How To Lose Your Union Free Election: Part 1 Running a “Traditional” Campaign

by | Apr 6, 2010 | Union Avoidance

I’m about to explain something that will make a lot of people in the labor relations industry mad. But it’s simply a fact. The most common mistake the companies make is running a “traditional” campaign. By traditional campaign I mean a campaign that is driven primarily by the written word, especially letters, handouts and posters. The “traditional” campaign was successful in the 1970’s and 80’s, as companies began to respond more aggressively to union organizing activity. This campaign was successful for two reasons:

  1. Unions were lazier. Fifteen years ago a union that faced employer opposition would often walk away. Even if they did go through with an election they would not put up much resistance to an employer’s campaign. Their strategy was basically to file the petition and hope for the best.
  2. Written communication was more “normal.” The other reason that the traditional campaign worked is because it was much more common for people to receive information through letters in the 1970’s and 80’s. It was still common for people to send letters to each other. Junk mail had not achieved anywhere near the proportions that it has today.

Today things are much different. Unions are much more aggressive in their campaigning and do not back down at the first sign of employer resistance. Instead they expect an employer campaign and particularly when faced with a traditional counter organizing effort by the employer now know exactly what moves to make to reduce the impact of that strategy. The traditional campaign is also often ignored by today’s employees. Employees are much more used to getting information in quick snippets or through video or other means. They don’t pay attention to long form copy or to anything that doesn’t immediately grab their attention and hold it. Letters written by lawyers about the law do not engage today’s employees. I don’t say this to embarrass lawyers. After all, I am a lawyer. I am just making the point that a letter about legal rights and responsibilities is boring. Even a letter about how bargaining impacts a company or an employee’s family is just not very persuasive. Just look at the trash cans around a company after handouts are distributed to see what employees think about the written word. Instead, a company should communicate to employees in a more persuasive way. I’ll cover that in our next installment.

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