How Do We Reduce the Chance Our Employees Will Unionize?

How Do We Reduce the Chance Our Employees Will Unionize?
	What are companies doing to reduce the likelihood of employees wanting to join unions?—Looking Over Our Shoulder, education, Columbus, Ohio
	Dr. Charles Hughes of the Center for Values Research once said, "Companies that get a union deserve it, and they get the one they deserve." We agree. Though unions in the U.S. private sector have largely become irrelevant, they still exist, and pose a threat to businesses that prefer to deal directly with their workforces. So what are union-free companies doing? In short, they are treating people well enough that the union proposition is of no perceived value, and no interest. More specifically, they realize that people give up on their management for the same reasons that they give up on their spouse or significant other--when they believe they have been abused, ignored, taken advantage of or disrespected. As evidenced by the meltdowns at passenger airlines and automakers, unions can no longer make credible claims to providing pay, benefit or job security advantages. Forward-thinking organizations are removing unions' last remaining value proposition by installing viable employee complaint resolution procedures, notably those with a peer review element. Indeed, a number of companies have seen formerly unionized portions of their workforce decertified by virtue of having adopted a scrupulously fair alternative dispute resolution process. Union-free companies are beginning to do a better job of listening. We have noticed in our own practice that employers are paying more careful attention to climate survey results. The ones who are really serious about it are incorporating those results into their business metrics, and holding managers as accountable for people results as they do for production results. Most organizations are dealing more aggressively with non-performers and malcontents--people who stand to gain the most from the Byzantine work rules that often accompany a collective bargaining agreement--and also with managers whose boorish behavior provides fertile territory for an organizing campaign in the first place. The use of executive coaching often provides good results for those in the latter category. Some companies are using open-book management principles as a way of dealing in good faith, and telling their employees the truth--about everything, large and small. They share with them good news, and bad. And when it's bad news, they tell them early, in person, and with some human sensitivity. All other things being equal, people tend to trust managers they see a lot more than ones they don't. Absentee or invisible managers make people wonder what they're up to, and do little to create the kind of worker/manager relationship that keeps unions at bay. Workers simply don't vote to bring in a union to represent them against managers with whom they have a trusting, respectful relationship. Managers who demonstrate that they genuinely care about their employees are rarely repaid with a union certification. [SOURCE: Richard Hadden and Bill Catlette , co-authors, Contented Cows Give Better Milk , April 4, 2006.]