Butch Cassidy Would Love These New Ambush Elections

The word 'ambush' reminds me of the wild west with outlaws frequently coming out of hiding & making sudden, surprise attacks on banks, trains & jails. Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid would develop their plans, wait until the time was right & then attack without warning.

The new National Labor Boards regulations - which took effect April 14 - create a similar scenario. Union organizers traditionally have met in private with the employees they have wanted to organize - making promises they were not legally obligated to fulfill, having employees sign authorization cards & telling those employees to not let their employer know of these meetings.

Prior to these new regulations companies typically had six weeks - from the time a petition for election was filed until the election was held. And companies needed all of those six weeks to train their supervisors, identify the issues upsetting their employees & educate those employees to the disadvantages to them in being represented by a union. As of April 14 that timeline has been dramatically reduced from six to two/three weeks - with the previous 25 day waiting period being eliminated.

For years unions have lobbied hard & paid millions to get these regulations passed. And as intended, the regulations give management teams little time to react & make it much easier for unions to organize companies. So, like Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, unions can secretly rally employees & then catch employers unaware & unprepared. However, there are two proven, practical preventive initiatives employers are utilizing.

#1 Understanding why traditionally some employees have wanted to be represented - Fortunately there has been considerable research as to why pro-union employees view their employers differently from pro-company employees.

In one study 10,000 employees completed a survey of 100 work-related questions - with one of those questions being whether they preferred being represented by a union or not. The researchers separated the responses into pro-company vs. pro-union employee segments & analyzed the differences in their responses. 

They found that pro-union employees view their organizations differently from pro-company employees regarding six key workplace issues. Whether employees:

• believe their company is committed to quality products & services
• trust & see concern for employees displayed by their leadership team
• are shown respect & fair treatment by their supervisors
• see opportunities for development & advancement for all employees
• perceive that there is internal & external equity within their compensation plans
• have proper work/life balance      

#2 Conducting employee surveys to ascertain how employees feel about the above six issues - We at The Focus Group have been assisting clients through a quick Union Vulnerability Survey containing only 18 closed questions based on the research mentioned. We then segment our clients' survey results by department & supervisor & report their employee responses with a comparison to our data base.

Their survey findings are enabling our clients to implement specific, focused improvement steps. And in doing so, these clients are pro-actively preparing themselves to negate a potential union ambush & election - by causing their employees to have no reason to want union representation.