We’ve all read the obituaries of organized labor in the U.S. But, there is one segment that has seen a growth in unionized workers: service businesses. And who is leading the way in growth in service industries? That’s right, entrepreneurs. Inc. tells of the growth of organized labor in small service businesses in this article by Amy Gunderson.
“True, union membership as a whole continues to decline. But groups active in professional and service industries are booming, their ranks swelled by workers who fear increased health insurance costs and the outsourcing of jobs to Asia. IT staffers, graphic designers, and engineers — this is the new face of labor. And guess where many of them work? The average workplace organized last year had just 53 workers. ‘More attention is being paid to smaller workplaces,’ says Bob Bruno, a labor and industrial relations professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who adds that ‘organized labor has a higher success rate in small businesses.’ There are several reasons for this. Labor activists have discovered that unlike large corporations, small businesses often lack the resources and the know-how to fight unionization. Plus, their employees are are often more receptive to organization because union reps can make a personal, individual appeal for their support.
And unlike the large old economy companies that they populated over the past century, unions are behaving rather entrepreneurially.
“Old-school union bosses, sensing a rare opportunity to grow, are devoting more resources to small-company campaigns. For example, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, whose members have traditionally come from the likes of Boeing and General Electric, recently launched a Web-based effort to organize technology workers. Other established unions have made inroads in a variety of traditionally nonunionized sectors, ranging from restaurants to nonprofits to health care, where even doctors are now pursuing collective bargaining with HMOs. But it is tech workers who are, without question, the group that unions are focusing on with the most intensity.”
There are two old adages that I used to teach about in Management classes twenty years ago:
1. Poor management practices are the biggest single cause of worker unionization.
2. You get the union you deserve.
Probably still good words for today’s managers of small businesses to think about.
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