For employers, new reporting rules on union-message consultants
Joseph Brock, a former Teamster who now gets hired by companies trying to stave off union organizing drives, isn't worried about new reporting requirements promulgated by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Joseph Brock, a former Teamster who now gets hired by companies trying to stave off union organizing drives, isn't worried about new reporting requirements promulgated by the U.S. Department of Labor.
"I report everything," said Brock, who runs East Coast Labor Relations L.L.C., based in Delran.
"A lot of employers don't want to report that they spend money on consultants. I have a hard time understanding their angst," he said.
Whatever angst they have is about to get worse. Employers who hire consultants such as Brock, also known as "persuaders," will soon need to file more detailed reports, U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez said Tuesday.
"This rule will pull back the curtain on the activities of consultants who craft the message" employees hear from their companies in the often-contentious time leading up to a vote, Perez said at a news conference.
The rule, first proposed in 2011, will go into effect in a few months.
When union drives begin, many employers set up websites, schedule meetings, and ask frontline supervisors to talk to employees about the company's opinion on whether workers should join the union.
Sometimes, they hire lawyers or consultants to help them craft those messages, or to speak to employees directly.
For years, employers have had to file reports with the federal Office of Labor-Management Standards when they hired consultants who directly spoke to employees.
Reports were not required when consultants - either entrepreneurs like Brock or law firms - provided advice on messaging, whether via meetings or via websites.
That is what has changed: Direct or indirect, the contracts have to be reported by the consultant or law firm and the company.
In 2011, for example, Albert Einstein Healthcare Network successfully battled a union organizing drive at its Belmont Center for Comprehensive Treatment.
In June 2011, it hired Roberta Buesching, a Colorado labor consultant, and paid her $13,000 for five days' work talking to employees. Einstein later sold the Belmont Center.
Nurses at Einstein Medical Center in Olney are in the middle of a union campaign, and Bill Cruice, executive director of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, said the new filing requirements will help persuade nurses at Einstein and elsewhere to join unions.
"Employees are shocked and often outraged" by what employers are willing to spend on union-avoidance, he said.
Union drives often begin when hospitals take austerity measures, cutting benefits or staffing, he said, "and while all this austerity is going on, there is a blank check for consultants. It's very enlightening. It's a factor in their analysis."
Einstein did not respond to a request for a comment by deadline.
The American Bar Association objected to the new rules, saying they interfere with attorney-client privileges because many consultants are lawyers.
Perez said the new regulations pertain only to union messaging, not to legal strategies.
Consultant Brock said the reporting requirement could be a plus for him: When potential clients see what law firms charge for work that he can do, he might get more business.
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