Company union: Difference between revisions

A '''company''' or '''"[[Yellow socialism|yellow]]" union''' is a worker organization which is dominated or unduly influenced by an employer, and is therefore not an independent [[trade union]]. Company unions are contrary to [[international labour law]] (see [[ILO Convention 98]], Article 2).<ref>{{Cite web|title=Convention C098: Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98)|url=https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C098|url-status=live|access-date=2021-07-09|website=www.ilo.org|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150606061053/http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C098 |archive-date=2015-06-06 }}</ref> They were outlawed in the United States by the 1935 [[National Labor Relations Act]] §8(a)(2),<ref>{{Cite web|title=Interfering with or dominating a union (Section 8(a)(2)) {{!}} National Labor Relations Board|url=https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/interfering-with-or-dominating-a-union-section-8a2|access-date=2021-07-09|website=www.nlrb.gov|language=en}}</ref> due to their use as agents for interference with independent unions. However, company unions persist in many countries.

Some labour organizations are accused by rival unions of behaving as "company unions" if they are seen as having too close or congenial a relationship with the employer or with [[trade association|business associations]], and even whenif they may be formally recognized in their respective jurisdictions as ''[[bona fide]]'' trade unions, they are usually rejected as such by regional and national [[trade union centre]]s.<ref>[http://www.afl.org/campaigns-issues/Phony_Unions/default.cfm Beware of Phony "Unions": AFL warns workers about Company Unions & CLAC]{{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070919135734/http://www.afl.org/campaigns-issues/Phony_Unions/default.cfm |date=2007-09-19 }}</ref> In a study of one such organisation, this form of company union was observed to rarely or never [[Strike action|strike]], exert relatively little energy in resolving individual workplace grievancesdisputes, and sometimes undercut other unions by bargaining for well beneath industry-standard [[Contractual term|term]]s, and was characterised thus:

<blockquote>"[...] an accommodationist, or “company'company,”' union – anunion—an opportunistic, pariah organization that allows employers who would otherwise face a “real”'real' union (i.e., traditional, militant) a convenient union-avoidance alternative."{{sfn|Tufts|Thomas|2017}}</blockquote>

A "company union" is generally recognized as being an organization that is not freely elected by the workforce, and over which an employer exerts some form of control. The [[International Labour Organization]] defines a company union as "A union limited to a single company which dominates or strongly influences it, thereby limiting its influence."<ref>ILO.</ref> Under the ILO [[Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949]] (No. 98) Article 2 effectively prohibits any form of company union. It reads as follows.:

In 1959, the CGSI became the [[Confédération Française du Travail]] (CFT), led by [[Jacques Simakis]]. It was declared a representative union on January 7, 1959, but the decision was overturned by the [[Council of State (France)|State Council]] on April 11, 1962, following a lawsuit by the [[Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens]] (CFTC) based on the funding of CFT by companies. In 1968, it organized demonstrations for the "[[right to work|freedom to work]]" to oppose the strikes organized by the CGT. In September 1975, Simakis resigned and denounced the links of CFT with the [[Service d'Action Civique]]. On June 4, 1977, a commando formed by members of the CFT-[[Citroën]] opened fire on strikers at the Verreries mécaniques champenoises in [[Reims]] (then directed by [[Maurice Papon]]) in a drive-by shooting, killing Pierre Maître, a member of the CGT. Two other members of the CGT were injured. Following this incident, the CFT changed its name into [[Confédération des Syndicats Libres]] (CSL). In the continuity of the company union of Biétry, the CSL is in favor of the association of capital and labor, is opposed to [[Marxism]] and [[Collectivist anarchism|collectivism]], and denounces the [[French Communist Party]] as a civil war machine. The number of adherents of CSL was never published, but in professional elections, it obtained from 2% to 4% of the votes.<ref>Results from professional elections [http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/dossiers/elections-prudhomales/elections1997.shtml 1987-1997] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080406042043/http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/dossiers/elections-prudhomales/elections1997.shtml |date=2008-04-06 }} La Documentation Française</ref> In October 2002, the CSL disappeared as a national union as a result of lack of funds. It called its supporters to join the [[Force Ouvrière]] union in the professional elections.<ref>Elyane Bressol [http://www.ihs.cgt.fr/IMG/pdf/syndicats_libres.pdf Confédération des Syndicats Libres] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081122203903/http://ihs.cgt.fr/IMG/pdf/syndicats_libres.pdf |date=2008-11-22 }} [[Institut d'histoire sociale CGT]]</ref><ref>[http://istravail.com/article100.html La fin de la Confédération des Syndicats libres (CSL)] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120711052820/http://istravail.com/article100.html |date=2012-07-11 }} Institut Supérieur du Travail</ref> In the automobile industry, the CSL remains as the ''Syndicat Indépendant de l'Automobile'' (Independent Automobile Workers' Union).

In 1914, 16 miners and family members (and one national guardsman) were killed when the [[Colorado Army National Guard|Colorado National Guard]] attacked a tent colony of striking [[Coal mining|coal miners]] in [[Ludlow, Colorado|Ludlow]], [[Colorado]]. This event, known as the [[Ludlow massacre]], was a major public relations debacle for mine owners, and one of them—[[John D. Rockefeller, Jr.]]—hired labor-relations expert and former Canadian [[Minister of Labour (Canada)|Minister of Labour]] [[William Lyon Mackenzie King]] to suggest ways to improve the tarnished image of his company, [[Colorado Fuel and Iron]]. One of the elements of the Rockefeller Plan was to form a union, known as the Employee Representation Plan (ERP), based inside the company itself. The ERP allowed workers to elect representatives, who would then meet with company officials to discuss grievances.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Rees|first=Jonathan H.|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46ntmw|title=Representation and Rebellion: The Rockefeller Plan at the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 1914–1942|date=2010|publisher=University Press of Colorado|jstor=j.ctt46ntmw |isbn=978-0-87081-964-3}}</ref>

The ERP was accepted by the miners.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}} Its success in providing an alternative to negotiations with the [[United Mine Workers]] led other business owners around the country (and even overseas) to consider replicating it.{{citation needed|date=May 2020}} In 1933 the miners voted to be represented by the UMW, ending the ERP at Colorado Fuel and Iron. Company unions, however, continued to operate at other mines in [[Pueblo, Colorado]] and [[Wyoming]],<ref name="Bessemer Historical Society">Bessemer Historical Society.</ref> and the ERP model was being used by numerous other companies.<ref>"Colorado".</ref> (The [[Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters]] was organized in part to combat the company union at the [[Pullman Company]].)<ref>Berman.</ref>

In 1997, the [[government of Guatemala]] received a [[loan]] for 13 million [[United States dollar|USD]] from the [[World Bank]] to privatize its [[seaport]], [[electrical grid]], and telephone and postal services. Canada Post International Limited (CPIL), a [[subsidiary]] of [[Canada Post]], and its partner International Postal Services (IPS), was contracted to manage the privatization process. In anticipation of union resistance, CPIL-IPS agents reportedly used company unions, along with [[bribery]] and [[death threat]]s, to ensure a smooth transition.<ref>Skinner.</ref>

Tufts &‌ Thomas, inIn their wide-ranging 2017 study of the Canadian company union [[Christian Labour Association of Canada|CLAC]], geographer Steven Tufts and sociologist Mark Thomas draw a distinction between multiple categories of organisation commonly called "company unions", arguing that it is a mistake to regard the company union phenomenon as purely or essentially pro-business and anti-worker (or necessarily beholden to any specific business), and that rather they should be seen as occupying one end of a spectrum of possible relationships between business and labour: the "accommodationist" end.{{sfn|Tufts|Thomas|2017}} A defining feature of "accommodationist" or company unionism is that it "seek[s] compromise with employers and capital ''in the first instance''", that is to say, it holds a priori that workers are not generally atin oddscompetition with employers, and should not organise to take action in despite of, or demand significant concessions from, employers in order to achieve better employment conditions. They "explicitly advocate for collaborative relationships with employers and disparage conflict as a means of achieving gains for workers from the outset."{{sfn|Tufts|Thomas|2017}}

Though all trade unions todo somein extent dofact compromise with employers as a matter of arriving at any form of [[collective agreement]]s, the accommodationist attitude more broadly, and the company union as a specific adoption of that attitude, maintains that workers should not exert any strictly independent collective agency with regard to their employeremployment.{{sfn|Tufts|Thomas|2017}} This insistence against the legitimacy of independent worker agency often extends beyond the confines of the workplace, and company or accommodationist unions often seek to disparagedispute the legitimacy of the [[Labour movement|trade union movement]] as a [[Social movement unionism|political movement at large]].{{sfn|Tufts|Thomas|2017}} This brings them into conflict with traditional trade unions in multiple ways; because these aim to [[Workplace democracy|organise workers democratically]] at their jobs in order to pursue their own collective self-interest, as distinct and separate from the interests of the employer; and doubly because traditional trade unions often view workers' struggles as concomitant[[Social movement unionism|interrelated with broader social/-political struggles]], and encourage unionised workers to see themselves in solidarity with one another and with the broader struggles for justice in society.{{sfn|Tufts|Thomas|2017}}

In peculiarparticular, because accommodationist or company unions therefore have no intrinsic means of contesting for the rights and wellbeing of workers (beyond what the employer is simply willing to offer them), (since they don't believe in striking for demands), and beyond what the law already provides for or guarantees (since they don't believe that unions should campaign or lobby for political change or mount legal action), this conflict with "real" unions is not merely ideological, but necessarily practical as well: accommodationist unions organise in direct opposition to existing autonomous trade unions, and generally only seek to expand by [[Union raid|raid]]ing their shops[[Union shop|shop]]s and [[Local union|locals]], with the often explicit goal of supplanting them as the "official" or preferred union recognised by the employer to represent workers, thus setting themselves up as eventual proper company unions proper.{{sfn|Tufts|Thomas|2017}} This sort of aggressive practice isthey then generally justifiedrationalise via recourse to the same accommodationist theory and rhetoric: according to the logic of accommodationism, traditional militant trade unions arecan be said to have no one but themselves to blame if an employer would rather bargain with a company union than with one which organises worker power to fight for gains.{{sfn|Tufts|Thomas|2017}}

*Wolman, Leo (1924). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=li64S60enn0C&printsec=frontcover The Growth of American Trade Unions, 1880-1923]''. J. J. Little & Ives Company. Online at [[Google Book Search]]. Retrieved on 29 August 2007.