UNITE HERE, a labor union that represents thousands of workers in the lodging industry, is sponsoring about 100 groups that will grade hotels on labor relations practices. The groups have formed an organization called Informed Meetings Exchange (INMEX) that will report on hotels that have what they consider to be poor labor relations practices.
By alerting large users of hotel and resort facilities about which facilities have poor labor relations, INMEX hopes to dissuade those users from patronizing targeted hotels and resorts.
This is a tired and ineffective means of putting pressure on management in the lodging industry. INMEX and UNITE HERE hope to gain results that cannot be won at the bargaining table. Most sensible people will discount labor relations reports from a group that has a vested interest in promoting union goals.
Day by day, person by person, the readership of newspapers is dwindling. Millions of news hungry readers are satisfying their hunger on the Internet. No longer are the mainstream newspapers the only purveyors of what’s happening in the world. And as their circulation drops so do their ad revenues.
As a result, newspapers are laying off many workers and hiring freelancers and temps, all to cut costs.
An example of this has occurred at The Patriot-News, a venerable old newspaper in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. A majority of the editors, reporters, and photographers voted to end their representation by the Harrisburg Newspaper Guild, which had represented the paper’s employees since 1934. It was the last of the paper’s unions, and its decertification portends what will be happening not just in the newspaper industry, but in other industries that must also adjust to the new economic realities of the 21st Century.
Wherever one looks, many unions are becoming superfluous. And where they are not yet superfluous, they are an obstacle to increased productivity and profitability.
At a meeting in Las Vegas, the United Auto Workers voted to earmark $60-million of its $914-million strike fund for organizing efforts.
While it will lose 60,000 members who work at Ford, GM, and Delphi as result of downsizing, the UAW hopes to attract more than it will lose. Since 2002, it has recruited 66,000 members, 42,000 from manufacturing and 24,000 from health care, college campuses, auto dealerships, high tech, offices, and professions.
The amount of money that the UAW expects to spend on organizing efforts should send a chill down the spines of HR executives and company owners. The UAW is no longer just an auto manufacturers union, it is a hungry animal with an insatiable appetite for new members, and it will hunt in every region. Companies are its prey, and if those companies do not have union proofing plans in place, they will be the UAW’s next meal. There are a variety of effective union-proofing strategies that I have used to benefit my clients, and companies should not wait until their employees are targets of persuasive organizers to implement those strategies. Now is the time for Corporate America to prepare itself for the coming organizing onslaught.
Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. In 1981, when Air Traffic Controllers went on strike, President Reagan fired all of them. Now, members of the Air Traffic Controllers Association, which has 15,000 members, have voted to reject new pay scales enacted by the FAA.
Since the union and the FAA cannot come to an agreement and are deadlocked, the agency has the right to impose its contract. Only Congress can enforce a change, but it must act within 60 days of the deadlock. It may vote on this next week.
Under the new contract, the FAA expects to save $1.9 billion in salaries over a five year period. New hires would earn $93,000 a year. The FAA claims that the agency’s income, which is based upon ticket taxes, has fallen and so it can no longer afford to pay high wages. Controllers earn $170,000 per year in salaries and benefits, which represents a 75% increase since 1998.
While the controllers and their union are threatening a massive wave of early retirements to force the FAA to back down, the reality is that the agency is on firm ground. If the controllers refuse to learn the lessons implicit in their own history, they will be doomed once again.
FedEx drivers, in Worcester, Massachusetts, want to join the Teamsters union. FedEx, however, claims that the workers are independent contractors, who invest large sums purchasing their own trucks, and so cannot join a union.
Most trucking companies in the U. S. use independent contractors as drivers. It is the reason that trucking companies are able to flourish.
If the 60,000 FedEx drivers were to be declared employees and then they voted to join the Teamsters union, it would cost FedEx hundreds of millions of dollars for Social Security and Workers comp taxes as well as for the purchase 60,000 trucks.
Now the NLRB in Boston has ruled that the FedEx drivers are employees. FedEx is appealing the decision, stating that the drivers are independent business operators who not only buy their own trucks, but also have the opportunity to expand their routes, buy new routes, and hire their own employees.
If the NLRB rule prevails, it will become a precedent and drive many trucking companies out of business