Union Avoidance

To stay union-free, union avoidance practices must be a central focus of your business objectives. Union avoidance cannot be done haphazardly, part-time, or after other “more pressing” matters are complete. The autonomy to run your business as you desire is paramount to the success of your business. Unions stifle that autonomy. The three prongs to union avoidance are corporate culture, positive employee relations, and employee training. All three of these are equally important to avoid a union organizing campaign.

Corporate Culture

A corporate culture focused on positive employee relations is not anti-union. Rather, unions prey on companies with cultures that do not practice positive employee relations. The easiest way to avoid having a union organizing campaign at your company is to instill positive employee relations at your workplace. To truly establish a positive employee corporate culture, companies must have buy-in from all levels of employees from executives, supervisors, human resources, and others. Austin Legal works with companies to ensure positive employee relations are central to the corporate culture.

Positive Employee Relations

Unions focus on driving a wedge between management and non-managerial employees. To do this, unions tell the employees – among other things – that the employees are not paid enough, do not receive enough time off, do not have enough of a voice in how the company operates, and will be terminated haphazardly if not in a union. This message is easily countered through positive employee relations and begins with the premise that companies want their employees to be happy, long term, and successful.

Positive employee relations cover many areas, including, supervisor training, executive training, human resource manager training, to name a few. Together, these activities help assess susceptibility to a union organizing drive and highlights areas where companies can improve relationships with their most valued asset – their employees. Austin Legal works directly with employers to achieve this level of positive employee relations.

Austin Legal partners with vendors for positive employee relations services in areas where the law firm cannot efficiently or economically perform. Each of these vendors has been highly scrutinized and personally selected based on their knowledge, passion, skill, customer service, and success.

Employee Training

Employers who have never been through a union organizing campaign do not know how devastating it can be to their operation. They don’t know what they can and cannot say about organizing. They don’t know about the wide-reaching, detrimental impact unions could have on their business. Training executives, supervisors, and human resource personnel is critical to the success of remaining union-free.

Supervisor Training | A vote for a union is a vote against management. Front line supervisors have the most direct impact on whether an employee has a positive work experience. Yet, supervisors are often the least trained individuals in positive employee relations and union avoidance. Austin Legal effectively trains supervisors to identify potential organizing threats, how to respond to union organizing, and how to create a positive work experience so employees are not lured into signing authorization cards.

Executive Training | There are two types of corporate executives: those who are many levels removed from rank and file employees and those who run small businesses and are direct managers of such employees. Both of these executives have the same influence over whether their company can avoid the threat of a union organizing their workforces. Executives are busy and often overlook necessary steps of union avoidance. Austin Legal identifies overlooked areas of positive employee relations and works with executives to create and implement strategic union avoidance plans.

Human Resource Manager Training | Perhaps the largest group of employees that Austin Legal trains on union avoidance is human resource managers. For successful union avoidance, HR managers must practice positive employee relations consistently from the on boarding process, in handbooks, discipline, annual reviews, to when employment terminates. Knowing what questions to ask, information to convey, and which topics are illegal to discuss are also critical to union avoidance. Many HR managers rely on Austin Legal to help craft effective union avoidance practices.