THEME PAPER: Union avoidance in the United States
Ethix SRI Advisors theme paper outlines union avoidance practices in the United States and explores the implications of such corporate behaviour for investment strategies that build on the framework of international human rights and labour rights conventions.
Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining are fundamental human rights that stand side by side with the abolition of forced labour, child labour and discrimination as core conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO). In the United States, by virtue of permissive labour laws, union avoidance has evolved into a multimillion dollar industry. ‘Union avoidance’ consultants and lawyers, and professional strikebreaking firms operate legally across the United States, and occasionally even beyond, supporting companies’ ambitions to limit union representation of their workforce.
‘Union avoidance’ is a catch-all term that at times expresses an employer’s ambition to remain ‘union free’, and describes a package of different strategies deployed by employers in order to dissuade workers from exercising their right to freedom of association and to collective bargaining. As union avoidance consultancies and practices have been experiencing a rise in fortunes, organized labour in the United States has been undergoing a marked decline, with union density figures in the private sector now reaching single figures.
This report, based on publicly available information, as well as original research, is intended to introduce socially responsible investors to a geographically-specific practice at odds with international norms. Following this, concrete examples of applied union avoidance strategies are discussed. Positive examples are also explored, as a number of businesses aware of risks involved in operating in the United States have established mechanisms in order to ensure that their Corporate Social Responsibility policy is applied globally.
To order the report please contact research@ethix.se.