Is Your Company The Next Target?

January 2013 In this Issue The next target for the union is... New Videos! First Cut produced 8 new generic videos for our sister company AGTS. The instant best seller is our card signing video named Signing Your Rights Away (it is now available in union specific version), Contract Negotiations and Conversation Starters, six short videos designed to get people talking in group meetings during a campaign. Plus we just started working on several new interactive courses. If you have a request for an interactive course or a new DVD title please email me. We are always looking to produce new videos! We look forward to being of service!

Do you know who the new Steelworkers are? The Union does. A recent report showed that, in 2012, the most frequently targeted industries were “Business Services, Health Services, Passenger Transportation, Construction and Electric, and Gas & Sanitary Services.• Not a Steelworker among them. Nor an Autoworker, nor any other representative in the manufacturing sector.” Of the approximately 2000 NLRB petitions filed in 2012, 335 were from Business services alone. Health services accounted for 265, and Local and suburban transit & interurban passenger transportation had 149. Virtually every state was hit. In the words of Bob Dylan, “The times they are a’changing.”  Actually, the times have been changing for quite awhile now, but sometimes it takes cold hard facts for all of us to realize that. The move toward service sector jobs and away from manufacturing started slowly but is now at full throttle. What’s that mean to you? Basically, everyone is a target. The Teamsters, the SEIU and all unions have a lot of Administrative salaries and perks to pay. Dwindling manufacturing membership has forced them to try and organize anybody and everybody they can. Often, employees in the service industries have little perception, positive or negative, of what it means to have a union in their workplace. The unions are more than happy to provide their version of utopia. We suggest you counter such activity before it starts. That doesn't mean union bashing. It means union education. The basics, like union rules, lack of flexibility, dues, negotiations, etc. Couple that information with the positive aspects of current company wages, benefits and other policies. That way, if and when the union comes calling, employees are prepared to make legitimate comparisons. Who’s next on the “hit” list? Who’s got a target painted on their back? You might as well open a Business Directory and just point to a random name. Hunting season is open and everything is fair game. Don’t wait until a union has you in their sites. Take preventive action now, communicate to your employees. *Information Source Susan Connelly, PTI Labor Research 1/16/13