In-Your-Face Worker Groups Are Gaining Influence

Non-union groups like the Restaurant Opportunities Center and Florida’s Coalition of Immokalee Workers are doing what unions have traditionally done but they are not playing by the rules that unions are required to follow. That’s according to their employer adversaries, who would like to nip this movement in the bud. But the NLRB has ruled that one such group was not a union because it did not usually deal with specific employers, and a current group leader makes the point they don’t “bargain” in any traditional sense.  A prominent bare-knuckle Washington lobbyist has been hired to counter the movement on the legislative and regulatory front, while meanwhile the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has produced a report that says foundations, including the Marguerite Casey Foundation and the Ford Foundation, have given some of these groups millions of dollars. Some academics on the labor side say that it’s a mistake to consider the groups union fronts, that they represent the interest of marginal immigrant labor pools that the unions have ignored or failed to organize, and that in fact there is often tension between them and the unions.