Phil Wilson: [00:00:10]

Hey everyone. I just finished recording an episode with Nick Kalm from Reputation Partners. He’s been on the show before, but today we’re talking about bargaining communications. This is part of our series on collective bargaining. And whether you’re a new employer that’s just been unionized and is getting ready to negotiate your first contract, or someone who’s had a relationship with a union for a long time. Lots of great practical tips in here on getting prepared for bargaining, why you should communicate during bargaining, practical tips on how you should do that, what vehicles should you use, and how often should you do it? And then we end by talking a little bit about how to assemble your Avengers team to make sure you have the best team of experts to help you manage your bargaining situation.

[00:00:56]

So enjoy today’s episode with Nick Kalm of Reputation Partners.

[00:01:01]

Welcome back, everybody, and welcome. Nick, calm. Back to the show. This is part of our series on how to deal with bargaining. Unions are organizing at an unprecedented rate. And because of that, there are a lot of companies that are dealing with bargaining with the union for the first time. And there’s a lot of nuance to this. A lot of it doesn’t follow common sense. And so, because of that, we’re doing this series with experts around how a company that’s dealing with a bargaining relationship for the first time navigates that. And today we’ve got Nick, calm back on the show. Hi, Nick.

Nick Kalm: [00:01:43]

Hello, Phil. Great to be with you again.

Phil Wilson: [00:01:45]

Yeah, great to see you. And Nick is an expert in communicating during bargaining. And we’ve worked together on bargaining communications a number of times, and so I thought it just made a lot of sense to have Nick come in and talk to us a little bit today about how you communicate during bargaining. So, just to catch folks up, if they haven’t seen a prior episode with you, Nick tell us a little bit about yourself and your firm.

Nick Kalm: [00:02:15]

Sure. Absolutely. Well, again, my name is Nick Kalm. I’m the CEO and founder of Reputation Partners. We’re a communications firm based in Chicago, but work across the country. And a big part of our focus is on employee communications and labor communications specifically. So, helping organizations that are involved either with union avoidance or bargaining communications, or if they have a lockout or strike or some other job action as well, and really working across different industries from coast to coast as well.

[00:02:48]

So, I started the firm about 22 years ago, and this has been a big part of my focus during those 22 years and prior to that, when I did a similar role at a couple of large public relations firms as well.

Phil Wilson: [00:03:00]

Great. So, as I said, we’ve worked together on some of these engagements where we’ve got companies that have complex bargaining, have big public relations issues a lot of times that intersect with bargaining. Why don’t we just start off with where you feel unions do a good job of communicating? And what can employers maybe learn from how unions communicate during bargaining?

Nick Kalm: [00:03:31]

Yeah. I really take my hat off to them because then again, they’re not all this way but unions, in general, are very good at communicating, extremely good at coming up with very compelling messages and messengers and communications channels in a way that really helps win hearts and minds in a very significant way, both in terms of supporting anything that they’re trying to do from a bargaining standpoint, but otherwise too, with other third parties, with other audience members, whether it’s the media, government officials, community leaders and so forth.

[00:04:04]

And that’s really something that I’ve spent a lot of my career in, particularly in the last few years, of trying to help organizations improve the way they communicate, because, again, they’ve got a formidable, sometimes adversary across the table from them who’s very, very good at communicating. And it really requires companies and organizations to really step out of their comfort zone sometimes and communicate differently than they’re used to communicating, leaving the jargon behind, leaving the formal corporate speak behind, doing these incredibly long emails that nobody reads behind. So, there’s a lot to it from there. And I know we’ll talk about some of these things.

Phil Wilson: [00:04:41]

Yeah. Maybe even as a level set, particularly if you’re a viewer and this is the first time you’ve had to deal with bargaining, talk a little bit about why is it important for an employer to communicate during bargaining. Because a lot of times people go into this thinking this is a private thing. It’s not something that I really want to air publicly. Why is it important for an employer to communicate?

Nick Kalm: [00:05:10]

It’s a great question. And again, we’re recording this after a pretty large attention-getting presidential and other election that occurred in this country. So imagine, if you will, your favorite presidential candidate or senatorial candidate or congressional candidate, were in a race against an opponent and they decided not to communicate at all and just let their opponent define them. What would that look like? That would be pretty bad.

[00:05:35]

And again, what happens here is the labor union wants to characterize the employer in a certain way again, for their own advantage, if they’re trying to get certain things at the bargaining table, if they’re trying to make it clear that the employer isn’t doing everything that it could for the employees. If the employer is silent and basically cedes the communications landscape to the union, the union is not going to characterize them in a very favorable way. It’s not going to characterize them necessarily in a terribly fair way.

[00:06:07]

And in fact, even worse than that, it might not even characterize them in an accurate way. So again, if an organization just sits back and decides, well, we really don’t want to communicate. One of the phrases that I’ve heard early on from some prospective clients and even clients is, we don’t want to communicate, we don’t want to bargain through the media. That’s always code for me, that you’re not prepared to put your forward, your own goals, your own objectives, your own financial realities in a way that would allow your employees and other third parties to really make informed decisions about what’s going on.

[00:06:42]

An employer can really be in a position where it can be that single source of truth. Yes, of course, they can tinge things and characterize things in a way that are favorable to them. But an employer, unlike a labor union, unfortunately, needs to be honest in terms of what they’re communicating. They need to be factual in terms of what they’re communicating, which, again, labor unions don’t always do. So, it’s maybe a bit of a longish answer to it. But if you don’t communicate as an employer during bargaining and you leave it to the labor union to do all the characterizing, it’s going to be really rough on you because it’s going to characterize you in a way that isn’t going to be necessarily helpful, not only to bargaining, but to a number of other things that you may be trying to do outside of bargaining.

Phil Wilson: [00:07:23]

Yeah, I think that’s important to focus on. And I would add that you need to get the deal ratified, so you need to negotiate the deal, but then you ultimately need to get the employees, members of that union to vote in favor of the final proposal. And unions, you mentioned, they’re effective communicators, but they sometimes are overly effective communicators. So, they’re really good at painting the employer as this evil doer that is greedy and not willing to share. And that can work kind of up to a point.

[00:08:10]

But we’ve seen lots of negotiations now where the union agrees to the deal, but they can’t get the membership to agree to the deal. It causes strikes. It causes strikes to last longer than they should. It ends up creating problems not just for the company, but those employees often end up suffering more than they really need to or have to because they believed one story and had been told that story and never really heard the other side of the story.

[00:08:45]

And then once the deal gets negotiated, now it’s up to the employer and the union to convince everybody, well, you know what we said about pensions, we can’t really do that. And that’s a big communication problem, right?

Nick Kalm: [00:09:06]

Absolutely. You’re hitting on Phil, a big phenomenon now. You were referring to them without even naming them necessarily. Boeing, look at the challenges that they had with the idea of trying to reinstitute a pension plan, basically. Who does that? Nobody does that. Or back to the UAW and the big three. And they were basically originally trying to get down to a 32-hour workweek. Again, good luck.

[00:09:31]

You create that expectation among employees, then walk it back. The problem is, and you alluded to it, the walking those things back, often the burden on that falls more on the employer than it does on the union because the unions are like, oh, well, you know, we tried and I couldn’t help it that that proposal, that last best final was voted down twice or whatever it is. So yeah, it is a big problem for sure. And it’s a growing one.

Phil Wilson: [00:09:53]

Yeah. And we’ll deal with this in other episodes, and part of that is really educating union leadership and talking to them about, look, if you keep hammering on this pension thing, you’re creating an expectation that is just not going to happen. And you can become your own worst enemy when, when we get down to it and you’ve got a deal that you think is a great deal, you know, and you’re trying to get it to the finish line. So, there’s that side of it. But to your point, if the union is promising a pension, it’s really important for an employer.

[00:10:32]

And that’s just one example. But it’s a good one because it’s really common. The Teamsters, I’ve heard rumors that are basically requiring every single local now to bargain for a pension and like all of their negotiations. So, if you’re asking for a pension and the world has changed, defined benefit pensions are not coming back. But someone has to explain all that, right? Because the union is looking at it as a bargaining tactic. They know they’re not going to get a pension either but they’re like, well, we’ll just keep hammering on that and try to make the employer look bad and then maybe they’ll give in on some of the other stuff that we’re talking about. It’s really up to the employer to explain, look, here’s what the world looks like today, and defined benefit pensions is not part of that world.

Nick Kalm: [00:11:25]

Absolutely. And I want to seize on a point that you were making a minute ago in terms of educating. You were talking about educating the union leaders. This is the other main thing that I would really, as a key message, I would deliver to people watching this. Companies, organizations, employers, whether it’s health systems or companies and trade associations as well do not do a good enough job of educating their own employees on how their business makes money. You’ve seen this, I’m sure, many, many times. I’ve seen it many, many times.

[00:11:56]

We’re brought into these situations and we’re like, we need to educate- it’s a bargaining situation, it’s an organizing situation. The client is basically saying, we need to start educating our employees about the financial realities we’re facing. And my first question to them is, is this going to be the first time your employees are hearing that? And often the answer, unfortunately, is yes. So, if you’re doing it, then during a tense situation like that, you’re going to have more pushback from your employees and less acceptance of it than if you did it on an everyday basis.

[00:12:26]

I really urge employers to educate your employees about how your business makes money. Don’t take it for granted that they know. They’re not going to pick it up by osmosis. They’re not going to just know it. You need to educate them about it. Why do you set the prices the way you do? How dependent you are on government reimbursement if you’re a healthcare institution. Whatever it is, how much of your operating costs go to your employees? How you operate competitively. All of those things.

[00:12:53]

Make the time, take the investment, educate your employees about that stuff because then they’ll know it before bargaining begins. And then the proposals that you’re making from an employer standpoint and the proposals that the unions are making that you’re rejecting or trying to modify are going to be that much more well understood if you have that underpinning before you get into bargaining.

Phil Wilson: [00:13:15]

Yeah. Well said. And you really need to. It’s an ongoing conversation. The conversation shouldn’t start three years ahead when the next negotiations begin. You need to be having that conversation all along. It’s really important just from an employee engagement standpoint. Just put to the side union negotiations. You’re your team should understand like you said how you make money. Why do we staff the way that we staff? A lot of the decisions that you make that might not be popular, you really should explain, here’s why we’re doing it. This is why we believe this is the right approach and why it makes sense. So again, like you said, they’re not hearing it for the first time in bargaining.

Nick Kalm: [00:14:04]

Right. Because there’s an assumption that rank-and-file employees just get that when they don’t because nobody’s really telling them that. Your managers, your senior managers, certainly your senior management team, they get it. Even your line managers, some of them get it, some of them don’t. There’s just an assumption that everybody understands it. You shouldn’t assume you should make it part of your education process.

Phil Wilson: [00:14:27]

Yeah. And to the extent, people do understand it, the most common mistake is you say we had revenue of this much money, and everyone hears that and is like, ‘Oh, well, that’s the pile of cash that they’re running off and buying yachts and houses with.’ And that’s not profit. And most of the time, profit is poured back into the business. And so, you need to explain all that. Most people don’t understand it. So, union, a lot of times at the very beginning, and if you’re someone who’s just recently been organized, unions a lot of times will come in and say, look, let’s agree.

[00:15:13]

So, you mentioned let’s not do this in the media, but for a lot of companies, you’re bargaining negotiations are not going to be like a news story. There are many companies that they are. But most of the time it’s usually not. But they will say like, let’s keep whatever happens in the room, in the room and nobody talks about it until we come out of here with a deal. What’s your advice to employers when that’s floated around?

Nick Kalm: [00:15:47]

Yeah. unions don’t play that way. That’s not how unions do it. They’re out characterizing everything that they’re putting forward at the bargaining table as being reasonable, fair respectful. All the nice union words. And they’re mischaracterizing or negatively characterizing the employer’s proposals at the table. So again, even just they’re questioning the employer’s motives. Not only questioning the proposal but questioning the motives. So, that’s why you need to speak up for yourself.

[00:16:17]

And again, you maybe don’t want to get into every single nuance of every little proposal back and forth at every bargaining session. However, even that, you know if you’re deciding that you’re basically ceding the ground to the union because the union is coming out- we see this a lot of times too- they usually have somebody at the bargaining table whose only job then is characterizing what’s happening in the bargaining table and pushing that out the instant the bargaining session is over and putting it out in a way that is as favorable as possible to the union and is unfavorable as possible to the employer.

[00:16:49]

So, that’s why we’re going into negotiations, here’s what we’re trying to achieve, here’s what we believe the union is going to be trying to achieve, here’s why we think our proposals are fair and help us to be competitive and so forth. And we’re certainly going to listen and go back and forth with the union in terms of their proposals. But at the end of the day, we need something that’s good for the employer, that’s good for our employees, and good for our customers or patients or whoever it is that we’re talking about. And here’s why we believe that our goals are in alignment with that.

[00:17:19]

So, even just setting that stage is so important for employers to do. And then again, I would suggest at the very least be prepared if you’re bargaining once a week or once every two weeks or whatever it is, after you’ve had a session, characterize it. Employees want to hear it, and they want to get information that is as objective, honest, and fair as possible. Now, you know this better than I do, Phil, a lot of employees are like, ‘Just tell me when it’s over. I don’t want to think about these union issues. I just want to come in. I want to do my job. I want to go home. I want my paycheck, all of that.”

[00:17:54]

But there are other people who are like, ‘I want to know what’s going on. You all are sitting at a table maybe with 30 or 40 of the union representatives and there’s maybe a dozen of you. You’re deciding my future. You’re deciding what my benefits look like. You’re deciding what my scheduling looks like. You’re deciding what my pay looks like. Yeah, I want to know what’s happening there. And if it’s dragging on for a while.’ And we both know that negotiations take a long time after a union comes in, especially that first contract, what, 15 months on average. There’s a lot of time going on there.

[00:18:26]

And again, if you’re not talking about what’s happening and why, and to the extent to which you need to be putting pressure on the union in terms of scheduling additional sessions or being more flexible on proposals, that’s why communication is so important.

Phil Wilson: [00:18:41]

Yeah. When I started in this business 30 years ago, you could probably get away with ‘Look, there’s only going to be a few of us in this room. As long as we all agree not to talk about what’s going on in here, we can sort of have the gentleman’s agreement, so to speak, of we’re going to keep this between ourselves.’ In today’s world, there are no secrets. People are getting text messages while you’re sitting at the table talking about everything that’s going on in that room.

[00:19:21]

Even if the union wants to try to control that, they really can’t. And because of that, it’s that much more important for the employer to get their side of the story out and explain what their positions are. So really, you should never agree that we’re not going to communicate about bargaining. Like you say, the union’s going to do it. Even if they agree they’re not going to do it, there will still be all kinds of communications that are happening about it. It’s just really you’re fighting with one arm behind your back if you agree to not tell your side of the story.

[00:19:59]

Completely. You’re absolutely right 100% with everything you just said. And to your point, not every company’s negotiations are necessarily public fodder, but so many of the negotiations do end up with either a strike vote or a strike as well. And again, organizations need to not just think about the bargaining unit in this case, but the other employees, unionized and not, who are watching what’s happening in bargaining and thinking if they’re non-unionized themselves, they’re going, ‘Hey, maybe I’m seeing some pretty impressive stuff that’s coming towards those unionized employees. I want to get in on some of that action.’.

[00:20:35]

And this is even true among the salaried ranks as well. And certainly, unions are showing that they’re not above negotiating and trying to represent any number of different employees. But then all the different outside folks. Again, you think about it, they’re all, in a lot of these cases, the employer is one of the biggest games in town. Certainly, if it’s a health system, it’s typically the largest non-governmental employer in town. So, you’ve got mayors that are looking at what’s going on. You’ve got city council members that are looking at what’s going on, chambers of commerce, competitors, vendors, certainly.

[00:21:09]

And again, it can be a heavy lift to try to consistently communicate with everybody, but it can also not necessarily be. One of the things we encourage clients to do is set up a dedicated website that everybody can visit, whether it’s the bargaining unit, the non-bargaining unit, employees, community, folks, media, for them to get facts, to get updates. Again, for the employer to be that single source of truth during negotiations.

Phil Wilson: [00:21:33]

Yeah. That’s where I was going to go next. Let’s talk tactically about this message. There are legal requirements, right? You cannot go bargain directly with your employees. You know, you have to bargain with the bargaining agent. So, when you’re communicating, what are some just some of the tactics that you recommend around how to do it? So, vehicles, like, what are some of the ways to do that? And then the kinds of things that you’re communicating so that you don’t run the risk of a claim that you’re bargaining in bad faith, or that you are trying to negotiate directly with the employees. What are some tips that you have for folks around those two things?

Nick Kalm: [00:22:18]

Absolutely. So, both in terms of avoiding the direct bargaining, as you know, and I think many of your viewers know, as soon as you made a proposal at the table, that’s fair game. You could literally one minute later publicize it and be okay. You can’t do it one minute earlier. You can’t do it at the same time. But anything starting one minute, five minutes an hour, half a day later, you’re perfectly okay then to go and communicate that directly to the bargaining unit because you presented it to their negotiating representatives first. So that’s from a timing standpoint because again, I think people forget about it sometimes.

[00:22:52]

From a vehicle standpoint, again, think about unions are so good at so many different things I was talking about. Again, I really have grudging respect for them. It’s one of the big reasons why I got into this 30 years ago, because I liked the kind of advocacy communications. And if you’re having to deal with somebody who’s really good on the other side, it forces you to be at the top of your game. But unions are very good at using social media. A lot of companies are still in the infancy in terms of using social media to communicate with their own employees.

[00:23:22]

Unions are very good at using video as well. That’s another one too. And again, not these long ten-minute, 15-minute, even eight-minute videos, short little videos, TikTok style. Short, sweet, compelling as well. Unions are very good at using text messaging as well. A lot of companies we’ve talked to a lot of employers, ‘Oh, we don’t want to intrude on our employees.’ Or they’re worried about a wage-an-hour claim if you’re expecting people to look at things and they’re not on the clock. They’re worried about the opt opt-in, and opt-out.

[00:23:53]

You don’t want to become a burden there. But unions are very good at using text messaging. Employers need to get very good at it as well. So, I’d say social media videos, text messaging, and websites are probably the four that I would recommend. And just as important as the ones to recommend are the ones to avoid. Email. A lot of email. I can’t tell you, I’ve lost count of the number of employers I’ll go to where I’ll go in there and they’re 5000 employees, 3500 of them are hourly employees and they’re production employees. And I’ll say, how do you communicate with your employees? ‘Emails.’

[00:24:32]

How else? ‘We have a quarterly meeting so often? And, you know, there’s these stand-up meetings, shift meetings, and so forth, which are fine. But that’s really how we communicate. The main vehicle is email.’ I’m like, okay, well do your production employees check email? ‘No, they don’t check email.’ Well, the main vehicle you’re using isn’t reaching the most important audience. So, you want to make sure you’re getting them where they live. You need to yes, use those stand-up meetings, but use text messaging, use social media, use video and break rooms, and otherwise.

[00:25:03]

A lot of companies obviously have intranet sites for scheduling, benefits checking, and so forth. Use video. It’s such a compelling vehicle, as you know, from the fact that we’re doing this video right now.

Phil Wilson: [00:25:13]

Well, not everybody is a massive TV star like we are. What would you say to somebody that’s just, you know, running a small manufacturing firm and is like, ‘Look, I’m not going to be able to do some fancy TV production to update people on what’s going on in bargaining? What do you see that works in using video in bargaining communications?

Nick Kalm: [00:25:39]

Everybody has one of these, a phone, right? Everybody has one of those. And everybody can shoot video. And they’re probably using it to shoot video of their vacation or their children or grandchildren or their hobbies or whatever it is. It does not need to be a Spielberg production. In fact, it probably shouldn’t be too slick because that ends up being a turnoff to people. But man on the street, woman on the street interviews. What do you like? What do you not like?

[00:26:03]

Even the CEO. Delivering messages that way in an authentic way. Again, a big part of it though is avoiding that jargon. And again, I know there’s a lot of industry jargon that has to be part of things, but minimize that. Don’t talk about paradigm shifts. Don’t talk about inflection points. Don’t talk about compensation. Talk in a down-to-earth kind of way. And shooting simple video. And again, you can then upload it so easily. We’re doing it in our private and personal lives all the time. That’s all it needs to really be. Again, make sure it’s done in an appropriate lighting. You’re not having a lot of distracting sounds in the background. Although, if you’re shooting people on a manufacturing floor, it’s not going to be quiet. And that’s okay. That frankly contributes to the authenticity of it.

Phil Wilson: [00:26:49]

And I think, going back to sort of your homage to union communicators, look at what they do. That’s typically how they’re communicating. And if you just mirror that, you’re going to be way, way ahead of almost anybody. So, I think one really quick tip is just to look and see this union. How have they communicated about bargaining with other employers before you even start? As part of your bargaining preparation, understand that this is likely how they’re going to communicate. How could we replicate that with our message?

[00:27:27]

And you and I have worked on cases where you have one of the leaders, a leader that people know and respect comes out of the bargaining session, and shoots a video with their phone, just like you said, it’s just like you would if you were going to upload a TikTok and just go, ‘Hey, just got out of the bargaining session. Here are some of the highlights that happened today. These are some things that were proposed. We were able to get tentative agreements on these two things. And we’re looking forward to the next session, which is scheduled on whatever.’ That right there is the perfect video. And you can pop that up on a website and like, you’re done.

Nick Kalm: [00:28:09]

Right. It is amazingly easy. It’s making the commitment to doing it. And then I think one of the things you alluded to is also having the right person deliver it. It does not need to be messages from the CEO. There are, as we both know, times and places when you want to hear from the CEO or the head of an organization. But a lot of times, you want to get as close to a leader for that bargaining unit, delivering that message as possible. Ideally, somebody who is at the table and delivering that message. You probably don’t want the outside lawyer or the outside consultant delivering that message.

[00:28:42]

You maybe want the plant manager or division manager or whoever it is delivering that message in an authentic way. And again, part of it, in addition to all the messages you just said, which are so important, is delivering that message that we want to get to a deal. Because you know as well as I do, the union’s going to say they’re stalling. They don’t want a deal. They’re hoping you’ll give up.

[00:29:04]

Over and over again, delivering we want to get to a deal. Because at the point you’re in a bargaining session, you need to be showing that you are a good faith bargaining. And so, delivering that message repeatedly. And again, I keep referring back to the political season, right? Many of us lived in states where we were bombarded with political advertising to the point of stop, make it stop. But you need to repeat messages for it to get to sink in. People are busy. They have lots of things they’re thinking about.

[00:29:31]

You want to make sure those messages are getting across over and over again, through video, through bulletin board flyers, through website communications, through social media posts, through texts. Again, using all of the different vehicles, because somebody is not necessarily going to be paying attention to all of the different vehicles.

Phil Wilson: [00:29:48]

Right. What about misinformation and rumors? A lot of times, things can get out of hand during bargaining. What tips do you have for dealing with that?

Nick Kalm: [00:30:04]

Yeah. I think a big part of it is that from the get-go, positioning yourself as that single source of truth basically saying, we are going to speak honestly to you all the time. And again, you don’t need to necessarily add the postscript to that, which is the union may not be. But if you position yourself as that single source of truth, and then part of that single source of truth means we hear there’s a rumor that XYZ is happening. That’s not true. Here’s what is true. Boom-boom-boom. Misinformation.

[00:30:31]

Or we’ve seen that the union or some third party put up XYZ message. That is false. Let us give you what is the fact. And again, some of that might be having to deal with some thoughts or comments or bargaining positions that the employer isn’t necessarily eager to be talking about in detail because it could be misconstrued. It’s still better to knock down that misinformation and rumor as early and definitively as possible. Otherwise, those things take a life of their own. You talked earlier about defined-benefit pension plans. If that was a rumor ‘Hey, we hear that the employer is thinking about it.’.

[00:31:07]

Going ‘You know what? We know the union has talked about it. There are no companies since XYZ date that have introduced a new defined benefit plan. And we see how that would be harmful to us here at XYZ Corporation. Instead, what we’re looking to do is to make sure that we’re fully funding our 401 K plan, that we have a generous match.’ Whatever the alternative is that they’re trying to put forward at the table.

Phil Wilson: [00:31:31]

Yeah, great. And I think also part of this is doing your research. Has this union ever achieved in the last decade getting a defined benefit pension plan? The answer to that is no. And so, if you can prove that, that’s a kind of fact that if you can explain that to everybody, they’ll understand this isn’t a realistic demand. ‘These guys that are saying that they’re going to get it have never got it. So, why are we going to get it?’

[00:32:10]

And then like you said, explaining, but we have this really great alternative to that. And here’s how we’re funding that and here’s why it’s better than a defined benefit pension plan. ad it’s more secure for your own livelihood than a defined benefit plan. So again, we’re hammering this one point, although it’s a very common tactic that’s being used now by unions to try to divert attention away from things maybe that they don’t necessarily want to talk about. And it’s an easy way to bludgeon the employer during bargaining, even though they know they’re not going to get it. That’s an easy talking point.

[00:32:51]

And so, your advice is really the counter to that. Communicate, communicate, communicate. One other thing. Let’s talk about when is the right time to engage somebody to help. Let’s say that you’re a small employer or even a medium-sized employer. You don’t have a communications team. Maybe you’re bargaining for the first time. When is the right time to engage with somebody like you who does communications consulting? And What does that look like?

Nick Kalm: [00:33:33]

Yeah. I think one of the most important things for an organization to think about is making sure that whoever it is that’s advising them on these kinds of issues has the experience and expertise there. And as we know and I know we’ll get into here in a moment, it’s an area that is really fraught with peril for employers. You really need to understand the labor law and the dynamics and what’s going on at the NLRB, how unions communicate,  all of that.

[00:34:00]

And again, I think a good communicator is going to come in and work very much hand in glove with the client’s internal communications resources. And if they have an external PR team that has value in terms of thinking about different audiences or has connections with certain media members, absolutely they should be a part of it. But I think the important thing is to engage a firm like ours or a similar firm with that expertise early on in the process before bargaining begins.

[00:34:27]

When, frankly, the right time to do that is when the employer is thinking about, we’ve got bargaining that’s going to be coming up, we know it’s going to happen x number of weeks or months from now. Here’s what our goals are going to be from a bargaining standpoint. And again, it’s not for us as the communications counsel to necessarily weigh in on what their priorities should be.

[00:34:45]

But we need to understand what those are so that we can build a communications strategy that helps to pave the way for those proposals and to anticipate what the union is going to propose from their standpoint, so that those can ideally take hold before bargaining begins, as we talked about earlier in this discussion. It’s Seeding the environment for them, understanding what’s going to be coming up in bargaining, what some of the key issues are going to be, what do we know our key issues are going to be and what do we anticipate the union’s issues being?

[00:35:17]

And then just making sure that there are vehicles in place and messengers to deliver the appropriate messages before bargaining happens. Because again, you’ve seen it as well as I have, Phil, a number of times, an organization only starts communicating literally when bargaining begins, and the employees are maybe used to not having this level of intensity of communication, not really having the baseline understanding that they need before bargaining begins.

[00:35:42]

So it does make sense, if possible, to do it as far in advance as possible. Certainly, it doesn’t need to be before the organization starts thinking about what they’re going to want to try to achieve and what they need to anticipate from the union. But that is really when they should think about engaging the right kind of communications resource to help them through that.

Phil Wilson: [00:36:02]

You have the situation where it’s our first contract so you have just lost an election. You were communicating during that election and hopefully, you had expert help during that period. But when it’s your first negotiation, you can’t really do all the table setting that you’re talking about. Most companies, especially most companies that have gone through a union campaign, probably weren’t communicating all that great before the union showed up. So, you’re going to get good at this, like for the first time now.

Nick Kalm: [00:36:37]

Absolutely.

Phil Wilson: [00:36:38]

But for a lot of the people that are going to see this, they already have a union. They’ve had one for a while. They know their next negotiation is going to be a year or two years down the road from now. The time to start communicating is now, right?

Nick Kalm: [00:36:54]

About all those things we talked about before in terms of educating them about the business. But you’re absolutely right to make the distinction about a first bargaining session. You’re right, they’re not going to be able to do that there. But what they can do, even for that first bargaining session, is talk about and reinforce the principles of what makes us a good employer. Why did you come to work here? Because that’s the thing that’s going to be under attack, especially in a first bargaining situation.

[00:37:18]

They’re going to basically try to characterize the employer as a bad employer. That’s how the union was able to get in there in the first place with the petition and the election they ultimately won that gave them the right to represent those employees. Again, it’s going to be characterizing the employer as not being a good or responsible employer or a good corporate citizen. So, the employer needs to lean into the counter-narrative. Here’s what makes us the best place to work.

[00:37:42]

This is why you chose to come to work here. Here are the accolades we’ve gotten from working mother, from best places to work for this organization or this industry or whatever. Or here’s how we benchmark our compensation and our benefits. And we know we’re one of the top ones in our industry or in our region or whatever. Leaning into all of that and basically building up your defenses, if you will, from the attack that’s going to come during that first bargin.

Phil Wilson: [00:38:10]

And I’ll even add, we live in a world right now where free speech rights during campaigns are massively under attack, both by the National Labor Relations Board. It will change somewhat with the new administration. But states are doing everything that they can to kind of prevent employers from weighing in during campaigns. And during those campaigns, if you’re only hearing one side of the story, even if you have a full-throated employer campaign, a lot of times that just gets ignored.

[00:38:49]

And people vote in a union thinking it’s going to be this amazing thing, mana will start falling down from heaven and it’s going to be amazing. And then when the reality sets in, and hopefully that reality has already been explained to employees during a well-run campaign. But now, when the negotiations start and the employer starts communicating- and some of that communication can be like, ‘Look, we explained this takes a long time. We explained that not everything that the union asks for is going to be agreed to. We explained that the employer has a right to say no to things that the union proposes.’.

[00:39:36]

Employees are not dumb. They might figure it out late, but they figure out eventually. Oh, wow, all the things that we were being told during that campaign are actually the truth. So, during that first contract negotiation, depending on how strident the union is around their demands and depending on how realistic they’re being, they can have a situation where the employees go this was not what we signed up for. And in those cases, you bargain in good faith, you try to reach an agreement, but if the union is not willing to agree to a reasonable contract at the end of a year, those employees have the option to say, ‘Look, this was a bad idea. We don’t want we don’t want to do this anymore.’.

[00:40:30]

And so, that’s another important reason why communication is really important during the campaign. But communicating during the bargaining is really important for that reason as well, not just to make sure everyone understands how we got to this deal, why it’s a good deal, and why you should ratify it. But on the off-chance people don’t want to do that deal and don’t want to ratify it you now are, as you said earlier, the source of truth. What you have been saying all along, has proven to be true.

Nick Kalm: [00:41:02]

Absolutely. And the other thing, you mentioned it in passing just now about the whole free speech issue. As long as I’ve been doing this and I imagine you would agree, the chilling effect that the current NLRB has had, the one that is going to be soon changing, on company free speech rights, has been one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever seen since I’ve been doing this for more than 30 years. And it’s very unfortunate that it’s caused a lot of organizations to feel like they are putting too much at risk to represent and to exercise their free speech rights, which are in the Constitution, that they’re able to do that.

[00:41:37]

Again, they shouldn’t mischaracterize anything, but they should be able to speak up. And I think companies now, again, as you said, it’s going to change soon. But I would encourage anybody who’s listening to this, do not let anyone take away your free speech rights, because what will happen then is you will end up with a union anyway, and it’s going to be one that’s emboldened to basically say and do whatever they feel like they can and take you down whatever path your organization has and you have nothing to say about it, and then you’ll have nobody to look back on with regret other than yourself.

Phil Wilson: [00:42:10]

Yeah. Who knew that the board had the authority to? They obviously feel like it’s okay to ignore the Supreme Court, but the latest decision was news to me that they can also, you know, overturn the First Amendment. So, I agree with you. Employers, it’s easy to fall into the trap of being way conservative and trying not to trip over this basically Byzantine, impossible set of obstacles that the board is trying to put in front of employers from just talking to your employees, which you have every right to do. It’s protected under the statute. It’s protected by the First Amendment.

[00:42:50]

This will all get sorted out, whether it’s a new board or courts of appeals that look at these decisions. This will eventually be sorted out. But in the meantime, it’s easy to get talked into I’ll just sit on the sidelines because I don’t want to accidentally run afoul of these crazy decisions. And you should not do that. You should exercise your speech rights. Tell the truth. Explain to people how it works. This is not going around threatening people, and making outrageous promises to them. Just explain how it works.

[00:43:33]

And again, like I said earlier, people are not dumb. They may fall for the promise, you know, of a union organizer for a while, but eventually, they’ll understand, like, ‘Oh, this is how it works.’ And they may not like the way that it works, but this is the way the law works. The board cannot overturn the law. And that’s the situation we’re in. Well, why don’t we sum up here? Is there anything that you feel we didn’t cover that you thought we would? What other kind of sum-up advice would you give for employers know?

Nick Kalm: [00:44:12]

I think a big part of it is it’s not just as you said earlier on, Phil, it’s not just about support during bargaining or even union avoidance, but just good employee engagement, right? You’ve got a new book that speaks specifically about leadership and all of that and all of the work that you guys do in approachable leadership. Any organization, whether they are fully unionized or completely non-union, and confident they’ll stay that way, needs to be thinking about how we improve how we communicate with our employees and our prospective employees every single day in terms of educating them about the business, about what the financial realities are, what the competitive realities are.

[00:44:49]

They’ll get all kinds of benefits there. They probably will not get a union organizing effort. They’ll probably get through bargaining more smoothly. They’ll have an easier time recruiting. They’ll have more productive employees. They need to lean into that. That’s an area that organizations again, we’ve been through some challenging economic times with Covid and the pandemic and so forth, and a lot of organizations have cut back their investment on employee communications and their commitment to it. But it’s so important.

[00:45:16]

And one thing we didn’t talk about a lot, but so important, where the communications also needs to really happen, is at that frontline leadership level, which again, your book very effectively talks about that and how to make sure that people communicate who are frontline supervisors, who employees look to as management and look to as guidance. If you can invest in them, make sure that they are equipped to be good communicators. Don’t just promote them into those roles because they were good at doing the production employee role. Are they good at communicating? Are they good at winning hearts and minds? Invest in them. Invest in them to be communicators, and then do that every day and you’ll be better off.

Phil Wilson: [00:45:55]

Yeah. One other thing that you just reminded me of, that I think we ought to talk a little bit about. So, you’ve got labor lawyers, you have labor consultants like us, you have communications consultants. How do all of these pieces work together? And I’ll give my quick take on it and then I’d love your thoughts on it as well. You as the client, so the business owner, you have access to these different sets of expertise. And when you’re going into bargaining, you got to figure out what is the right team for me, which, by the way, is different for- some companies have people that have bargained lots of contracts already on their team and know how it works and already have like credibility.

[00:46:44]

That’s the person who should be your spokesperson. And then if you do that, then you probably don’t need a lawyer at the table. You don’t need a consultant at the table. I still would argue you need communications expertise. Unless you have that already inside your company. And again, not just I have a communications person, but a communications person that’s communicated during bargaining. But that could be one scenario. Sometimes the sometimes the labor attorney wants to be at the table. And so, if you’ve got a labor attorney you’re working with and they want to negotiate the contract like that, that works great.

[00:47:24]

Some lawyers don’t want to be at the table because then they become witnesses to whatever legal claims get made, and they would rather be litigating and defending you on the legal claim. So in that case, if you don’t have the internal expertise, you might rely on someone like us and have expertise at the table. No matter who you’re using at the bargaining table itself, you still have to have communications expertise. And so, what I would tell people is, you know, we do a lot of communicating. We’re not a law firm, and we don’t practice law.

[00:48:05]

We do a lot of communicating with employees. We still engage with you because you are specialists at communicating in these types of situations. And if we’re working at the table, the people that are doing the bargaining really don’t have time to pay a lot of attention to the comms. And normally what happens then is that comms ends up just like taking a back seat because you’re like, I’ve got to respond to all these proposals that just came in and I need to develop some counter-proposals.

[00:48:41]

And it’s like, yeah, we need to communicate but we’ll do that later. And then it just doesn’t happen. So, talk a little bit about your side of that, your experience with why is it important to have kind of the comms resource as part of that team.

Nick Kalm: [00:48:55]

Well, I think you nailed it. I agree with every word you said. I think it’s absolutely spot on. The thing I would just add, though, is even if you’re an organization that has experienced labor negotiations on staff, they still would benefit from having somebody like you, Phil, or somebody from your organization advising them, because unless they are so worldly and so networked and they’re so focused on not only their own organization, but everything that’s going on at the NLRB, everything that’s going on at Congress, everything that’s going on in different industries that could bleed over into them, they would still benefit from having the expertise that you and your team provide, telling them about what’s going on.

[00:49:36]

So, even if all they do is negotiate contracts all year long for their employer, and you and I both know many people in that role, those folks still would benefit from your and your organization’s expertise. But from my point of view, it’s best when it is a partnership, right? Ideally, there is an experienced labor lawyer who’s either at the table to your point or not at the table, but advising the employer, your organization there from a consulting strategy standpoint. Again, lawyers are able to do this as well. Certainly, they think about it. But I think your perspective as well.

[00:50:12]

And then from a communications standpoint, how is this proposal going to go over? How is this going to go over with the employees? How’s it going to go over with the Non-bargaining unit employees? How’s it going to go over with the community? How is the media going to characterize this? What’s the union going to say about it? You really need somebody who’s bringing that perspective every day to what’s going on. So, the ideal relationship that I’ve seen is where we have all three legs of the stool resent, the outside labor Council, your organization, Phil, and somebody from my shop.

Phil Wilson: [00:50:44]

Yeah. I think this is a great place to end, but we really did not talk at all about what if you have an external communications issue. What if you are either the biggest employer in town or you’re in an industry that’s sort of like politically a hot potato? There are a lot of other communications things that we didn’t exactly touch on. So maybe we’ll do another episode where we talk a little bit about communicating when you have a big external communication issue. I think we’ve really covered, though, communicating to the bargaining unit and communicating in a way that’s going to help you, not just get to a deal, but get that deal ratified and get it done in a way with not so much drama that once you get the deal, everyone can go back to work and things can get back to the way that they were before.

[00:51:39]

So, I really appreciate as always, great expertise and great thoughts on this. And it’s always great to work together. And I appreciate you sharing your expertise with our audience.

Nick Kalm: [00:51:54]

Absolutely. A pleasure for me as well. And I hope we gave the audience some things to think about, some tips, and so forth. And obviously, they know how to find you and find us and are always happy to just bounce things off of people if they’re thinking about what to do.

Phil Wilson: [00:52:07]

Yeah. Well. Thanks, Nick. We’ll see you soon.

Nick Kalm: [00:52:11]

All right. Thank you.

[END OF TRANSCRIPT].