Um, It's That Free Speech Thingie
Via Kevin Drum, Art Levine goes covert and digs up the evil doings at a seminar for corporate executives on avoiding unionization. Why corporate executives would possibly want to avoid something so sensible as unions is beyond me. But Mr. Levine uncovers some really nefarious doings:
What if we felt like saying a lot of anti-union stuff to our workers?
Lotito introduced a segment called "You Can Say It." Could we tell our
workers, for instance, that a union had held strike at a nearby
facility only to find that all the strikers had been replaced "” and
that the same could happen to the employees here? Sure, said Lotito.
"It's lawful." He added, "What happens if this statement is a lie? They
didn't have another strike, there were no replacements? It's still
lawful: The labor board doesn't really care if people are lying."
Whoa! You mean that, in this country, we can, you know, say stuff and its not the government's job to check the veracity? How have we gotten to such a low point?
Update: I have been to several of these course in my Fortune 50 manager days, and the vast majority of the advice is "treat workers well and communicate a lot." I remember specifically being told not to lie because such tactics tend to backfire.
As far as my feelings on unions themselves, I would have zero problem with workers organizing of their own free will if it were not for the fact that the government grants unions special rights and privileges that other private organizations do not have.
