William Samuel, Government Affairs Director of the AFL-CIO, said heis certain that organized labor’s top priority, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), that would make it much easier for unions to organizebusinesses both large and small, will pass Congress and be signed by President Elect Barack Obama within the first 100 days of the new administration. Samuel also said that the more than $300 million spent by labor unions to educate workers was crucial to the Democrats’ successin key battleground states. Obama was a co-sponsor of last year’s version of the bill and has vowed to sign it when the incoming Congress finally passes it. Read More “Organized Labor’s Top Priority”

For unions, strategizing and moving forward with an attack against atargeted company is an exercise that is very time consuming. A corporate campaign launched by a union, takes copious amounts of time and enormous sums of their member’s money. The goal is complex, the union needs to research every aspect of the target’s operation and its competitors in order to expose whatever weaknesses may exist. The targetis most likely within its core industrial makeup. Setting earmarks, assigning regional responsibilities, financing, manning the project and setting the base targets to be attacked are some of the first things that need to be completed. Unions will attack the public image of its target. The union campaign will usually have the following goals: Read More “November 2007”

Evolution of Protests, Strikes, and Mass Movements into Riots

Protests, labor strikes and mass movements have been cropping up around the globe recently, and regularly devolve into social unrest.

What drives these events and how (and why) do they proliferate? What do they share in common? Do they each derive from individual sparks, or are they somehow intertwined? Can these social phenomena be contained and extinguished, or are they destined to disrupt our daily routines? Read More “Lighting the Fuse”

For months I have been speaking about the dangers of the HR800 bill that passed through the House of Representative on a very fast track. I testified to the Kennedy Miller committee on the pressure and harassment to sign cards that will surely happen if the unions don’t have to go through an NLRB supervised election, I have warned companies of the dangers that will occur if you don’t agree to a union’s unreasonable demands; within 3 months, a mediator will be appointed, and a month later… an arbitrator will imposeterms on you. Read More “June 2007”

Union organizing campaigns are all about discovering the opponent’s weaknesses. Once the union has delved their vulnerabilities, they then use them again their target in every possible way. Read More “Insurgent Organizing”

In this issue, Rick provides companies with an insight into why they are failing with their immigrant/Hispanic workforce, and how they can fix these issues in orderto hinder organizing campaigns. Read More “Immigration Gamble”

A New Chapter in the Union Movement

I remember back in 2008, when the Democrats had a big year on Capitol Hill, hearing Andy Stern on TV raising Hell. He stated “If they (elected politicians) don’t pass the Employee Free Choice Act then they need to know that we (Unions) put them in office and we will take them out of office”.

Stern had been an advocate for spending less money on political puppets and more on grass roots organizing efforts for many years. In 1984, when AFL-CIO President John Sweeney appointed Stern as the head ofthe organizing department, they were already showing signs of internal conflict when discussing the best way to use union resources. Read More “How a Changing of the Guard Has Changed Unions and Politics”

Fixing a Broken Weapon

House Calls are simply not the same as they were when I was a National Organizing Director. Don’t get me wrong. Organizers still make house calls but when my team made them, they had a different mindset (and skillset) than many organizers out there today. But unions have identified this flaw and are working on strategies to fix a broken weapon.
Read More “House Calls”

Why You Should Have Concern

Should today’s leaders in healthcare and emergency services care about the unions? Yes. Unions aretargeting these industries with full force. Remember, membership levelsin the union as an institution are at an all time low. They are also inthe BUSINESS of making money off of dues in exchange for unit representation. When membership is down, profits are down. When profits are down, business leaders find ways to bring them back into the black. Healthcare and emergency services are low hanging fruit which has historically gone relatively untapped. Read More “Healthcare, Emergency Medical Services and the Union:”

Fighting Back

As a former union official with 24 years experience (many of which were spent as an Organizing Director with campaigns in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico), I have read with interest about the myths regarding how union organizers influence your workers to vote for the union in article after article authored by “union experts”. It seems that these experts have little to no real world experience with the union (low-level organizers within the union or HR professionals who worked ona handful of campaigns), or dare I say that they are making up stories to sell their services to unsuspecting and vulnerable clients who are inpanic mode when being pursued by the union. Either way, I am going to set the record straight and discuss the realities of how unions get to employees and how by being a “good manager” you can greatly increase theodds of victory against the union if faced with a campaign. Read More “He Who Wins the Hearts of Employees Wins Campaigns”