A dirty business

...While companies have always sought professional advice on labor relations, a new industry has emerged of attorneys...

...A decade later, the newly elected Bush administration, and even the Democrats on Capitol Hill have more urgent priorities than helping a beleaguered labor movement...

...But...

...As the House Labor Management Subcommittee noted, consultants can "function at the fringes of the law, where one remains technically within the letter of the law while violating its spirit...

...Abuses by unions and employers are prohibited by the Land-rum-Griffin Act and other labor legislation, yet these laws make little mention of consultants...

...to take control of that organization which is so essential for an anti-union campaign...

...DAVID KUSNET...

...The unions are outsiders...

...With supervisors putting rumors on the word-of-mouth network that exists in any workplace, the "grapevine" served as a lethal weapon...

...At least, we're here with you...

...firing workers merely because they support a union...

...From 1973 through 1984-aperiod that saw the growth of anti-union consulting-the number of unfair labor practice notices issued by the National Labor Relations Board against employers increased by 300 percent...

...It is very easy to associate the transformation of the hospital into a nightmare with the existence of a union drive because, before the union drive happened, things may not have been great, but there wasn't the incredible pressure....And, of course, if the union somehow does win, this hell might become permanent...

...As the House Education and Labor Committee reported: "Management's determination to resist unions created a demand for specialists to direct and orchestrate their campaigns to defeat unionization drives...

...Both workplaces, Levitt recalls, were bitterly divided long after the campaigns...

...Acting on the advice of consultants, employers are increasingly doing what the law forbids: making specific threats or promises to individual employees...

...And he recommends a new round of congressional hearings on what he calls the "dirty business" of anti-union consulting (in fact, that's the title of a book he's writing), with the goal of amending federal labor law to regulate the consultants' activities...

...Levitt's method was "the manipulation of supervisors ...[with the] entire management group forced to say and do things whether they believed in it or not...

...Reformed union-buster" Levitt, who started out as a consultant almost two decades ago, recently explained to me how he would dictate company policies during campaigns, leaving a legacy of tension and broken promises when the campaign was over...

...The last major effort at labor law reform came almost ten years ago under more auspicious circumstances, with Carter in the White House and sympathetic Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress...

...psychologists, sociologists, public relations specialists, and management consultants who promote themselves as experts at combating unions...

...Thus, when supervisors start harassing union supporters and haranguing other employees, workers often don't know whom to blame for the newly hostile tone in their workplace...

...Unlike old-time company goons who stood outside plant gates and hit union organizers on the head with blackjacks, today's consultants stand on the sidelines, coaching top management, training supervisors, and ghostwriting letters to employees from the company president...

...Levitt would advise employers to give the appearance of addressing legitimate employee gripes...

...Behind the growth of the consulting industry is the desire of an increasing number of businesses to operate in what the National Association of Manufacturers approvingly calls "a union-free environment...

...Anti-union consultants have been hired by publishers, bankers, retailers, textile manufacturers, local governments, and schoolboards...

...But perhaps they could be interested in protecting American businesses from shelling out millions of dollars for the privilege of inflaming their own workplaces...

...Since their role is to advise management, consultants let others do the dirty work...

...With companies hiring consultants in an estimated two-thirds of all organizing campaigns, the number of consultants has grown to more than 1,500, according to a 1983 study by the AFL-CIO...

...While Levitt disclaims personal responsibility for the crudest tactics, he remembers a hospital in Louisville where the administrator got the word out that three leading union supporters were lesbians (they weren't...

...In fact, he can remember only one employer, an Ohio hospital owned by a religious order, that made a sincere effort to institute the improvements he recommended to convince employees they didn't need a union: an "employee roundtable" to allow workers to present their grievances to management, new personnel policies, and a more sensitive style of supervision...

...and refusing to bargain in good faith with existing unions...

...in Levitt's experience, once unions were defeated, "eighty percent of the companies-would just try to find a way to get rid of the union activists, instead of making the company a better place to work...

...And, until recent changes in reimbursement policy, hospitals and nursing homes were billing Medicare and Medicaid for'' labor relations services'' to pay consultant fees...

...A self-described "reformed union-buster.'' Levitt offers first-hand insights into the shadowy world of management consultants who earn an estimated $500 million a year by persuading companies to engage in costly warfare against unions...

...Nonetheless, it was blocked by business lobbyists and Senate Republicans who portrayed it as special-interest legislation...

...Levitt now admits he preyed on management's "terror of the prospect that their people, their grunts, would have an honest opportunity to have a collective voice in what goes on in the business, that they might lose control to some degree...

...and productivity suffered...

...Company presidents were counseled to tell employees: "Sure, we made some mistakes, but we deserve a chance...

...To meet the demand the anti-union consulting industry sprang into existence...

...Having convinced the managers that "the union drive was their fault," he found that, "once they started feeling that guilt, it was easy...

...The range includes large full-service, management-consulting firms, specialized law firms, and individual operators like Levitt, who plied his trade from his Ohio home, earning an estimated $200,000 a year, commanding fees of $1,200 a day...

...Not only are consultants immune to scrutiny by employees, and frequently stockholders as well, but they are virtually exempt from the regulations imposed by federal labor laws...

...And there was a factory in Columbus where management playea upon racial tensions among white, black, and Asian workers...

...Now, Levitt proclaims himself a believer in labor-management cooperation as the formula for fairer and more productive workplaces...

...As Nancy Mills, an organizer for the Service Employees International Union, told the House Labor Management Subcommittee: "The average worker is unaware of their [the consultants'] existence...