ASK A UNION ORGANIZER: How can HR support unionizing?
Some people in my org are starting conversations about organizing. Within that group, we have 2 HR staff. Me being one of them. Both myself & my teammate are very pro-union. We are supportive of organizing as these employees are the backbone of our org. Any suggestions on improving trust when HR is so historically anti-union? We are committed to being transformative & radical HR.
Pro-Union HR Worker
You’re right, Human Resources is usually antithetical to union organizing, and often the HR Rep is sitting right next to the boss and the legal counsel when it’s time to negotiate a Collective Bargaining Agreement.
HR managers are usually the ones tasked with justifying illegal or unfair terminations and doing the dirty work of firing and reprimanding people. If workers have been moved to unionize, it means their attempts to fix the issue via HR didn’t turn out the way they had hoped.
You’re right to believe the trust is thin. What role have you & your colleagues played in this dynamic? Can you take accountability for the times you prioritized employer over an employee?
They’re supposed to be advocates for the workers, but more often than not, an HR professional’s job revolves around relieving the corporation of any legal liability after treating employees like garbage. It was designed this way, it isn’t a personal trait of HR professionals (usually).
The system is so broken that even the very well-intentioned HR managers are often stuck between a rock and a hard place, willing but unable to actually make work better for the humans they are “resourcing.”
Like all of us, HR managers deserve support and respect at work. HR professionals are historically underpaid and well-meaning individuals who usually want what's best for people. Unfortunately, many HR managers are just doing their best to survive under really extreme workplace bullying–after all, where does the HR manager report abusive behavior at work?
As most HR professionals have hiring and firing power, they don’t qualify for a union’s bargaining unit. This leaves HR professionals who are pro-union in a tough spot–they don’t qualify for the union’s protection and are vulnerable to being fired if they piss off their boss by engaging in any supportive actions for the union.
That being said, here are a few ways an HR professional can support union efforts and build trust with unionizing employees:
Find out your position: look into whether or not you *actually* have hire/fire power at your organization. Sometimes the HR professional does interviews and provides input during the process, but they lack actual teeth when it comes to impacting hiring or firing decisions. You might find a loophole that can qualify you for collective bargaining with your coworkers.
Self-reflect: What accountability do you hold for the workplace environment and what is immediately within your control to change? An open-door policy might not be enough. You may need to actively seek out complaints and solutions to problems by scheduling individual meetings with each and every worker and actively listening. Consider increasing transparency with workers, board members, and community stakeholders about why workplace problems haven’t been solved.
Figure out who you can organize with: sometimes a middle manager’s union can include an HR professional.
Be an advocate for the union: provide your organizational Leadership with common sense data about the benefits of unionization, like lower turnover and more productive employees. Provide pushback where you feel safe doing so.
Refuse to participate in union-busting. Stand up for your coworkers by reminding your boss that firing someone for unionizing is illegal and you have an ethical responsibility as an HR Professional to follow the rules set forth by the Labor Board. Don’t let leadership make bullshit claims about unionizing employees, who are often fired or reprimanded for other reasons because the boss can’t legally retaliate for organizing. If you’re asked to write-up an employee for something you believe is unfair, untrue, or trumped-up; refuse to participate. If your boss wants you to arrange a captive audience meeting, refuse to participate. If your boss wants you to pull some information about a worker’s family or monitor them using invasive surveillance, refuse to participate. You get the idea.
Make it clear: Testify to leadership, board members, and community stakeholders that your organization is capable of meeting the union’s demands. “I’m not sure how yet, but we’ll make it happen because this matters to me” is a powerful statement from an HR professional during a union drive.
Collect information: if you have fielded complaints from employees, make the complaints clear to leadership via email or another documentable format. Don’t let them say they “didn’t know.” By collating the data available to you, it can be very clear which issues impact employees most frequently. Most significantly, you have the most power to illustrate the paper trail of efforts that have already been made by workers to rectify the problems at the workplace. Any workplace eager to unionize has already exhausted all its available pathways to change before they approach a union for representation. As HR manager, you can make it clear to donors, leadership, and other community stakeholders that the union is absolutely necessary given how impossible changemaking is within your organization. YOU have a special ability to clearly illustrate leadership's refusal to address working conditions.
Provide Info & Insight: provide the organizing employees with information that may support their efforts, while staying very quiet with Leadership. This might include contact information for other employees, what people get paid, or insight to how hiring decisions are made or what leverage feels most impactful. It might even mean sharing information provided behind closed doors, like what’s said at strategy meetings with legal counsel or giving the group a heads-up about a firing or lay-off.
Stand in solidarity: if your coworkers come to you with an ask, whether that is to approach the boss, to walk-out, to sign a petition or make a statement about your experience at the workplace, don’t hesitate to cooperate. OBVIOUSLY, don't rat-out the bargaining unit.
Refuse to hire replacement workers: If it comes down to a walkout, strike, slow-down, or any other work stoppage, refuse to hire replacement workers. As HR Professionals, you are the line that can relieve your coworkers of needing a picket line.
Read about the free-speech battle around Scabby. The inflatable rat is an “iconic” Union-response to employers who hire replacement workers.
At the end of the day, HR managers should be willing to fall on their own sword. As an HR Professional, you are in a position of power, and being truly radical and transformative with power means being willing to abdicate it for collective liberation. I assume you became an HR manager because you wanted to do-right by employees; now is your chance. Be brave.