It’s hard to miss the recent increase in union organizing activity. Every nonunion employer is vulnerable, as more employees are looking for opportunities or relief in their current employment relationship.
A 2024 National Labor Relations Board report confirms the surge in union election petitions. From Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024, the NLRB received 3,286 union election petitions. This is an increase of 27% compared with the previous year’s 2,593.
Why now? The confluence of demographic and economic trends has produced increased job openings. When added to a tightened labor market, the outcome has boosted employees’ leverage. We’re also living with the residuals of the pandemic – the taste of alternative work schemes, the lingering turmoil of pandemic-driven change and uncertainty, escalating costs and, the experiences of the “great resignation.” Incidentally, the resulting environment has softened the public and political perceptions of unions.
Any organization that has employees and doesn’t have a union has exposure. When employee relations have been geared to dodge unionization rather than to develop relationships, this investment addresses symptoms rather than the disease.
Managers who “cleverly” position themselves to try to sidestep the laws and regulations are the darlings of litigators and regulators. Comparing fiscal 2023 to 2024, unfair labor practice charges filed against management increased by 7%. The NLRB’s field offices received a total of 24,578 cases, the highest total case intake in over a decade.
Unions most often step in when they’re invited by employees or are lured by circumstances created or nurtured by a management that has built a Trojan horse against itself. So many petitioned managers never contemplated having to face a union organizing drive. Health care professionals, college athletes, baristas, retail services employees, supervisors, teaching assistants, production, sales, administrative employees – in fact, all nonunion employees – are in play. So how do we deal with this? In the same way effective management deals with any other challenge to its enterprise. Be deliberate. Step back. Take a careful look. Do what’s right. Enlist some outside help if needed. Take nothing for granted. Get closer to better understand your people.
If there are flies in the management-employee ointment, they’re likely adverse workloads, stressed relationships, limited opportunities, one-way communication or deficient recognition – all deliberately or incidentally fostered by supervisors, managers and executives. These leaders are often the union organizer’s best friend. Too many respected leaders among the 3,386 who received organizing petitions during this past year were surprised, as they had missed the cues. Some of those cues? Eroding employee enthusiasm for their work or for the business and, of course, increased employee turnover or absenteeism. Then there’s the evidence of groups of employees in serious, quiet and cloistered discussions that abruptly break up when managers approach. Revisit your culture and those things that animate your employees.
When playing defense, don’t spy, intimidate, threaten or make promises – all of which are counter-productive and are also unfair labor practices. Employees do have alternative employment opportunities, but they’re with you because they’ve made that choice. You don’t want a union inserted in this relationship – neither do your employees. Unionization is rarely a workforce’s objective, but unions will provide support that unsatisfied employees value.
Focus on getting close to your people so you can understand and feel their needs and motivations, and they can understand yours. Forget about the unions. If managers do their jobs, there are no unions.
Stanley H. Davis is the founder of Providence-based Standish Executive Search LLC. He is a former union relations and human resources executive and a graduate of the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
