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.
