What You Should Learn From Union Organizing

It is hard to imagine an organization with an unwarranted union. Scratch the surface of glossy, smiling faces on the annual reports and far different pictures of what is going on are often found.

Once again, Wal-Mart is crying foul about organizing at their company¹. This has been occurring at Wal-Mart for a very long time. It seems as though Wal-Mart should have learned a lesson or two along the way, but it appears that they have not. Their approach continues to be to fight the union.

“And if I were a leader in that company, I might fight as well,” says Rick Maurer, President of Maurer and Associates, Inc. and bestselling business book author. “But I would be missing a far more important point if I did. People just are not happy.”

Managers in organizations often wrongly say, “All those gripes happened a long time ago.”  Workers do not stupidly risk losing their jobs over issues that have already been resolved. They are motivated by self-interest, just like leaders.

Maurer’s experience suggests that unions exist due to repeated failures of management to listen and respond to the voices of workers and lower-level managers over a span of many years. Leaders who have the courage to listen to complaints and seriously try to make things better can begin to build a workplace that matches the PR-spin of their annual reports.

Without discrediting Wal-Mart, the size of the company and the repeated public disputes against organizing provide a valuable object-lesson for the rest of us. Consider yourself fortunate if you currently work in a union environment, as union leadership is often willing to speak the truth to those in positions of power on your behalf.

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References

¹Maher, Kris; Zimmerman, Ann. “Union Intensifies Efforts to Organize Workers at Wal-Mart.” The Wall Street Journal. 17 April 2009. Page A4.