Imagine that you are the newly hired HR Director for a mid-sized nonunion, home health care company that provides health and home maintenance services (e.g., medical care, house cleaning, laundry) to shut-ins. Your boss has heard rumors that unions in the area are beginning an aggressive campaign to organize workers in the home health care industry. He has asked you to put together a comprehensive plan to ensure your company does not unionize. Outline the key elements of your plan.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

As the HR Director, I would want to make a choice as to whether I would utilize a union substitution or a union suppression approach. In either case, I would need to ensure that the actions taken by the employer are legal. If I employ a union substitution strategy, I might start with a survey of employees to gauge their level of satisfaction with various components of the work environment. I would then try to target wages and benefits at above market rates, provide opportunities for training, development, and advancement, ensure supervisors treated employees with respect and dignity, implement a grievance process, provide greater employment security and security in the hours of work, encourage open and honest communication between the employer and the employees. If I employ legal union suppression tactics, I might put together an information campaign noting the downsides of unionization. This might include letters, brochures, videos, and captive audience meetings with employees to let them know the potential disadvantages of unionizing both for them and for the business. I might also try to keep the number of full-time employees low since I know that part-time employees are less likely to unionize than full-time employees. I might also hire more temporary workers.