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  Inhaltsverzeichnis Show

  • Campaign Costs & Benefits
  • For management
  • For the union
  • Campaign Themes & Issues
  • Of management
  • Strike record
  • Corruption & abuse
  • Membership cost
  • Threats to benefits
  • Company merits
  • Distaste for change
  • Of the Union
  • Compensation
  • Job security
  • Poor management
  • Worker control
  • Campaign Organizers
  • Management’s campaigners
  • Union Campaigners
  • Campaign Tactics
  • Of management
  • Acting before the election
  • Bargaining after the election
  • Of the Union
  • Using authorization cards
  • Filing charges
  • Bargaining for a contract
  • Campaign Timing
  • For management
  • For unions
  • What is the first step in the union organizing process?
  • What is the role of the National Labor Relations Board?
  • What is a union card?
  • How many employees are needed to form a union in Ontario?

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At the first sign of union organizing, company management often decides to do “whatever is necessary to defeat the union,” as one corporate vice president put it. Without advance thought or preparation, the company launches a policy of resistance and often winds up before the National Labor Relations Board charged with unfair labor practices. Sometimes the company even finds itself burdened with multimillion dollar lawsuits.

Its hasty decisions to deal with the short run become strategic errors in the long run. But responding to a union campaign need not end up this way. Being prepared for each stage of the process of campaigning and negotiating, argues the author of this article, is the best way for both labor and management to avoid serious mistakes and to present employees with the information they need to cast an informed vote.

Mr. Fulmer is associate professor of human resources management at the University of Alabama’s Graduate School of Business. He has done extensive research on union campaigns and is currently completing a book on the subject. He has written one other HBR article—“When Employees Want to Oust Their Union” (March–April 1978).

A union organizing campaign may look like a brief process of exchanging a few simple letters and handbills and holding an election that quickly settles the issue. But a union campaign is actually a fairly long process that usually goes through the following stages.

• Identifying the target—A union effort often starts when a disgruntled employee contacts a local union office to learn how to organize at a place of work. Sometimes a campaign starts when a union decides that a company has strategic importance or looks like an easy target and then initiates contact with employees at their workplace.

Once a company becomes a target, union official usually does research on it and assigns a representative to follow up on the initial contact.

• Determining interest—The union representative visits the company to find out whether enough employees are interested in the union to make a campaign worthwhile, which employees would make good leaders in an organizing campaign, and which company policies and practices might affect such an effort.

• Setting up an organizing committee—the union representative calls together the employees identified as leaders and establishes them as an organizing committee. The objective of this phase is to educate the committee about the benefits of forming a union, the law and procedures involved in forming a local union, and the issues management is likely to raise during a campaign.

Next, the committee members begin to contact other employees to determine their interest in the union and their willingness to serve on the committee.

• Building interest—Soliciting employees to sign authorization cards begins during this stage, which is often when management wakes up to what is going on. At this point, the union campaign usually goes public with an exchange of leaflets, handbills, and letters.

At another point, the union may publicly identify the committee members to protect them (in case key union members are discharged, management cannot claim it did not know who the key supporters were) and to induce workers to consider signing the union card. Although to call for an election the union by law needs only 30% of the employees in a unit to sign cards, most organizers wait to announce that the union represents a majority of the employees until at least 50% sign and usually until 60% to 80% sign.

Once this announcement is made, the union usually demands recognition as the bargaining representative for the employees. If “in good faith” management doubts the majority status and declines to recognize the union, the union petitions the National Labor Relations Board for recognition.

• Holding an NLRB hearing—Before an election is conducted, the NLRB usually holds a hearing. The NLRB appoints a hearing officer who seeks to answer the following questions: Is there a question of representation? Does the employer qualify for coverage by the NLRB? Is the union a labor organization within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act? Do any existing collective bargaining agreements or prior elections bar the petitioner from representation? Is the proposed unit appropriate? Is the eligibility of certain employees questionable? Is the show of employee interest sufficient to justify an election?

Once the questions have been answered to the satisfaction of the regional director of the NLRB, the board usually orders an election and sets a date for it.

• Launching a campaign—Before the election, both the union and the company make steady appeals to employees for their votes. During this time, management must prepare a list of eligible voters for the NLRB and post notices of the election and sample ballots in conspicuous places throughout the workplace.

• Holding an election—The election is usually held 30 days after the NLRB order.

• Evaluating election results—Once the votes are cast and counted, any person who believes that the board’s election standards were not met may, within five days after the tally of ballots, file objections to the election with the NLRB’s regional director. If the director finds the objections substantial, he or she may order a new election or hearing to determine the validity of the objections. If no one files objections or if the director dismisses them, the NLRB issues a certification of the results of the election. If the union wins, both parties prepare to negotiate their first contract.

If a company’s management is to be well prepared to meet a union organizing effort, it must know what to expect—not only the phases through which the union effort will pass but also the decisions management will have to consider making during this effort. These decisions chiefly concern costs, themes, campaigners, tactics, and timing.

Campaign Costs & Benefits

At the start, management and the union must weigh the costs and the benefits of launching a campaign. Will the effort be worth what they put into it?

For management

A campaign to oppose the organizing effort usually entails at least four short-run costs for management—legal services, loss of employee time, loss of executive time, and temporarily reduced productivity. A study shows that in 1975 the cost per employee for a company of 100 approximated $123.60 and for a company of l,000 employees, $101.60.1 Since these calculations assume an average wage of $3.50 per hour plus $l.00 for fringe benefits and since the average hourly earnings for private-sector, no supervisory employees rose to $6.62 in 1980, the campaign costs are considerably higher today.2

In addition to short-run costs, the company must expect long-run costs such as the negative effect on the employee-management relationship a campaign may have. Also, if the union wins, the company must consider what the effect of the campaign will be on the union-management relationship. Will the union respect management for waging a tough fight or try to retaliate later? To offset the company’s campaign, will union organizers make big promises that they will have to honor during the first contract negotiations? What effect will the campaign have on the relationship between first-line supervisors and bargaining unit employees?

lf the union is defeated, management must conjecture whether the union will return the next year. What if the election is close? Will the divided work force create an unstable labor situation? Will a more militant union seek representation next time?

The benefits of remaining nonunion, from the company’s viewpoint, are avoiding strikes; having flexibility, competitive advantages in hiring, low labor costs, and low turnover rates; spending little managerial time on grievances and contract negotiations; and remaining firmly in control.3

For the union

Unions are becoming increasingly budget conscious in this period of double-digit inflation. To control expenses, at least one large union has centralized the coordination of its major campaigns and left the smaller ones to regional and local officials. It screens proposals for requirements in investment, staff, time, and per diem cost. It considers the degree of industry control it might gain from a successful campaign and its prospects for later organizing activity in an industry.

Although this union considers the costs important, its president has approved every campaign that he has believed vital to the union’s interest.

Campaign Themes & Issues

Over the past five years, I have interviewed a number of managers and union officials about their organizing campaigns. In these efforts, most of the companies have based their opposition on their own merits or on the drawbacks of the union in question, and the unions have usually based their appeals on the shortcomings of a particular company.

Of management

If management decides to oppose the organizing effort, it usually runs one of the following types of campaign:

• Antiunion—Some companies criticize unions in general. They stress the “evils” of unionism and make every effort to link labor organizations with whatever employees think is bad. In the 1950s and 1960s, some managers, particularly in the South, tried to tie unions to integration and other civil rights efforts. In more recent campaigns, managers have tried to connect labor organizations with corruption and communism.

• Anti this union—Many companies, of course, focus their opposition on one union in particular. For example, in a letter to his employees, one company executive quoted a union president’s boast that his organization had issued more strike authorizations and supported more strikes in the past 10 years than any other union in the industry.

• Pro company—Rather than run against the union’s record, management sometimes chooses to run on its own record. In one company, a manager wrote a letter to employees stating how much better their benefits were at the company without the union than they would be if they worked at a nearby company organized by the same union. The letter contained a comparison of 24 benefits, ranging from wages to cafeteria service.

• You have rights, but…—Managers sometimes run a very low-key campaign in which they ask employees to vote against the union but remind them that the decision is really up to them.

One company’s president wrote a letter to employees to correct union misstatements by saying: “You have the right to deal with us directly without the intervention of a union on any matter, both with respect to either present benefits or the consideration of any new or additional benefits… We wish to make it perfectly clear, however, that you have the right to join a union. You have, of course, just as much right not to join.”

Most management campaigns are a combination of “anti this union” and “pro company,” with an occasional element of the other two themes. Sometimes, what starts out as a “you have rights but…” or a pro company campaign becomes more of an anti this union effort. Often management gives little attention to maintaining a consistent theme.

Eventually, however, management finds that it must stress certain issues in a campaign. A study of 33 elections shows that the average company campaign involves 30 issues and the average union campaign 25 but that employees usually recall only three company issues and between two and three union issues.4 It is therefore vital that a company focus on the issues that are central to the employees and not waste effort on others.5

In an antiunion or an anti this union campaign, six issues are common.

Strike record

One of these is the union’s strike record. Management’s objective is to raise the workers’ fear of disruption and losing income. Some companies make the point by illustrating how long it would take to recoup the lost wages from a strike or the amount of money that employees would lose each day of a strike. To all its employees one company mailed a statement listing the numerous strikes that the national union had called in the previous five years—123 strikes in all.

Corruption & abuse

Another common issue companies choose is union corruption. In a letter to its employees, one company stated that Senate hearings several years before had exposed the union’s “goingson” and that the official government testimony clearly indicated “what was said and what was not said but hidden behind the Fifth Amendment.”

Some companies point out union rules and punishments that appear autocratic or threatening to personal liberties. In one campaign, management cited a case in which a union member had been fined for going to church instead of union meetings. The union meetings had been on Sunday morning, and the bylaws had required any member missing three out of five meetings to be fined $5.

Some companies call the reliability and competence of the union into question by citing cases in which the union has based its campaign on erroneous claims.6

Membership cost

Another point management makes an issue is the cost of belonging to a union. Dues, membership fees, and special assessments may be expensive, management is quick to say. Some companies mail employees two checks on payday, one reflecting the amount of dues that would be deducted each pay period and the other the amount of money each person could take home after the dues had been deducted. In some cases unions have inadvertently made the dues issue even more significant by raising dues during the campaign without announcing it. In one campaign such a raise enabled management to ask, “What will the minimum dues be next time?”

Threats to benefits

Some companies tell employees that unions cannot guarantee them anything. Such a statement is often an implied threat to take away the employees’ benefits. As one letter from management stated: “In the event that the union ever got into this company, management would only be obligated to bargain in good faith. But all matters of wages and benefits would have to be bargained for. It is perfectly possible that in conceding one demand, other existing benefits could be reduced.”

In the same campaign, management pointed out the NLRB’s position regarding making promises of promotions, raises, or other benefits to influence employees before an election, “The law recognizes that the union is not a party capable of carrying out any such promise,” management told employees. “As a result, the law allows the union to make any promises it wishes because it cannot carry its promises out.”

If the union has a losing record, the company usually stresses it. One management letter proclaimed that the union in question was a “loser’s union” and identified several recent elections within the industry that the union had lost. The letter concluded, “Don’t join a sinking ship!”

Company merits

In a more positive campaign, managers stress their company’s best side, often by comparing its wages and benefits with the less attractive compensation at other companies in the area or industry. One benefit that employers emphasize is job security—particularly the absence of layoffs in the company’s history or the growth of the company, which suggest future promotion opportunities and the unlikelihood of layoffs.

A company sometimes tries to present an image of employees and managers being “one big happy family.” This is usually combined with the assertion that “we” do not need an outsider intruding into “family affairs.” If it is time, this claim can be appealing, but too often executives make such claims when most of the evidence suggests otherwise.

Distaste for change

Managers occasionally play on the dislike that many workers have for change and their fear of the unknown. Companies may admit to the employees that they have made mistakes and need “one more chance.” Such an appeal is usually combined with claims that “you can always elect the union next year if we fail” and “if you did vote the union in, you will probably be stuck with it as long as you work here.”

Of the Union

Unlike company campaigns, union campaigns vary little in theme but considerably in issues. The usual union themes are management’s shortcomings and employees’ need to organize as a way of forcing the company to deal with their problems.

Although in many campaigns the union devotes attention to the general benefits of unionism, most of its effort centers on identifying the inadequacies of management at a particular company and how a certain union can deal with them. Four issues dominated the campaigns I have studied—compensation, job security, poor management, and worker control.

Compensation

In the words of one veteran union organizer, “Wages are an issue in any campaign. It’s just a matter of degree.” Frequently the issue is simply inadequate or uncompetitive pay. In one case, two employees who, along with other employees, had not received an increase in several years and were working nights and weekends to make enough money to pay their bills got in touch with several unions to see what could be done about their situation.

Occasionally wages do not become an issue at all. In one campaign the contention about compensation did not catch on even though unionized employees at one of the other company plants were receiving quite a bit more per hour. According to one of the organizers involved, “Evidently these people couldn’t imagine rates being from $1.60 to $3.00 more than theirs; it was too far out.” The compensation issue in another campaign proved ineffective because certain workers would not admit that they had low pay or that they had not received a wage increase for years.

In addition to pay levels, confusing or subjective wage systems sometimes become an issue. For example, workers often think merit systems are influenced by favoritism. In a plant where 500 out of l,200 employees received a merit increase, the union posted notices saying: “What happened to the other 700 people? Through a union contract, all employees get increases. There are no favorite groups.”

Incentive systems can also become a source of argument. Prior to an organizing campaign in one company, 50 employees met with the personnel manager to complain that, as a result of a change in the speed of a conveyor, on only one day in several months had they been able to meet the new standard and never had they reached the level where incentive earnings became effective. The company took no action on their complaint. The employees dropped their complaint at that time but later organized a union.

Gaps in benefits or poor administration of benefits can be a major problem. From a union’s standpoint, lack of long-term disability insurance for disabled employees, for instance, can become a highly emotional rallying point.7

In the campaign to organize a large financial institution, a key issue became the absence of an employer-paid hospital and medical care program. Although smaller companies in the same area had such a program, the company’s largest stockholder opposed it on the ground that the good of the country would be served best if employees paid their own medical bills. An inadequate pension plan became a major problem in one large plant when the union asked, “Why hasn’t the company told you about the 89 cents a month pension they gave one employee?”

Job security

An organizing effort often starts when employees feel that their jobs are threatened. That fear arises especially when an outside company purchases a locally controlled company or a new management team comes into power. When technological changes reduce the number of jobs available, employees become very receptive to organizing appeals. Where there are layoffs, especially where seniority has not been considered, employees worry about job security and may accuse management of playing favorites.

Poor management

Managers’ unfairness and inconsistency in handling such matters as discipline, wage increases, and promotions are among the management practices that become union issues. Often it is just a few heavy-handed managers who turn a large number of generally satisfied employees into a disgruntled work force.

A major issue in one campaign, for instance, was a factory superintendent with complete authority over the production work force who workers felt played one employee against another. They feared being fired if they complained to the superintendent’s superior. One management level was supporting the next even though it was at fault.

In another campaign, employees viewed a manager who was very successful at generating profits as autocratic and often unfair. Even though annual turnover in his department was 35%, the highest in the company, the chief executive said that because the manager’s performance was high, “We’ll just have to live with his people problems.”

In one company, not only had the managers violated the National Labor Relations Act by committing several unfair labor practices, but they had also used incorrect information about the union in letters to employees. Employees felt that they could not trust management.

Worker control

Today, employees are less reluctant to speak out about work conditions than in earlier times. For this reason, some unions are successful in attacking management’s reluctance to give employees a voice in deciding on wages, hours, and working conditions.

In one campaign the union organizers attacked a company’s complaint review board for lack of worker representation. They claimed that under a contract employees would have a grievance committee composed of workers from their own ranks that would have some say in compensation decisions. “After our election,” the organizers said, “we trust that intelligent management will sit down across the bargaining table with an intelligent elected union committee and negotiate a workable contract which cannot be broken by either party.”

Campaign Organizers

Both company and union must decide which people to involve in the campaign and whether outside help is necessary.

Management’s campaigners

Whether to bring outside specialists such as consultants and lawyers into the campaign and which managers inside the company to include are two decisions management faces.

Outsiders

Management should consider not only the cost of outside specialists but also the impact that their services may have on the campaign. When the union knows their usual tactics or hears of their fees, outsiders can become an issue. They can reduce the effectiveness of management’s claim that it needs no outside agent in the employee-management relationship, and the relationship between them and the personnel office can cause trouble.

In one corporate subsidiary that hired a consulting firm, top management fired its personnel manager of 18 years, allegedly because of his opposition to the consultant’s tactics. Less than two months before the election, management dropped the consultants and had to borrow an “expert” from the parent company.

If, however, management plans to go to the brink of unfair labor practice in its campaign and yet not actually commit any unfair labor practice or if the managers in decision-making positions have never been involved in a campaign and plan to resist the union, getting good legal advice is essential.

Insiders

Once management has resolved the matter of the outsider, it must decide which company people to involve in the campaign.

“At what level should the campaign be controlled?” it must ask. Some companies allow local personnel to control, whereas in others a corporate personnel team takes charge. Should one person make most of the decisions, or should a committee be appointed? Should line managers or personnel managers direct the campaign? What role should first-line superiors play? Who should handle group meetings, and who should write letters to employees? Management usually chooses to write to current employees, and in some cases to retirees and their family members.

The choice of people to communicate with employees is critical. One company selected its president to meet with employees and to sign letters to them since he was well liked. To strengthen his relationship with employees, the company had used him over the years to communicate with employees whenever there was good news to report. After a speech in which he urged employees to vote against the union, several came to him and apologized for those who were creating trouble for his company.

In contrast, another company chose its assistant personnel director as its contact with employees. When they asked him why the company did not pay its work force more, he replied, “If you want more money, go out and get yourself an education as I did.” In an internal union memo, a union organizer wrote that “this really ticked the whole bunch off—signers and nonsigners. We hope they’ll keep using him.”

Union Campaigners

Deciding how many organizers to bring into a campaign, one top union official told me, depends on the geographic area over which the employees are spread, the number of simultaneous campaigns being organized, whether the employer has a reputation for violating the law, and the stage the campaign is in.

Insiders

According to another union official, weekly meetings of the in-plant organizing committee “turn interested employees into organizers.” He wants committee members not only organizing on the job but also calling on employees in their homes and gathering information on company policies after work.

Frequently, unions feel obligated to ask the employees who initially contact them to serve as key members of the organizing committee. In one campaign a key organizer became one of management’s strongest issues, for he was often rude to his fellow employees. One time, while passing out union literature on company property, he had even provoked a fight with one of them. Unions prefer to choose employees who are mobile, as maintenance employees are, and who are respected by many workers and willing to take personal risks, for they make good organizers.

Outsiders

In some cases unions make use of outside groups to help in organizing. Inviting local politicians to meetings sometimes increases interest in a union. Establishing contact with the local police department helps the union if the employer later calls in the police to break up union activity near the plant. In areas where churches are strong, unions often seek support from priests and ministers to break down workers’ resistance to unions.

Campaign Tactics

Once they have decided who will be in charge of the campaign, both union and management generally turn their attention to how to carry it out. Budget constraints and the need for variety and impact influence their decision.

Of management

If it can anticipate the moves of the union at each stage, management can deal with union actions effectively as well as take the initiative in appealing to employees.

Acting before the election

Usually the first evidence of union organizing is the appearance of someone handing out leaflets in or near the plant. The reaction of some managers is to stop such soliciting on company property. If, however, they have not already established a rule against it and if they have not applied the rule to all cases, including charitable organizations, they cannot deny the union such access without committing an unfair labor practice.

Both union and management have much at stake in the composition of the bargaining unit. Whether it should be broad—big enough to include all the clerks, for instance, in the retail stores of an area—or narrow—as small as to include the clerks in only one store—is something to consider. The composition may greatly affect the outcome of the election, since both parties may have reliable information about the intention of employees long before a secret-ballot election is held.

Occasionally a company includes certain people in the unit solely because they are likely to vote against the union. If the union wins, management may regret having ceded these people to the union. Even if the union loses, employees who have thought of themselves as being part of management but whom it has categorized as members of the bargaining unit along with hourly employees may feel that the company has sold them out.

Having many small units may mean that labor and management are constantly involved in negotiations but that no unit can by itself close down the plant with a strike. Having one large unit may reduce the time spent in negotiations but makes a strike to shut down the entire operation possible.

Unfortunately, some companies decide to use unfair labor practices to stall an election. Since employees’ complaints about such practices can take the NLRB months and even years to process, management can thereby destroy an organizing effort or at least signal to employees that the union is ineffective.

Before undertaking such action, however, management should recognize its disadvantages. First, it is of course an abuse of the legal system, which was designed to help work out compromises in good faith, not to hinder negotiations. Second, the charges may be serious enough to cause the NLRB to order management to bargain with the union. Third, the long-range effect may be to increase the chances of very restrictive labor legislation being enacted. Fourth, committing unfair labor practices provides a major issue for the union to use in its campaign—that management cannot be trusted. Fifth, such action may convince employees that they need a union to protect them from injustice.

Bargaining after the election

If the union wins the election, management must decide whether to bargain, refuse to bargain, or bargain very toughly as a way of breaking the union or appealing the NLRB’s earlier decision about the composition of the bargaining unit.

If management wins, it must decide what to do about the key union supporters. Will introducing immediate changes in wages, hours, and working conditions to correct deficiencies prevent another election, or will avoiding such changes discourage employees from expecting improvements after organizing drives end?

Of the Union

Companies and unions face many similar tactical matters, but some are unique to unions.

Using authorization cards

One is whether to use authorization cards, and if so, how to get employees to sign them. Some organizers prefer to solicit them individually through contact with committee members in their departments, at employees’ homes, or in small meetings. Others attach the cards to leaflets and distribute them.

Another question is whether to present the cards to management and ask for recognition or go directly to the NLRB. Some organizers prefer to approach management before they go to the board, even though recognition of the union without an election is unlikely. According to one union official, the employer often responds to the demand for recognition with a wage increase to demonstrate that the employees do not need a union to obtain such benefits.

Filing charges

Another tactic that some organizers use, particularly when confronted with a company that commits unfair labor practices, is to file a spate of charges in an effort to harass it and increase its legal costs.

Bargaining for a contract

If the union wins the election, it must decide whether to push for a strong first contract as a way to justify itself to its new members or to settle quickly and moderately so as not to force management into a union-breaking attitude. The union may think ahead about pursuing significant economic gains or settling for smaller gains with a strong union security clause so as to ensure its survival. If the union loses, it frequently decides to try again in 12 months and to reassure its supporters that they will not be abandoned during the next few months.

Campaign Timing

Momentum and timing are as important to union campaigns as they are to political elections. Well-organized campaigners plan their actions in advance so that leaders’ time can be wisely scheduled.

For management

As soon as the date for an election is set, a good plan for a company management committee is to set up a detailed campaign schedule. Some companies begin by deciding what they would like to have as the last activity before the election and then work backward for the remaining weeks.

Only in one campaign that I studied did managers consider momentum and then only after the campaign was well under way. For weeks, the union would attack various management practices, and management would counterattack. In one thrust, the union concluded a leaflet with the statement that “we will await your reply.” The vice president of personnel acknowledged that when he read that sentence, he knew he had been conducting a reactive campaign. From that point on, he took the initiative by raising his own issues and ignoring the union’s. Eventually, the union began to react to the company’s issues.

For unions

One very successful union organizer indicated that his policy was never to react openly to company literature. Instead, he would take the initiative in developing concerns and rely on the inplant committee to induce workers to discuss the union’s issues rather than management’s.

Another timing decision a union makes is when to set up an employee organizing committee. If the union finds enough employees interested in serving on a committee, it organizes them as a committee and then decides on a time to announce their names to the rest of the company.

Next, it decides when to distribute leaflets. Although circulating them early may generate some employee interest in the campaign, holding off till the organizing effort is well under way can give the union a definite advantage over management. In one campaign involving only 40 employees, the union organizers had worked for a whole six months and had had a majority signed up before it ever handed out leaflets. It was not until the first leaflet appeared at the plant entrance that managers had any idea that union activity existed in their company. Even then, they believed that the majority of their employees did not want a union. Six weeks later, however, the union won by a 32 to 5 vote (three employees abstained).

Each year the number of union campaigns increases. It has gone up nearly 25% since the 1950s, and so have the costs.

Before passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, however, organizing for a union campaign was even more expensive and the result far less conclusive. Often a campaign merely resulted in industrial unrest, for employees had only raw economic power to force managers to recognize them. Since 1935, the weapon of conflict has become the ballot box.

Appreciating the merits of the NLRB election process may induce companies and unions to prepare for each of its stages and to keep its costs under control. By thinking ahead, companies and unions can make the most of a process that was designed to meet the needs of unions, managers, and employees.

1. Woodruff Imberman, “How Expensive Is an NLRB Election?” MSU Business Topics, Summer 1976, p. 15.

2. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment and Earnings, August 1980, p. 82.

3. Fred K. Foulkes, Personnel Policies in Large Nonunion Companies, (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1980), pp. 58–61.

4. See Julius G. Getman, Stephen B. Goldberg, and Jeanne B. Herman, Union Representation Elections: Law and Reality (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1976), pp. 74–76.

5. For more on this subject, see John G. Kilgour, “Responding to the Union Campaign,” Personnel Journal, May 1978, p. 242.

6. See Thomas M. Rohan, “Would a Union Look Good to Your Workers?” Management Review, June 1976, p. 55.

7. Ibid., p. 53.

A version of this article appeared in the July 1981 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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