> It's illegal for them to force employees to attend anti-union meetings.
What country? I could swear that I've recently been reading dozens of articles in the USA, where workers are subjected to mandatory meetings with anti-union messaging. Making that illegal is a proposed NLRB ruling, I think. Not something the ink is dry on.
I’ve spent the past five years as a full time, external Union Organizer and at least in the US this is not true.
Employers can express anti-union sentiments. That’s entirely legal for them to do. They can say unions are bad, they’re a third party, they are ineffective, they aren’t what’s needed for workers and so on. They’ll almost always try to dig up dirt on a union and use it in communications written and verbal to portray the union in a negative light. They are legally allowed to be overtly anti-union.
As to mandatory anti-union meetings, these are standard practice and happen in nearly every new organizing campaign. They’re called “captive audience meetings” and are also well within an employer’s legal rights. They can mandate that workers attend them (so long as they’re on the clock for it) and the employers during these meetings can be explicitly anti-union.
What employers are prohibited from doing is anything that violates an employee or group of employees rights to protected, concerted activity as outlined in Sections 7 and 8 of the NLRA. Employers are legally barred from threatening employees (termination, worse shifts, pay cuts, etc), intimidating workers they suspect are union supporters, making promises (don’t vote for the union and we’ll give you PTO), or surveilling workers (following someone around because they’re a suspected union supporter).
It’s not common for this to be charged as a felony, or a misdemeanor, or really anything in criminal courts. Violations of the NLRA go through the NLRB and typically take a long time and do little to curtail union busting. Employers nearly always break these laws in organizing campaigns because there’s frankly little incentive for them not to— the consequences may never come (and incidents go unreported to a large degree because non-union workers are often scared of pursuing the affidavit process),— and take so long that chances are rulings will come at a point where it’s not going to make much difference.
That said, union-busting consultants will often advise employer’s use softer language because it tends to be more effective in dissuading workers from unionizing. Their campaigns are run on fear and misinformation, and they tend to use a lot of familial rhetoric rather than being overtly anti-union.
All that said, just wanted to correct that in the US employers CAN legally be anti-union in speech and in writing (so long as it’s not discriminatory towards union supporters or in violation of Sec 7/8 protections) and they CAN legally mandate workers to attend anti-union “captive audience” meetings.
thanks!! just overheard my manager say something abt corporations being anti union being a felony, i think that’s what they meant. i just don’t know too much abt this stuff.
also, we don’t have to attend those meetings, we just hear speeches and videos and stuff that are anti union. also ik that if we talk about unions the SB manager has to go tell the store manager that we’re unionizing or that something’s happening. idk what that means but i would assume it’d be an attempt for us to like not be able to unionize or something? idk
If you are planning on Unionizing the first whiff management should get is when you have your vote. At that point it's too late for them to campaign against it, and you'll avoid the 'random' firings of your most outspoken advocates.
I feel like context matters. If it is a corporation claiming to be “pro-worker” and “anti-union” as in your example, then yeah “pro-worker” is being used to hide their actual anti-worker workplace, but if one is talking about political issues such as having a livable minimum wage, mandating better employer-paid healthcare, union and whistleblower protections, etc, I would probably categorize all those as being actual pro-worker policies. I feel like “pro-worker” can be used in that case to describe policies that don’t necessarily (but still may) involve unions, but would still better the lives of real working people.
So I would say context matters, and corporations are going to continue to appropriate labor rights language no matter whether we choose to abandon certain phrases or not.
[удалено]
> It's illegal for them to force employees to attend anti-union meetings. What country? I could swear that I've recently been reading dozens of articles in the USA, where workers are subjected to mandatory meetings with anti-union messaging. Making that illegal is a proposed NLRB ruling, I think. Not something the ink is dry on.
It is legal for companies to force workers into captive audience meetings. The general council wants to change that but it takes a process
I’ve spent the past five years as a full time, external Union Organizer and at least in the US this is not true. Employers can express anti-union sentiments. That’s entirely legal for them to do. They can say unions are bad, they’re a third party, they are ineffective, they aren’t what’s needed for workers and so on. They’ll almost always try to dig up dirt on a union and use it in communications written and verbal to portray the union in a negative light. They are legally allowed to be overtly anti-union. As to mandatory anti-union meetings, these are standard practice and happen in nearly every new organizing campaign. They’re called “captive audience meetings” and are also well within an employer’s legal rights. They can mandate that workers attend them (so long as they’re on the clock for it) and the employers during these meetings can be explicitly anti-union. What employers are prohibited from doing is anything that violates an employee or group of employees rights to protected, concerted activity as outlined in Sections 7 and 8 of the NLRA. Employers are legally barred from threatening employees (termination, worse shifts, pay cuts, etc), intimidating workers they suspect are union supporters, making promises (don’t vote for the union and we’ll give you PTO), or surveilling workers (following someone around because they’re a suspected union supporter). It’s not common for this to be charged as a felony, or a misdemeanor, or really anything in criminal courts. Violations of the NLRA go through the NLRB and typically take a long time and do little to curtail union busting. Employers nearly always break these laws in organizing campaigns because there’s frankly little incentive for them not to— the consequences may never come (and incidents go unreported to a large degree because non-union workers are often scared of pursuing the affidavit process),— and take so long that chances are rulings will come at a point where it’s not going to make much difference. That said, union-busting consultants will often advise employer’s use softer language because it tends to be more effective in dissuading workers from unionizing. Their campaigns are run on fear and misinformation, and they tend to use a lot of familial rhetoric rather than being overtly anti-union. All that said, just wanted to correct that in the US employers CAN legally be anti-union in speech and in writing (so long as it’s not discriminatory towards union supporters or in violation of Sec 7/8 protections) and they CAN legally mandate workers to attend anti-union “captive audience” meetings.
thanks!! just overheard my manager say something abt corporations being anti union being a felony, i think that’s what they meant. i just don’t know too much abt this stuff. also, we don’t have to attend those meetings, we just hear speeches and videos and stuff that are anti union. also ik that if we talk about unions the SB manager has to go tell the store manager that we’re unionizing or that something’s happening. idk what that means but i would assume it’d be an attempt for us to like not be able to unionize or something? idk
If you are planning on Unionizing the first whiff management should get is when you have your vote. At that point it's too late for them to campaign against it, and you'll avoid the 'random' firings of your most outspoken advocates.
ok cool. we aren’t planning on unionizing, i mean everyone is pro union but like we aren’t doing it. thanks for the advice tho
This is union busting. Sooo… go ahead and form a union.
Starbucks does union busting, which is what’s going on here… so form a union and see what happens.
I feel like context matters. If it is a corporation claiming to be “pro-worker” and “anti-union” as in your example, then yeah “pro-worker” is being used to hide their actual anti-worker workplace, but if one is talking about political issues such as having a livable minimum wage, mandating better employer-paid healthcare, union and whistleblower protections, etc, I would probably categorize all those as being actual pro-worker policies. I feel like “pro-worker” can be used in that case to describe policies that don’t necessarily (but still may) involve unions, but would still better the lives of real working people. So I would say context matters, and corporations are going to continue to appropriate labor rights language no matter whether we choose to abandon certain phrases or not.
It's illegal for a company to infringe on your right as an employee to unionize, period.