Day Five: Your Union Proof Legacy

At this point, the comprehensive union avoidance strategy you’ve built has some powerful substance to it. You began by communicating your union-free philosophy with both existing and new employees. With that done, you gave your managers – your first line of defense – the training, tools, and support they need to be the Company’s biggest advocates. Then, you assembled the resources you’ll need should an organizing drive ever become reality. Finally, you returned to employee and manager communications with the objective of keeping your message fresh, engaging and positive.

Today, we’re going to talk about how your strategy can have a much more far-reaching impact on your company, it's employees, and it's future. This part of your Union Proof communication strategy is all about creating a lasting legacy; a UnionProof culture.

But, just for a moment, let’s look past the objective of staying union-free, and focus on simply doing the right things as an employer.  Reinforcing your “employer brand” and creating happier employees has been proven to increase engagement and satisfaction and reduce turnover. Key to this effort is making sure employees feel “in on things,” which in turn gives them a greater sense of connectedness and control… you see where I’m going… and less of a need for any outside, third party involvement.

This is where creating your legacy comes in. Even bad news - if communicated properly, in a way that employees can understand - can be a positive point for your employer brand. The concept being that unions do exist, they are always seeking new members and every topic, every department, every company decision ties back to your union-free status in one way or another.  So, creating a legacy of a union proof culture begins with communicating well, and making sure that communication flows across every department, at every level.

Start with the size of your organization and its current growth rate.  How many managers do you have per employees? Are you geographically diverse, meaning do you have employees in Distribution Centers, Call Centers, Manufacturing facilities, Retail stores or Headquarters? This could make you more susceptible to organizing attempts – unless you communicate well, and consistently across those locations. That requires effort, and often, funding to get those messages out to all locations.

How is the company structured for communication now? What internal systems such as email or intranet are being used? It’s often a good idea to communicate in expected and consistent ways.

Finally, how many people are on the union avoidance team? Before you answer, think a bit more broadly about this - are there other teams such as HR, Benefits, Safety, or Legal who need to be educated on how to connect with employees as a part of your union proofing strategy? Think about who runs the on-boarding program, they are a huge part of your communication plan! Finally, is the C-Suite or upper management taking this effort seriously? Sometimes a single top-down mention of the importance of your strategy is all it takes to get others to support you!

>> Related: Building Your Employee Relations Dream Team

Helping everyone understand the potential Cost of Unionization can provide the buy-in and support you need to establish a budget for your ongoing and more custom-created union avoidance communication tools. Once those who establish budgets understand that prevention of union organizing activity is far less expensive (and time-consuming) than fighting an actual drive to unionize, the prospect of creating a union proof legacy for the company can become a reality.

So with that support in hand, you can now create a union proof legacy that is meant to last. This means connecting the entire company with the idea that remaining union-free is a vital element of the company’s ongoing success.

Creating custom-crafted messages that inform and educate employees & managers on the importance of protecting their signature can be incredibly powerful. With your culture, your language, your demographics, uniforms, even geographic identifiers make your communications just like your audience. This kind of custom approach makes the entire message more relatable, and therefore, more memorable.

How do you want your legacy to look? To what do your people best respond? Custom videos, websites, eLearning and even social media and mobile device apps may be what your organization needs to delivery the very best in employee communications.

Don’t limit yourself - there are almost always internal resources and volunteers to seek out and bring into your employee relations team to share ideas around this common objective.  What about your “tribe” – those who are in similar positions, similar situations, and are working to create a similar union proof legacy? Look for like-minded organizations to join or private groups that share information and data on remaining union-free.  When your company becomes actively involved in these organizations and their events, you’re truly creating a culture and a legacy that respects your union-free operating philosophy.

Day Four: True Unionproofing

So by now you’ve indoctrinated your current employees with a presentation on the company’s union-free operating philosophy and the reasons behind it. You’ve begun sharing that philosophy with new employees, starting on Day One. Beyond that, you’ve gotten a strong message out to everyone on the importance of protecting their signature.

You’ve begun training your supervisors, giving them insight into what unionization could mean to the company and to them, personally. You’ve put into place the educational tools for the knowledge and skills they need to address employee concerns. Plus, you’ve demonstrated how they can put that knowledge into action.

You’ve removed any fear you may have had of facing an “ambush” election- you know who to communicate to, when to communicate and what to communicate. You understand the powerful connection employees’ families and spouses can have in a union organizing campaign, and you know that the quickest and best way possible to reach them is a website.

But what can you do to keep up that momentum, to begin creating a truly union proof culture? The answer lies in “positive employee relations.” This concept encompasses not only creating ongoing methods for educating employees and managers on unions, but creating an environment where a union (or any 3rd party involvement) simply isn’t necessary.

Begin that ongoing process by crafting a communication schedule or calendar. This could be a combination of face-to-face meetings (or intentional one-on-one interactions), video, and online communication. Your schedule should help you create consistency, which, in turn, engenders trust, something your employees and managers need to embrace your union proof culture. Make sure you aren’t the only one involved in this approach. Upper management should also have a spot on the calendar so that they are consistently reinforcing the message as well. Again, this could take the form of a live meeting… a video message delivered via email… or whatever fits with your company’s working style and current culture.

Make sure that within that schedule, you’re continuing to educate employees and supervisors on the most modern organizing tactics that unions are using today. This kind of message keeps everyone alert and aware of the ways in which they might be approached, and serves as a good refresher. Providing managers with this information can also help protect the company from organizing attempts, as their awareness will help them sound the alarm when they know the signs of organizing activity.

The biggest mistake you can make now in communicating and trying to stay up to date is falling into the “one and done” approach.  Don’t think union proofing is something you can check off on your to-do list – as they say, it’s a lot like bathing… it doesn’t last, so we recommend you do it every day. Truly, union proofing needs to be a part of your culture and because it will be a living-breathing, on-going message, you have to find the consistent delivery mediums that work best for your organization.

Online communication channels provide a logical choice for creating your platform. Here, at various levels and access points, you can include all the information your workforce needs to stay informed, aware, and alert.  So, think through the information and resources your managers and employees may need or want. Remember to make it a two-way conversation! We can’t recommend that strongly enough – one-way communications rarely succeed. This is frightening for many companies, but it is exactly this kind of transparency that creates an environment where employees don’t see the need to seek representation by others.

So, let this take the form of two websites that work for you in tandem. The first is a password-protected website to support and encourage your managers, by providing them with training and higher-level intel. This site should be updated regularly, and include messages from upper management regarding how and when (and what) to communicate with employees. Additionally, you can provide a wealth of resources – remember the training we talked about on Day Two? This website can serve as the central access point for all of it. Consistency, again, is key. Managers should know exactly where to turn for training, to ask questions, and to get the reinforcement they need.

Add a second website (public, if you’re REALLY looking for transparency) to carry your company’s union-free philosophy. On this site, you can also provide an employee area, with labor education and campaign information (at the appropriate time) for employees and their families. This campaign information can include data on the specific union targeting employees, including finances, dues, and constitution, as well as addressing concerns and questions employees may have, any issues the union may have brought up, and more.

Remember, if you create an ongoing, trusted and consistent resource NOW, that’s where your employees will turn when and if they are approached by organizers or have concerns. It must be a two-way conversation – use social media to create employee-only areas (private Facebook groups, protected Twitter accounts, etc.) for specific groups of employees, based on activity, geography, job descriptions, or whatever designations make the most sense for your union proof culture.

So, take a big, deep breath! You're almost there! And a great way to consistently provide your entire workforce with new and fresh information is to keep up to date on labor developments yourself, which you can do easily with this free bonus; UnionProof's "Join the Conversation" email. Each and every Monday morning, we send out all the latest developments in labor news, so you'll never miss a thing!

BONUS! 
Get your free weekly labor news update each Monday morning.

To sum up Day Four, if you don’t have a proactive strategy and calendar in place, it IS possible  to have an organizing campaign and, with the right tools, somehow pull out a win, we do see it happen! But consistently, the post- election debriefing (done to avoid the expense and stress of another campaign) leads to a conversation - not about salary or campaign issues - but about doing a better job of communicating with the workforce.

So if you think your employees could relate to comments like, “We don’t feel connected or involved in decisions that affect our jobs/lives,” “No one listens to my concerns,” “I don’t know what is going on, and changes just happen with little or no warning...” , that’s a powerful warning sign that you need to start putting your union proofing communication strategy into place right away.

Tomorrow, you’re going to get the resources and the recommended actions for crafting a truly Union Proof legacy, one that will reach far into the future success of the company.

Day Three: Rules of the Election Campaign

Today, the petition-to-election timeframe is about 24 days.  This means that in about 3 weeks, your company can go from operating union-free to having to sit down and bargain with a third party about everything that affects working conditions.

> Here's that BONUS video I promised you: a refresher on what the "Ambush Election" rules mean - in under 10 minutes.

For the sake of your Labor Relations Communication Strategy, we are going to look at winning an organizing campaign by educating the employees.  Why?  Because, the company's fate truly rests in the hands of those in the voting unit. 

During a campaign, you'll find that the employees are divided into three groups. 

Group One – Company Supporters is hopefully a bunch of employees that are for the company but at least 50% and more likely over 75% of them did sign a union authorization card that led to a petition for an election.  I’ll let you take a moment to let that fact sink in…

Group Two are the union supporters who are unlikely to change their minds. Ever.  The reality of this group is that it is usually smaller than Group One.  How is that?  Card-Signing is never what it seems, for the union it is a way in and for many employees it is a way out.  Ironically, the out is not in a bad way as many employees sign cards under duress and sign to simply get the union off their backs.  And still others, just simply do not know or understand the value of their signature and what signing a card meant in the first place.

Water under the bridge.  Why?  Because it’s done, an election date has been set.  What’s that?  Group Three? 

Yes, Group Three is what’s known as “fence sitters,"  those employees who are not sure of the “union thing” and not a “big fan” of the company either. This is your target audience. Hoping that the percentages already work in your favor, Group One, the Company Supporters is your largest or at least equal to Group Two, Union  Supporters.  You already have the YES votes of Group One and Group Two is a lost cause.  All focus must be on the fence sitters in group three to guide them into supporting the company's union-free philosophy.

The winner of the election is 50% plus one.  Remember this equation “50% plus 1”.  It is CRITICAL that EVERYONE vote in the election.  Not voting is like voting “for” the union.  If you have 100 employees in the voting unit and only 80 vote and apply the “50% plus 1” rule to win, then only “40 plus 1” or 41 votes for the Union will win the election.  You just lost with 59 votes sitting out there.  You had 39 “for” the company but the other 20 chose not to “get involved” and now 41 have decided the fate of 100.  Read it again, slowly.

So here we go, how do we get the fence sitters on board and at the same time get EVERYONE to vote? By educating and engaging the audience on powerful topics that have a very high success rate in what is called “captive audience meetings”.

First, before you do anything else, it's vital to educate employees on their rights under the National Labor Relations Act. Why? Because they need to know they have a right to organize - but they also need to know they have a right to actively object to unionization!

Next, using your Election Calendar, work backward from the Election Date and schedule 5 captive audience meetings in 30 minutes or less for all employees and shifts as needed.  Take extra time or needs for ADA requirements/closed-captioning or secondary languages such as Spanish. 

5 minutes:  Have the Supervisor or Executive team leader introduce the topic
15 mintues: Discuss or show the topic (video, powerpoint, sock puppets)
10 minutes: Always allow for employee Question and Answers. Go overtime if you can as getting any conversation about these topics is excellent.

What are the topics?

Organizing
Expose the tactics paid union organizers use to gain support from employees and how those tactics of half-truths can harm employees and their future.

Collective Bargaining
Educate employees on the process of contract negotiations.  Bargaining means they could get more, they could get the same as what they have now or they could get less.  Understanding these choices provides them with the education they need to make an informed decision about unionization.

Job Security
Simply put job security cannot be guaranteed by anyone, including the Union (no matter what the Union tells them).

Strikes
Seeing and hearing the realities and risk of a Union strike will educate and impress upon employees that the best way to avoid a strike is to avoid a Union.

And the day before, 24 hours before the election show:

Union-Specific Video and/or live speech by a prominent member of the management team (commonly referred to as the 25th Hour video/speech).  This is the last critical message the employees will see before voting.  There is no better way to expose the truth behind a union, share everything you share on the Union with the employees with this last critical message.  Cover membership to bargaining, elements of the union constitution, even strikes and finances, provide employees with enough information to make the right choice and hopefully they will VOTE NO.

I forgot to tell you about Group Four.  Perhaps the most important audience there is that can assist you in convincing your employees to make the right choice.  The families and spouses of the employees. Once this group gets the inside scoop on what is going on and how it will effect the entire family, you will see the tide start to turn. How can you reach Group Four, the Family?

Thanks to the internet, a website is the quickest and most efficient way to reach an audience that is spread out geographically. There are Union-Specific 25th Hour style websites for practically every Union, in English and Spanish.  These website can be placed online anytime during the campaign right up to the election.  Now, it is easy and economical to reach inside the homes, right to the families and spouses (the true decision-makers as we all know).   All you have to do is let them know the URL - web address.  This could be sent via a letter mailed to the homes, printed on paychecks, posted on bulletin boards, printed in newsletter, special business-size cards, use any and all communication methods available to you to get the word out.

Day One: Know Your Audience.

There are many factors in creating an effective union avoidance communication strategy and they have to do with understanding your audience and on-time delivery of the right message.

If you're faced with a union organizing drive, of course you can call in all the big guns: attorneys, consultants, communicators, persuaders, you name it... but if you fail to understand these two critical elements of your union proof strategy, you're not likely to succeed.
  
Ten (or even just 5) years ago, most companies would define their target audience simply, as being limited to their employees. They might go as far as basic demographics: ethnicity, age, gender, etc. And while taking these factors into account is undoubtedly a vital component of effective communication, you'd be overlooking opportunities that could play a significant role in keeping the company union-free.

Expand your audience definition - include what employees are thinking, and feeling. What is their current knowledge level regarding unions? Are they likely to be receptive to messages about your union-free operating philosophy or is there some other factor – a local unionized company that just got big raises – that might color their perceptions?

Knowing those “soft demographics,” and beginning to address them can be a huge part of your success. How can you make employees more receptive to your union-free message? By communicating in small doses, with positive messages that begin as soon as a new employee joins your company.

Begin communicating your union-free message with a labor-relations focused orientation message for all new employees. This powerful and inclusive communication should welcome the new employee, and let them know that you value their input and the ability to speak with them directly.

For existing employees, the message should be more focused on the impact unionization might have on the company, and on them, personally, including their families. This type of “IceBreaker” brings the topic of unions to the forefront, and makes sure that the “u-word” isn’t taboo.  This also provides an opportunity for the company to get ahead of any potential problems and truly begin the process of creating a union proof environment.

Once you understand your audience – and your audience understands you - it’s time to get more action-oriented. All union organizing starts with card-signing and educating all employees on exactly what the card-signing process is can be the difference between remaining Union Free and getting a petition for election.  With the Ambush Election Rules in play, the timing on delivering a message on the importance and value of their signature is better served in advance of any actual card-signing. If you have the time (no known immediate organizing threat), this message can be delivered 2-3 months after showing the Icebreaker video, or after Orientation.

If you are in a more volatile situation, put these communication tools to work as you as possible.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about an element of your union proofing strategy that can make a bigger difference than just about any other – what to communicate with Your First Line of Defense.