How To Embrace Employees That Want To Unionize
Unions are back, baby!
The labor movement spirit that moved millions of people to leave their jobs for higher pay and better working conditions is the same that is bringing unions back into popular favor.
I made it clear in last month’s Best & Worst my distaste for the way Amazon and Starbucks are behaving while employees work to unionize. The tone-deafness and fit-pitching continue.
I won’t rehash the history, nor will I provide a comprehensive update, but here’s a wee one: As mighty little unions pop up at Starbucks locations all over the country (five Starbucks stores in my hometown of Richmond, VA, voted and got their union), the newly returned (and interim) Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz put on a $900 Thom Browne sweater and insisted that “some new outside force” (Starbucks’s actual employees) is “trying desperately to disrupt our company” (get normal things, like fair wages, benefits, and job protections).
In case you’re not familiar with totalitarian politics, that is a page from the playbook: Cast a benevolent or neutral force as a boogeyman out to get you.
But I’d like to keep it lighter for now. Not all unions have formed through bloodshed, and there are employers that have calmly recognized them.
In March, several hundred employees at the publisher Condé Nast announced their plans to unionize. And while there has been picketing on the part of the unionizers, it looks like this could be relatively friendly negotiation.
In addition to writers, “editors, social media managers, graphic artists, fashion assistants, and researchers” too are “fed up and burned out,” writes Ginia Bellafante, also for the Times. “They [are] seeking overtime compensation for relentless hours, pay transparency, and salary floors, which previously unionized colleagues at The New Yorker obtained last year. They [worry] about layoffs without severance and meetings where minority representation often amounted to the presence of a single person in the room.”
Condé Nast has voluntarily recognized other unions before, and Katie Robertson at The New York Times reported that a spokesperson from the publisher has said, in response to the current unionizing, “We plan to have productive and thoughtful conversations with them over the coming weeks to learn more.”
That’s not a green light, but so far, the outlook is positive for unionizers. Relatively few waves (at least so far) from the Condé Nast camp might be related to the fact that unions aren’t uncommon among journalists and writers. Additionally, Conde Nast has been suffering PR rot from “waves of internal turmoil in the past two years over the treatment of employees of color and the low wages of some workers,” writes Katie Robertson.” And the publishing industry—books and magazines alike—has been bleeding staff for years now.
In this way, the unions may actually help the industry to pull itself up again and begin a new chapter of equity and fair treatment. It could amount to recovery.
Digging in the heels isn’t the only response to unionization. As companies respond to demands to increase diversity and equity, especially at the highest levels of a company, not only might unions be embraced by those in power who once benefitted from them or even founded them, employees may feel little need for unions if the company is holding up its end of the deal as an employer.
If your workforce moves to unionize, go with it. The goal of a union is to protect workers, which ultimately protects you as an employer from being negligent, overreaching, and underpaying, which can happen to even well-intentioned people, so it helps to have someone checking the power. But if you need a more immediate “business case”: imagine the incredible press you could get from embracing unionized workers.
Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance writer based in Richmond, VA, who writes about workplace culture and policies, hiring, DEI, employer branding, and issues faced by women. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Fast Company, and Food Technology, among others, and has been syndicated by MSN and The Motley Fool.
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