Planting Liberally

Last Sunday, I wrote about In These Times's recent fascinating piece on union-busting, Union Busting Confidential. I wrote that the sleazy behavior of union-busters, combined with their high costs, should make it possible for a liberal entrepreneur to establish a pro-union employee relations firm which helps employers cooperate with unions, to the mutual benefit of employees and employers. That initial idea generated some enthusiasm, so I'd like to follow up on it and flesh it out a bit today. The goal of the pro-union employee relations firm was two-fold: first, to inform business owners and managers of the economic benefits of unionization, and consequently to discourage them from union-busting; and secondly, to provide employers with the services they need to cooperate with unionization efforts, in order to maximize the benefit for their company. The services provided by the firm would be the core of the company's sustainability model, while the company's pro-union educational efforts would help strengthen the labor movement by facilitating private sector unionization efforts. I'd really like to make some headway towards making this idea a reality, and I'd like to see if there are other MyDD readers who'd like to join. What I have in mind is starting a blog which discusses the economic benefits of unionization for employers. For now, I'm calling it "The Pro-Union Employer", for lack of a better term. The main challenge in establishing the blog would be deciding what to write, and how frequently. There are a few different topics the blog writers could choose; I've organized this list according to the topics which should probably be the most important.

• Discussion of unionization studies released by academic labor departments and economic think tanks, especially discussion of reports which directly address the question of the economic benefits of unionization.
• Commentary on union-related articles in the business press - including newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times; magazines like Businessweek, Fortune, Inc., and FastCompany; and, if possible, cable channels like CNBC and Fox Business News. Where possible, this kind of commentary would debunk anti-union assumptions or claims underlying these articles.
• Commentary on, and where necessary refutations of, blog posts in the anti-union blogosphere and the economic blogosphere.
• Profiles of union-busting firms, and coverage of scandals or court cases involving companies which have hired those firms. In fact, I could see this kind of content evolving into a resource center, where interested users could do research on the history of prominent union-busters.
• Development of anti-union busting materials, like slide shows and talking points, which highlight out the risks and costs of union-busting.
• Interviews with prominent labor leaders and company executives, discussing cases of unionization efforts that benefited both employers and workers.
• Coverage of ongoing organizing or contracting drives, and commentary on the good-faith behavior (or lack thereof) of company executives, and how it is (or isn't) serving the long-term health of the company.
• Discussion of union-related legislation, court rulings, and regulatory decisions, and how they might impact related industries.

This mix of content, especially the first three items on the list, would probably be enough to spark some interest among business managers and owners who are not rigidly anti-union. I would personally be very interested in seeing the blog take on a search engine marketing campaign meant to garner a high rating on certain keywords, like "union free", "union avoidance", "union vote no", and on the names of certain high-profile union-busters, like "Jackson Lewis" and "The Burke Group". I'd be even more interested to see a social networking marketing campaign, intended to reach employers through sites like LinkedIn. Such campaigns could be relatively low-cost and could be very effective in reach individuals who might be considering hiring a union-buster. Ideally, I'd like to see the blog written by a mix of pro-union business owners/managers, workers, and union activists/academics. But, I'd certainly welcome the efforts of anyone who'd like to help out. Unfortunately, the effort would be entirely volunteer, and would rely on donations, or perhaps merchandise sales, to support the costs of hosting and domain registration. That's not a sustainable business model, but there are a couple of ways the blog could become sustainable. First, it might be possible to encourage a union, academic labor department, or think tank to sponsor the blog and pay the salary of a part-time blogger. Second, it's possible that the blog could garner enough interest among labor law and HR professionals that it would eventually spawn a pro-union employee relations firm, which would then assume sponsorship of the blog. Those are both long odds, but that would be the long-term sustainability plan. The technical foundation of the blog could be quite simple; initially, it would probably take the form of a simple Soapblox account, with some fairly simple customization and a purchased domain name. I don't imagine that this blog will get a lot of traffic and a boatload of commenters. The volume of traffic to the site doesn't matter, but it is important that the blog reach the right target audience (i.e., business managers and owners who might be in a position to hire a union-busting firm). The blog would also require a reasonably active moderator and troll detection system, as the blog would be a likely target for anti-union commenters. However, because this blog would not be a "preaching to the choir" blog, it would be necessary for the blog to establish clear guidelines on acceptable and unacceptable behavior, and to fairly and consistently enforce those guidelines. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that the anti-troll work would eat up a lot of time, and would be the most thankless and grueling work in maintaining the blog. However, I think all of this effort would be phenomenally rewarding, because it would establish a unique and powerful online resource: a blog whose focus is providing business managers and owners with pro-union arguments which speak to their immediate concerns of profitability and company health. By itself, such a blog would help undermine the union-busting industry. Moreover, it could be a springboard for further efforts to turn the tide against union-busting, like the establishment of a pro-union employee relations firm, or a resource center which provides union activists with materials they need to persuade employers that unions are good for business. Ultimately, I think this blog could be an important piece of the larger effort to revitalize the labor movement. If you're interested in joining this effort, please drop your name and email address (use (at) and (dot) to fool spam-bots) in the comments, and we'll take things from there. If you have critiques on the idea, include them in the comments below! I'd love to see this idea improve and take flight.