WASHINGTON — Target Corp. retooled a training video to warn workers against a bill that would make union organizing easier. Michaels Stores Inc. told investors “our businesses could be impacted” by the measure. Enrollment in Jackson Lewis LLP’s “How to Stay Union-Free” seminars tripled.
Companies are rallying to fend off a so-called card check law sought by labor leaders and backed by President Barack Obama. While the bill stalled in Congress this year as health-care legislation dominated debate, antiunion groups say they expect the president and Democrats to deliver next year on a compromise version of the legislation.
“As we approach the 2010 elections, the unions are really going to want their pound of flesh,” said Randy Johnson, who handles labor issues for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business-lobbying group. “Even if we defeat the card-check bill, it’s entirely possible that other changes to the National Labor Relations Act will come up, and some of those will likely make it easier to organize the workplace.”
Companies have addedanti-union videos to training programs, required employees to sit through anti-union meetings and hired outside labor-relations consultants as a pre-emptive strike against a union-organizing campaign.
Registration for Jackson Lewis’s $595 “How to Stay Union-Free” seminars has increased to about 100 executives a session, according to Michael Lotito, a partner inSan Francisco with the New York-based workplace-law firm. Jackson Lewis also has done research for companies on unions that could come to their workplaces if there is a change in labor law.
“We look at their financial reports, strike records, and what the leadership of the organization is all about,” Lotito said.
Exploiting business fears of card-check has become a profitable pursuit, said Pat O’Neill, organizing director for the United Food and Commercial Workers.
“There is one stimulus plan that has worked this year, and that’s union avoidance,” O’Neill said. “The law firms that do union-busting have put the fear of Armageddon out there with this bill.”
O’Neill said unions have received calls from workers at CVS Caremark Corp., Ikea and Target about “captive audience” meetings with an anti union theme at stores where no organizing is going on.
“They try to scare the hell out of them, and it’s over the top,” O’Neill said.
CVS Caremark’s policy is to “communicate with our employees on an ongoing basis on a variety of issues,” Carolyn Castel, a spokesman for the biggest U.S. drugstore chain, said in an e-mailed statement.
“We are constantly engaging our co-workers about unions,” said Mona Liss, a spokesman for Ikea, the world’s biggest home-furnishings retailer.
The card-check legislation may be incorporated early next year into legislation in the Senate to create jobs, according to Steve Rosenthal, a Democratic consultant and former political director at the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor organization.
“Going into the 2010 election, when unions are critical to turnout, the Democrats need to do this to energize the labor movement and kick it into high gear,” Rosenthal said. “Something’s going to pass.”
Leaders of unions that spent a record $450 million electing Obama and congressional Democrats in 2008 had promised members that the legislation easing organizing would be passed in 2009. Andy Stern, president of the 2.1 million-member Service Employees International Union, said this month that he now expects Congress to take up the bill in the first quarter of 2010. Stern was the most frequent visitor to the White House during Obama’s first six months in office, according to a log released by the administration in October.
The Washington-based Chamber of Commerce and other trade associations have poured millions of dollars into efforts to kill the legislation.
To get enough votes in Congress, supporters of the card-check bill have agreed to drop the provision that gave the measure its name: a requirement that companies grant union recognition as soon as a majority of employees at a workplace sign cards saying they want a union.
A compromise version backed by labor leaders calls for a secret-ballot election a week or two after workers petition for a union.
The bill also calls for binding arbitration if companies fail to reach a contract with a new union after a certain period of time.
Minneapolis-based Target, the second-biggest U.S. discount retailer, updated its anti-union video for employee training to explain the consequences of the bill, company spokesman Donna Egan said in an e-mailed statement.
“If proposed labor-relations legislation is adopted, allowing third-party involvement or interruptions to our business, our business could be impacted,” Michaels Stores of Irving, Texas, the world’s largest arts-and-crafts retailer, said in its earnings filing this month.
Business, Pages 29 on 12/30/2009