MODULE 4 – CASE- MGT412- LABOR LAW AND UNIONIZATION

Union Membership Down; Experts Say HR’s
Responsiveness May Be a Reason
Smith, Allen . HRNews ; Alexandria (Feb 10, 2017).

ProQuest document link

ABSTRACT (ENGLISH)
Some labor relations experts say that part of the reason for a decline in union membership can be due to HR, as

the nation’s unions have a harder time convincing workers to join when HR and other business leaders are

responsive to employees’ concerns. Reasons for the Drop ” leaders, now more than ever, get it when it

comes to positive employee relations,” said Jim Gray of Jim Gray Consultants, a labor relations consultancy, in

Charleston, S.C. “Accelerated employee engagement and personal development efforts-especially attractive to

younger generations-are making union representation unnecessary.” Kate Bronfenbrenner, senior lecturer and

director of labor education research at the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations in Ithaca, N.Y.,

attributed the drop in union membership partly to the 2016 presidential election. Unfair Labor Practices: Can an

employer in a nonunion facility prohibit employees from discussing their salaries?] However, this earnings

difference reflects a variety of…

FULL TEXT
The percentage of U.S. workers who were union members fell 0.4 percent to 10.7 percent in 2016, the U.S. Bureau

of Labor (BLS) reported Jan. 26. Some labor relations experts say that part of the reason for a decline in

union membership can be due to HR, as the nation’s unions have a harder time convincing workers to join when

HR and other business leaders are responsive to employees’ concerns.

Public-sector workers had a union membership rate of 34.4 percent, more than five times higher than that of

private-sector workers at 6.4 percent. Teachers, police officers and firefighters had the highest unionization rates.

In the private sector, industries with high unionization rates included utilities (21.5 percent), transportation and

warehousing (18.4 percent), telecommunications (14.6 percent), construction (13.9 percent), and educational

services (12.3 percent). Private educational services include private colleges and universities.

The number of workers in total who belonged to unions was 14.6 million in 2016, declining by 240,000 from 2015,

according to the BLS.

Reasons for the Drop

” leaders, now more than ever, get it when it comes to positive employee relations,” said Jim Gray of Jim

Gray Consultants, a labor relations consultancy, in Charleston, S.C. “Accelerated employee engagement and

personal development efforts-especially attractive to younger generations-are making union representation

unnecessary.”

In addition, unionized companies aren’t very competitive, said Phillip Wilson, president and general counsel of the

Labor Relations Institute in Broken Arrow, Okla. He said that unions are slow to change, “which is one of the

problems with the collective bargaining process. When a company is slow to adapt to changing market conditions-

especially in today’s economy-that company is dead.”

But David Madland, senior advisor to the American Worker Project at the Center for American Progress Action

Fund in Washington, D.C., said in a press release, “Now more than ever, workers need a real say in the economy

and in politics. Even though the majority of Americans support labor unions, attacks by right-wing politicians have

hurt the only real voice that workers control. Union membership, which has been on the decline for years as a

result of these tactics, dropped even further this past year.”

https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/union-membership-down-experts-say-hr-s/docview/1867158832/se-2?accountid=28844

https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/union-membership-down-experts-say-hr-s/docview/1867158832/se-2?accountid=28844

Kate Bronfenbrenner, senior lecturer and director of labor education research at the Cornell School of Industrial

and Labor Relations in Ithaca, N.Y., attributed the drop in union membership partly to the 2016 presidential

election. “Unions always lose members in presidential election years,” she said. “Every four years it happens

because resources and staff are transferred away from organizing to primary campaigns.”

Changes in the law have also had a big effect on union membership, according to Bronfenbrenner. “I believe the

biggest drop comes from the loss of collective bargaining rights for public-sector workers and loss of members in

states that had major changes in collective bargaining legislation, such as Wisconsin,” she said. And after the U.S.

Supreme Court’s ruling in Harris v. Quinn, which held that home care workers who don’t support a union can’t be

forced to pay a fee to the union, the Service Employees International Union lost large numbers of home care

workers, she added.

Employers use threats of outsourcing to win concessions from unions. Then after they get the concessions, some

employers cut “all or part of the jobs anyway,” she said.

Michael Lotito, an attorney with Littler and co-chair of the firm’s government affairs division, the Workplace Policy

Institute, said that a decline in union membership has been happening since 1955. He said that when the National

Labor Relations Act was enacted in 1935, “the way employers treated employees was vastly different than they do

today. Now, the vast majority of employers treat their employees with dignity and respect, and provide for open

dialogue and complaint resolution systems, competitive pay and benefits, and a workplace that outlaws

discrimination and harassment. Many government agencies, local and state and federal, provide employees with

workplace protections without dues obligations. Given all of these changes that value workers, unions have had

difficulty articulating a value proposition.”

Said Wilson: “Despite all of the negative PR [public relations] unions like to heap on U.S. businesses, the fact is that

most working people do not believe they are mistreated or need the protection of a union.”

Higher Pay

One argument for organized labor has been that unionized workers are often paid more than employees who are

not unionized.

As the BLS stated in its press release on the union membership decline, among full-time hourly and salaried

workers, union members had median weekly earnings of $1,004 in 2016, while those who were not union members

had median weekly earnings of $802.

[SHRM members-only HR Q&A: Unfair Labor Practices: Can an employer in a nonunion facility prohibit employees

from discussing their salaries?]

However, this earnings difference reflects a variety of influences, including variations in the distributions of union

members and nonunion employees by occupation, industry, age, firm size and geographic region, the BLS said.

Many union members live in states that have cities with high costs of living, the BLS statistics show. For example,

the largest numbers of union members live in California (2.6 million) and New York (1.9 million).

Over half of the 14.6 million union members in the U.S. live in just seven states. In addition to California and New

York, that includes:

* Illinois: 800,000.

* Pennsylvania: 700,000.

* Michigan, New Jersey and Ohio: each at 600,000.

Granted, not all areas of these states have high costs of living.

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Subject: Wagner Act 1935-US; Workers; Employers; Unionization; Labor relations; Collective

bargaining; Employees; Labor unions; Union membership

indexing term: Subject: Workers Employers Unionization Labor relations Collective bargaining

Employees Labor unions Union membership; Industry: 81393 : Labor Unions and

Similar Labor Organizations

Location: United States–US

Classification: 81393: Labor Unions and Similar Labor Organizations

Publication title: HRNews; Alexandria

Publication year: 2017

Publication date: Feb 10, 2017

Section: Labor Relations

Publisher: Society for Human Resource Management

Place of publication: Alexandria

Country of publication: United States, Alexandria

Publication subject: And Economics–Personnel Management

ISSN: 10473157

Source type: Trade Journals

Language of publication: English

Document type: News

ProQuest document ID: 1867158832

Document URL: https://www.proquest.com/trade-journals/union-membership-down-experts-say-hr-

s/docview/1867158832/se-2?accountid=28844

Copyright: Copyright Society for Human Resource Management Feb 10, 2017

Last updated: 2020-11-18

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Union Membership Down; Experts Say HR’s Responsiveness May Be a Reason