The ongoing labor dispute between Sonoma-Cutrer and the UFW is unfortunate and has been extremely disruptive, to the winery and the community. Besides bringing friction into the workplace, a union’s organizing drive begins a process of formal proceedings that can be time-consuming, costly and divisive. Ultimately, it is accurate to say that neither party really wins.
So, I ask the question: Why would workers seek union representation?
Regardless of the opinions of the National Labor Relations Board, businesses that want to avoid representation, union organizers who profit by it, or labor attorneys and management consultants who make a business of it, there are four primary reasons.
Organized labor needs membership
Most of us have seen the bumper stickers proclaiming: ÒUnion Yes.Ó The AFL-CIO has charged member unions to expand their influence and membership. A union is a business and, like any other, must produce results. Pressure to generate better results means that unions must get more. They have to: membership is at an all-time low (less than 10 percent of the private workforce is represented by a union today).
Using key incubators like last month’s Labor and Social Action Summer School at Sonoma State, the AFL-CIO’s "Union Yes" Campaign and newly created Living Wage Coalitions, each is used to foster environments ripe for union-organizing. Strategies like these are intended to expand prospective markets.
Like any commercial enterprise trying to broaden and identify new markets, unions frequently use sophisticated research to determine what targeted groups want and media campaigns to convince their audiences that a union can get it.
Perceptions of a work environment
Employee dissatisfaction with bread-and-butter issues like wages and benefits, or others such as the quality of supervision, unfair treatment and the lack of respect, fuel perceptions that are readily transformed into interest for third-party representation.
Experience shows that unions are inventive and thrive on discontent. After getting a foot in the door, organizing activities exploit employee unrest. Dealing with core issues like money, benefits and conditions of work are difficult enough, but add the subtleties that: management made people feel badly or failed to treat employees with respect. The challenge of countering a union then becomes even more difficult.
Ability to participate and influence
If different means of participating in and influencing important work issues are not provided, employees may believe they have been mistreated in two ways. First, if a problem is known (or should have been) and management has done nothing about it, employees see those in control as having created or are at least condoning an undesirable situation. Second, the very legitimacy of trying to apply influence has been ignored. In circumstances like these, employees often try to boost their share of control through collective action.
Beliefs about unions
If a discontented workforce holds positive expectations about what a union can do for them, they may be convinced that unionizing could improve their situation. This depends on whether employees accept the concept of collective action as well as believing that only a union can get them positive results. Unionizing then may be seen as giving unhappy employees a potentially workable means of exerting control.
The decision to organize rests on whether employees believe they will be better off with a union or not. There is no certainty that collective bargaining will improve work conditions. The choice depends on whether employees are willing to accept the risks and obligations that unions bring. However, since collective action implies a loss of individuality, it may be that employees will not be as well off under a collective system where individual advantages must give way to serving the collective good.
Over the past decade, thousands of American workers have said no to union representation, literally giving their management a vote of confidence. For employees to reject third-party representation, an obligation is imposed on any employer: to provide a sound employee relations program and the best working environment possible. An effective employee relations program should be in place long before a union comes knocking at the door. If that obligation is met, staying union-free is only one of many positive outcomes. A workforce with good morale is more productive, a byproduct that can positively influence an organization’s bottom line.
John A. De Groot, Jr. is the managing partner of De Groot & Associates, Inc., a nationally known firm of labor relation consultants based in Sonoma County. He can be reached at: john@degrootinc.com or at (707) 575-4835.
