Labor and Employment Alert
Organized Labor Targets Residential Homebuildersby Joseph Turzi, Rick Storms, and John Fitzsimmons Organized labor appears poised to make good on its decades old promise, which began with the ill-fated Building Trades Organizing Project of the late 1990s, to organize the construction industry. Buoyed by localized successes in the Western states and reinvigorated by a Democratic-controlled Congress, labor organizations across the country are ramping up for an increase in activity. The public phase of the campaign was launched a few months ago when both the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win Federation announced that they had identified targets among residential builders for a “corporate campaign.” Recently, the Laborers Union, a member of the Change to Win Federation has begun advertising to fill jobs for what they are calling "an unprecedented national effort to organize residential construction workers." The job listing makes it clear that the focus of the corporate campaigns will be in the western United States, with Arizona, California, and Nevada as the primary locations. In addition, labor appears to be increasing its efforts to obtain state prevailing wage laws that will apply to residential construction. The Corporate Campaign Concept – Not Just a Picket LineLike many businesses in the 21st century, certain segments of organized labor have grown in sophistication and breadth over the last decade, looking beyond the "grassroots" organizing paradigm typically associated with organized labor. In particular, there has been a recent growth in aggressive organizing tactics known as "corporate campaigns." Corporate campaigns are not traditional labor organizing campaigns. Instead, they are massive and sophisticated pressure campaigns employing a "top down" approach designed to force the target company into broad, company-wide organizing agreements. As a court decision noted, the term corporate campaign "encompasses a wide and indefinite range of legal and potentially illegal tactics used by unions to exert pressure on an employer." Common corporate campaign tactics include litigation, political appeals, requests that regulatory agencies investigate and pursue employer violations of state or federal law, and negative publicity campaigns aimed at reducing the employer’s good will with employees, investors, or the general public. Beginning in the late 1980s, several unions began making such campaigns the centerpiece of their organizing strategies, with great success. The essence of these campaigns is coordinated tactics which seek to pressure a company to acquiesce to a union’s organizing demands. These corporate campaigns have been highly successful, making them a blueprint for future organizing efforts. Western states have been the “test bed” for innovative corporate campaign tactics targeting the construction industry. For example, local chapters of the Building and Construction Trades Council have filed environmental actions against residential housing developers and their contractors in an effort to force developers to sign project labor agreements (PLAs). Justice for Roofers, a coalition of religious, civic, and union organizations established for the purpose of organizing roofers nationwide, has a particularly active chapter in Arizona, focusing on local developers. California Unions for Reliable Energy (CURE) has routinely targeted new power plant projects with lawsuits alleging violations of clean air laws and endangerment of local populations. The California Pipes Trade Council, a union-backed watchdog organization purportedly focusing on the safety of plumbing systems and materials used in homes, schools, and office buildings, led a widely publicized campaign against the use of certain piping materials, claiming that the Schwarzenegger administration was ignoring safety and environmental concerns at the behest of developers. These are a few specific examples of corporate campaigns tactics currently at work against the construction industry. Home builders can expect that these and other tactics will see increased use in the promised national campaigns. Recognizing and Defending against a Corporate CampaignThe most important thing for a company to do in a successful defense against a corporate campaign is to recognize the existence of the campaign and understand how it functions. The key is to understand that campaigns attack companies in novel and unforeseen ways. Traditional responses to these non-traditional attacks subject a target to a war of attrition that it cannot win. At the same time, the campaign creates new, and, for an unwary target, unanticipated risks that undermine the foundations of the target’s business. The problem is compounded because many campaign activities are deliberately designed to appear as “normal course of business” events, and the target only recognizes these as campaign activities when it is too late to respond effectively. Employers in a targeted industry should be mindful of these ongoing union campaigns and be prepared to address them effectively.
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