Labor Looks for Labor Day Love

By Lehr Middlebrooks Vreeland & Thompson, P.C.

August 23, 2017

"I was lookin' for love in all the wrong places, lookin' for love in too many faces, searchin' their eyes and lookin' for traces of what I'm dreamin' of.”

The song “Looking for Love,” written by Wanda Mallette, aptly describes the circumstances of organized labor on this Labor Day. First celebrated in 1882 to provide a “working man’s holiday,” Labor Day has evolved to include an analysis of the state of labor unions. Despite labor’s political expenditures and substantial support from the Obama Administration, its membership rolls continued a precipitous decline. In essence, employees are not interested in labor’s message, a message which has been virtually unchanged since the turn of the century, the 20th century that is.

The labor movement has evolved from an equivalent of a “Walmart” influence on the marketplace to a Trader Joe’s: a much smaller operation but with a loyal group of customers. Approximately 32% of private sector employees were union members 60 years ago; today it’s only 6.4%. Since 1990, unions spent $4.4 billion on state and federal campaigns, with 91% support for Democrats and 8% support for Republicans. During the 2016 presidential election, 43% of union households voted for Donald Trump and he carried states with double digit union membership like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. During the past five years, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, West Virginia, and Wisconsin have joined South Carolina and the rest of the South to become right-to-work states. In a right-to-work state, it is illegal for an employer and union to agree to union security language, where employees must pay union dues and fees or else be terminated. The impact on unions of the right-to-work movement is profound. For example, Michigan became a right-to-work state on March 8, 2013. The number of dues-paying union members in Michigan during the past four years has dropped from 671,000 to 605,000.

During the Obama Administration, the NLRB election rules were changed to a process more favorable for unions, shortening the amount of time an employer can respond to a union request for an election and expanding the opportunity for unions to organize smaller groups of employees. Yet one year after these rules became effective, the number of elections filed by unions declined nationally from 1,490 to 1,299, although the union win rate in those elections rose from 69% to 72%.

Why Labor’s Decline?

There are several reasons why this Labor Day, unions look in the mirror and see a continuation of a decline in the labor movement:

1. An outdated “victims and villains” organizing approach. Labor’s effort to generate employee support is premised on a model of employer villains and employee victims. While it is true that poor employee relations practices may lead to any number of problems, including unionization, the primary issues that concern employees today are not the fair treatment issues of 50 years ago. Employees want to know if they do a good job today, will their job be here tomorrow, or will it be outsourced, replaced by technology or relocated. Employees want to know what they can do to increase their value to the company: how to become a more valued asset so that, in turn, they can receive more compensation. The union model based on seniority does not resonate with today’s employees. Rather, employees are more entrepreneurial, they do not want to wait in the queue for their turn based upon length of service. Historically, the argument for employment decisions based upon seniority was that seniority is objective and avoids favoritism. In today’s environment, employers cannot afford to play “favorites” unrelated to the job. Furthermore, an array of state and federal anti-discrimination statutes lead employers to focus on differences in treatment based on business reasons, not favoritism.

2. Labor’s contributions to local, state, and federal legislative successes ironically result in employees concluding they don’t need unions. For example, labor strongly supports local “Fight for $15” ordinances to raise the minimum wage to $15. These ordinances nationally have been directed at the fast food and hospitality industries. Although those affected employees no doubt appreciate labor’s support for their raises, they are not interested in taking one week a year of their pay and giving it to the union in the form of dues. Thus, each legislative success unions contribute to diminishes the need for employees to seek out a union.

3. Failure to play “small ball”. The smaller the group of employees– such as fewer than 50– the greater the opportunity for union success. A smaller group of employees tends to have more issues in common that drive the interest in unionization.

An example involved the United Auto Workers and the Volkswagen facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee. On February 14, 2014, Volkswagen employees broke the UAW’s heart when they voted against union representation by 626 to 712. That was a “wall to wall” vote, covering all employees in the plant. On December 4, 2015, another vote occurred at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, but only among the skilled trade employees. Those employees voted by a better than a two-to-one margin for union representation, 108-44. Rather than trying to hit the “long ball” at Boeing, VW, or most recently at Nissan in Canton, Mississippi, unions would be far more effective if they focused on discrete groups of employees with issues in common, rather than the overall workforce.

4. Failure to project itself as an asset to business. In labor negotiations, the only time I’ve ever hear a union ask, “What can we do to help the company,” was when the company notified the union that it was closing or relocating its business. Unions do not communicate a value proposition. They do not take a position of what they can do to enhance an employer’s competitiveness or expand the employer’s brand. Instead, unions focus on executive compensation and other class issues. Ultimately, whether employees decide to unionize depends upon the answer to the question of do they think they’ll be better off with or without a union, not how much executives are paid.

5. Male and stale union leadership. While working one’s way from the shop floor to president of the union is admirable, unions need imaginative, aggressive, and shrewd CEOs – the type they belittle in the private sector. Unions are big business and they should be led by sophisticated business people.

Few businesses remain successful using a model which is equivalent of trying to force a pill down a cat’s throat. Only when labor stops blaming employers and the law for why employees are not interested in unions, will labor be able to sing the joyous conclusion of “Looking for Love,” which is “No more lookin' for love in all the wrong place lookin' for love in too many faces, searchin' their eyes and lookin' for traces of what I'm dreamin' of...