Commentary: The Rising Profile of Unions

As both the writers’ and actors’ guilds continue their months-long strike, they are demonstrating a powerful reason for why unions exist at all — to give voice to the people and the power to negotiate for better pay, better working conditions, and other factors that overall improve the lives of the people actually doing the work.

And it’s not just Hollywood embracing the age-old idea of unions and banding together. In Japan, department store workers are staging their first strike since the 1950s. In Canada, there are talks about a potential strike among auto workers. In Washington State, teachers went on strike the last week of August as schools were getting ready to return for the semester. And, just last year, we saw strikes that impacted paper mills in Europe, along with several transportation strikes that helped contribute to the supply chain woes that are, fortunately, mostly resolved at this point.

And if you think unions — and the power they hold to call a strike when they feel businesses aren’t giving workers a fair deal — are limited to  just a few industries, think again. A recent poll found that an incredible two-thirds of Americans support the idea of unions — and that number jumps to 88% approval when looking at workers under the age of 30. Given these are exactly the people the printing and graphics industry is hoping to attract, it should be a figure you’re paying very close attention to.

In a statement during the AFL-CIO State of the Union address — the organization that released the polling numbers — president Liz Shuler told the audience, ““Do you know how hard it is to get two-thirds of Americans to agree on anything? Let me put it another way: More Americans believe in unions than like chocolate ice cream.”

Let that sink in for a moment.

As our industry continues to struggle to find good workers, the odds are beyond good that, at some point, you are going to have to grapple with the idea of unionized labor. Even if you don’t think it could ever happen in your shop, or that printers as a whole are immune to this type of organization, think again. It’s only a matter of time.

So what should you be doing to be proactive about it? Unions don’t have to mean headaches, especially if you really do believe the sales pitch, that you ultimately want your team and culture to be happy, productive, and wanting to come in to work every day and produce beautiful graphics.

With that in mind, here are a few tips for dealing with a unionized workforce that you can begin to incorporate into your business today, ensuring that when — not if — it happens, it will be a seamless transition that won’t see much, if any, impact on your workers or business.

1. Know the laws. You need to truly understand labor laws, and how they impact not only your business, but also the people you employ. Make sure you have someone on staff — usually HR — who understands the nuances and can advise you to ensure all new policies fall well within legal limits.
2. Know your contracts. One of the key things about unions is that they rely on far more than just overarching labor laws. They are also built on contracts that spell out the specific duties and responsibilities of both the labor force and the business. As the strikes currently ongoing show, this is usually where the discontent comes in, and where strikes happen, as businesses try to skew contracts in their favor, while employees seek to do the same. If you go into this process wanting to find a fair compromise everyone can live with rather than trying to “win” you will likely find this a far less stressful endeavor, and have far less reason to ultimately fear a strike.
3. Work with your people. On those same lines, print shops with a culture that values feedback and empowers employees to speak up, take ownership of projects, and work together will likely have far less reason to worry about union organizing efforts. At the end of the day, a union is generally formed because people feel like they aren’t being given a voice, or are being taken advantage of. If you create an environment where they know they are valued from the start, they won’t have a need to unionize to get there.
4. Focus on the benefits, not just the problems. If you do have a union forming in your shop, look for ways to work with them, highlighting the positive interactions, and looking for ways to recognize hard work and success, rather than just interacting with them when a problem crops up. This will foster a much better relationship not just with union representatives, but with your workforce as a whole, and create a more rewarding atmosphere that everyone will want to see succeed.
5. Be respectful. In the end, whether your shop has unionized or not, treating all of your employees with respect, offering them opportunities for advancement and growth, recognizing their successes, and being willing to own up when you make a mistake will all go a long way toward creating a healthy, positive work environment. Unions are ultimately a tool for workers to band together to try and make their voices heard — if you go out of your way to give them that voice without needing to jump through unionized hoops, then you’ll likely find it easier to hire — and retain — those young workers you want to attract to the printing and graphics industry.