For the most part, top management hates unions. Unions restrict their ability to rapidly change to meet new business conditions, they say.
So what lessons can managers learn from the fact that 71% of Amazon employees in Bessemer, Ala., who voted in a union representation election voted against becoming a union shop.
The No. 1 lesson: Pay well. Amazon’s Bessemer workers earn twice the state’s minimum wage.
The second lesson: If you provide generous healthcare benefits, say so. Repeatedly.
No. 3: Highlight the cost of union dues, and how uncertain it is that the union will get more pay or longer breaks.
Lesson No. 4: Show contracts the union has negotiated at other companies. The bargaining agreements that Amazon showed employees didn’t seem to indicate that there would be a substantial difference, one worker said.
Lesson No. 5: Show a willingness to listen to the workers directly. Some Bessemer workers say they think they can get such things as extra training for managers without a third party.
Lesson No. 6: Focus on technology. Workers understand that new technology can displace jobs. But be humane in the process. Train the workers who will lose jobs to technology to be able to run the devices. Don’t feel a necessity to fire the workers immediately. In the late 1960, The New York Times wanted to change the way it produced the paper, a move that would essentially wipe out the composing room. The Times publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, took the head of the Typesetters Union on a tour of a prototype facility in New Jersey, demonstrating he could eliminate all the jobs tomorrow. But he suggested that the Times and the union agree no new typesetter would be hired and they negotiate other details including retraining workers, enhanced benefits for those who would eventually be let go, etc. The union readily agreed.