardless of what you think, working with organized workers instead of against them is good for society, even if it’s bad for each company’s bottom line.
The good news is that despite the rate of union membership continuing to decline, the percentage of people who see unions as favorable has increased to 71 percent, and among young people it has increased significantly to 88 percent. There has been an increase in the number of workers who have applied to join the unions as they have gone on strike. The only thing standing in the way of turning the union dreams of Apple workers and others into reality is the company’s willingness to violate labor laws.
Source link