LRI vice-president Jim Teague is quoted extensively in Expert: Union Organizing Activity Is on the Rise on the The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) website. (registration required) The article details the uptick in union activity over the past six months and the changes to how the typical union campaign is now conducted.
Teague outlines how unions are shifting to target new industries that were once ignored by unions because of their high turnover and the young age of the average employee. He also mentions how unions are now pushing to recruits salts and organizers on college campuses. Teague is also quoted on the importance of catching union activity early.
“For every petition filed, we used to have five prepetition cases… Now for every petition filed, there are 15 prepetition cases. Learning about union organizing efforts at the prepetition stage is key if employers do not want a union and want to educate the workforce about what unionization might mean, Teague remarked.
Teague also warns employers about new organizing tactics. ”Blitz-style campaigns against entire organizations are occurring in a way that Teague said he hasn’t seen in ‘a long, long time.’ Unions are going door to door, advertising on billboards on buses and organizing through social networking, he said. In some cases, instead of a petition for union election being filed, Teague said, the National Labor Relations Board has issued a Section 10(j) injunction ordering bargaining where the employer has committed an unfair labor practice that the board believes makes a fair election no longer possible.”
