The Steward: A Union-Buster Watchdog

Report: The U.S. Union Avoidance Industry Goes Global

The United States is alone among rich democracies in allowing an enormous industry of law firms dedicated to defeating union organizing campaigns and keeping their clients—including many multinational corporations (MNCs)—union free. These firms have perfected union avoidance techniques that make it extraordinarily difficult for unions to organize in the private sector.1 In recent years, several firms that specialize in union avoidance activities have extended their activities globally: Littler Mendelson and Ogletree Deakins employ attorneys in multiple countries, provide union avoidance advice to a growing number of MNCs and have annual revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Other large law firms specializing in union avoidance, such as Jackson Lewis and Fisher Phillips, have internationalized operations through alliances with overseas management law firms.

Read

  • Report: The U.S. Union Avoidance Industry Goes Global

    The United States is alone among rich democracies in allowing an enormous industry of law firms dedicated to defeating union organizing campaigns and keeping their clients—including many multinational corporations (MNCs)—union free. These firms have perfected union avoidance techniques that make it extraordinarily difficult for unions to organize in the private sector.1 In recent years, several firms that specialize in union avoidance activities have extended their activities globally: Littler Mendelson and Ogletree Deakins employ attorneys in multiple countries, provide union avoidance advice to a growing number of MNCs and have annual revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Other large law firms specializing in union avoidance, such as Jackson Lewis and Fisher Phillips, have internationalized operations through alliances with overseas management law firms.

    Read

  • Warren Buffet, Special Metals, and the fight for respect in Appalachia

    The Holler has produced one heck of a video regarding the Huntington strike.

    Read

  • Report: Google ordered to hand over union-busting strategy documents

    Google will have to turn over documents outlining its anti-union strategy in response to a National Labor Relations Board complaint against the online search giant.

    Read

  • Report: Amazon Workers May Get Another Chance to Unionize in Alabama

    In April, after an aggressive anti-union campaign from Amazon, warehouse workers in Bessemer overwhelmingly voted not to authorize a union.

    Read

  • Foodlink is Running an Aggressive Campaign Against Workers

    When a majority of Foodlink workers requested voluntary recognition of their union, the Rochester food bank refused and has now launched an aggressive union-busting campaign targeting employees. The dark irony of a food bank targeting the rights of its workers is not lost on us.

    Read

  • 5 Common Union-Busting Tactics

    “Union busting is a field populated by bullies and built on deceit. A campaign against a union is an assault on individuals and a war on truth. As such, it is a war without honor. The only way to bust a union is to lie, distort, manipulate, threaten, and always, always attack.” – Martin Jay Levitt, 1993, Confessions of a Union Buster

    Read

  • Report: A Homeless Amazon Worker Tried to Organize a Union. Then Amazon Fired Him.

    Since August, 25-year-old Daequan Smith has traveled most days from a homeless shelter in the Bronx to Amazon’s fulfillment center on Staten Island, where he worked unloading and sorting products. The trip required him to travel on the 4 or 5 train from the Bronx to lower Manhattan, cross New York Harbor on the Staten Island Ferry, and ride the S40 bus to its last stop in Bloomfield, the home of Amazon’s sprawling Staten Island campus. All in all, it could take Smith up to three hours to make the trip.

    Read

  • Report: The Union Busters on Starbucks’ Board of Directors

    Starbucks is trying to crush a groundbreaking organizing drive. A closer look at the company reveals a board of directors stacked with anti-worker executives.

    Read

  • Report: Bates’ latest union-busting hire has long record of being ‘not neutral’

    Bates College administration continues to dig in against the ongoing staff unionization effort. In recent weeks, the school has brought in a series of anti-union consultants, the latest hire a high-priced Boston lawyer who has drawn the ire of Massachusetts labor advocates and who once admitted in a meeting with workers attempting to organize that she is “not neutral.”

    Read

  • We've Got The Union-Busters' Attention

    Guess who just signed up for our email list?

    Read