I came across this article yesterday; it described a typical union organizing campaign but the one statement that caught my attention was the fact that in a 300-employee organizing unit the company was unaware of the union activity until they went public on social media, in the press and filed for a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)

(“It was important that we had been able to keep our effort secret from the company while collecting cards, because we knew that when we went public, an intense union-busting campaign would descend upon us. And boy, did it ever.”)

As I have stated many times, a breakdown of communication is the biggest cause of future union organizing activity and on occasions can take years to get to the point where an RC petition is filed.

Many unaddressed issues can arise causing workers to feel unappreciated and further erode trust in their management team to the point where employees don’t bring matters of importance to their direct supervisors, preferring to complain to their co-workers, many times out of frustration caused by this inaction of the management team to address their issues or out of fear of retaliation.

Months of organizing activities and the fact that not one worker opened up to a supervisor or anyone on the management team about the organizing campaign tells me everything about the level of communication and trust within the unit. An after the petition communication blitz is helpful but many times it’s just not enough as reflected in the union win rate which was 81.9 percent rate in 2025.

 It’s important to always have an open dialogue with your employees, today’s workplace is more diverse then ever and the days of a one management style that fits all is long gone, managing a Multigenerational workforce is much more complicated with Boomers, Gen X, Millennial and Gen z employees working together.

https://pslabor.com/

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