Jason Greer, the founder, and president of Greer Consulting, joined Cheddar News to discuss the return of the popularity of labor unions in 2022.

Jason Greer, the founder, and president of Greer Consulting, joined Cheddar News to discuss the return of the popularity of labor unions in 2022.<br>

Return of the Pro-Union Movement in 2022

joining us now to discuss this is Jason Greer, founder and president of Greer consulting and employee relations and diversity management consulting firm. Thank you so much for joining us. I gotta ask you, how did 2020 to reshape the labor movement? Cause we're seeing it now. Workers were more honest about what they wanted. When you consider the fact that Starbucks first, let's be real. Who would have ever guessed that Starbucks would be unionizing at the clips? They are every single day. You see another Starbucks store that has gone. Union workers are more honest. But I think social media plays a role in it. And it also comes back to the fact that Covid was sort of the reckoning for everyone where people start to ask bigger questions about what they wanted, how they wanted to be treated, how they want to be paid and more importantly, they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. And now we see this union boom that's happening around the country. Do you think they would have been as successful with actually getting these unions approved had there not been an employee shortage? Because they're like, hey, we got the cards in our hand, we're gonna use our power potentially. But consider this. It really comes back to social media and it comes back to the fact that you have technologies like slack where employees are basically able to talk in ways that they never had before because where there's collective suffering, there's collective grief. People kind of coalesced around this and all of a sudden they're exploding. They're moving in ways that we've never seen before. So which demographic do you think we're seeing embrace these unions the most retail? Definitely. When you consider apple, when you consider uh Chipotle, you consider trader joe's when you consider what's going on a startup bucks. But here's the demographic that people are not talking enough about is the fact that unions are starting to spread into white collar jobs. We're starting to see more tech industries that are organizing. We're starting to see people talk in terms of unions in ways that we've never had before because again and I go back to this because I see this happen in my industry. They call me the employee whisperer because I'm the person that comes into these organizations. And I talked to thousands upon thousands of employees per year. And I'm always amazed when an employee will pick up the phone and say look I was looking at this video from this company in an industry that's completely unrelated to my industry. But they're saying the same things that we're saying that we're not treated well, we're not paid well and we deserve something more. And that's why we're considered union. Well how would you say the union movement has changed And are there techniques that we're seeing working better in some industries like Gm. They just approved union at their E. V plant. Ohio. What amazes me about this is when you look at basically how units have been historically. They haven't changed when you look at the teamsters, you look at the United Auto workers, you just brought MGM. They haven't changed their still sort of stuck in how things were back in the 80s. What's changed about the way people are organizing is that many employees are cutting out the middleman there. Now we're going to these big unions, they're unionizing amongst themselves. When you consider the trader joe's union, these are employees who are literally coming together in the employee break rooms that coming together via text via WhatsApp and they're organizing amongst themselves and they're going directly to the employer and saying we want a contract. So what we're seeing more than anything else is that employees are really starting to take Shape and form for themselves as opposed to paying somebody else to do it for that. And speaking of GM one more time, you know the lead and the executives there were saying that they support this unionization. They were saying, well let the employees vote and they can decide for themselves, how are other businesses receiving this unionization? We've seen a lot of pushback from Starbucks for example. So people like Howard Schultz and other executives would tell you in the media that they completely supported because under the section seven rights of the National Labor Relations Act, they don't have the right to say. These employees can't unionize internally, they are scared to death because it signals a shift that signals to see change because now the look, when you look in the past, it was typically manufacturing employees who are organizing. Now when you see a group of tech workers organizing employers don't know what to do with it so they're scared, they're confused. But more importantly they're asking a bigger question, what can we do to make sure that we remain union free beyond just paying people? Okay. So let's get your outlook then for the 2023 going forward in regards to humanization, especially as employees need to begin to change, will we see them stronger than ever or will they dwindle down? We're gonna see organizing stronger than ever. But it really comes back to the fact that they need to actually get a contract. Part of the reason why Starbucks has gone out on strike across the country is because they don't have a contract. And you said earlier in the lead up, gallup is reporting that 71% of americans have a high favorability to our unions. That's awesome. But also 71% of americans are sitting back saying even though I appreciate unions, what are they really getting the employees? So until we really see these contracts start to take shape and form, we're not gonna know what we have. But I'm gonna tell you this Elizabeth schuler who's the president of A. F. L. C. I. O. Which is the largest grouping of units across the country has literally said we are going to apply as much money as we can to organize one million employees over the course of 10 years. That means organizing is not going to stop, but it still comes back to you can organize all day long. But what are you getting the employees in terms of dollars and cents? Well, I think most important here for those companies that don't want unionization is to treat your employees fairly and maybe they won't go for union. All right, thank you so much, Jason Greer, founder and president of Greer, consulting