joining us now to discuss this is Jason Greer,
founder and president of Greer consulting and employee relations and
diversity management consulting firm. Thank you so much for
joining us. I gotta ask you, how did
2020 to reshape the labor movement? Cause we're seeing
it now. Workers were more honest about what they
wanted. When you consider the fact that Starbucks first
, let's be real. Who would have ever guessed
that Starbucks would be unionizing at the clips? They
are every single day. You see another Starbucks store
that has gone. Union workers are more honest.
But I think social media plays a role in it
. And it also comes back to the fact that
Covid was sort of the reckoning for everyone where people
start to ask bigger questions about what they wanted,
how they wanted to be treated, how they want
to be paid and more importantly, they want to
be part of something bigger than themselves. And now
we see this union boom that's happening around the country
. Do you think they would have been as successful
with actually getting these unions approved had there not been
an employee shortage? Because they're like, hey,
we got the cards in our hand, we're gonna
use our power potentially. But consider this. It
really comes back to social media and it comes back
to the fact that you have technologies like slack where
employees are basically able to talk in ways that they
never had before because where there's collective suffering, there's
collective grief. People kind of coalesced around this and
all of a sudden they're exploding. They're moving in
ways that we've never seen before. So which demographic
do you think we're seeing embrace these unions the most
retail? Definitely. When you consider apple, when
you consider uh Chipotle, you consider trader joe's when
you consider what's going on a startup bucks. But
here's the demographic that people are not talking enough about
is the fact that unions are starting to spread into
white collar jobs. We're starting to see more tech
industries that are organizing. We're starting to see people
talk in terms of unions in ways that we've never
had before because again and I go back to this
because I see this happen in my industry. They
call me the employee whisperer because I'm the person that
comes into these organizations. And I talked to thousands
upon thousands of employees per year. And I'm always
amazed when an employee will pick up the phone and
say look I was looking at this video from this
company in an industry that's completely unrelated to my industry
. But they're saying the same things that we're saying
that we're not treated well, we're not paid well
and we deserve something more. And that's why we're
considered union. Well how would you say the union
movement has changed And are there techniques that we're seeing
working better in some industries like Gm. They just
approved union at their E. V plant. Ohio
. What amazes me about this is when you look
at basically how units have been historically. They haven't
changed when you look at the teamsters, you look
at the United Auto workers, you just brought MGM
. They haven't changed their still sort of stuck in
how things were back in the eighties. What's changed
about the way people are organizing is that many employees
are cutting out the middleman there now, going to
these big unions, they're unionizing amongst themselves. When
you consider the trader joe's union, these are employees
who are literally coming together in the employee break rooms
that coming together via text via WhatsApp and they're organizing
amongst themselves and they're going directly to the employer and
saying, we want a contract. So what we're
seeing more than anything else is that employees are really
starting to take Shape and form for themselves as opposed
to paying somebody else to do it for that.
And speaking of GM one more time, you know
the lead and the executives there were saying that they
support this unionization. They were saying, well let
the employees vote and they can decide for themselves how
are other businesses receiving this unionization? We've seen a
lot of pushback from Starbucks for example. So people
like Howard Schultz and other executives would tell you in
the media that they completely supported because under the Section
seven rights of the National Labor Relations Act, they
don't have the right to say these employees can't unionize
internally. They are scared to death because it signals
a shift that signals to see change because now the
look when you look in the past, it was
typically manufacturing employees who are organizing. Now when you
see a group of tech workers organizing, employers don't
know what to do with it. So they're scared
, they're confused. But more importantly they're asking bigger
questions. What can we do to make sure that
we may union free beyond just paying people. Okay
so let's get your outlook then for the 2023 going
forward in regards to humanization especially as employees need to
begin to change, will we see them stronger than
ever or will they dwindle down? We're gonna see
organizing stronger than ever. But it really comes back
to the fact that they need to actually get a
contract. Part of the reason why Starbucks has gone
out on strike across the country is because they don't
have a contract. And you said earlier in the
lead up, gallup is reporting that 71% of americans
have a high favorability to our unions. That's awesome
. But also 71% of americans are sitting back saying
even though I appreciate unions, what are they really
getting the employees? So until we really see these
contracts start to take shape and form, we're not
gonna know what we have. But I'm gonna tell
you this Elizabeth schuler, who's the president of A
. F. L. C. I. O
. Which is the largest grouping of units across the
country has literally said we are going to apply as
much money as we can to organize one million employees
over the course of 10 years. That means organizing
is not going to stop, but it still comes
back to you can organize all day long. But
what are you getting the employees in terms of dollars
and cents? Well, I think most important here
for those companies that don't want unionization is to treat
your employees fairly and maybe they won't go for union
. All right, thank you so much, Jason
Greer, founder and president of Greer, consulting.