New Web Site Brought to You by Union Busters, Inc.
I just received an email from Art Shostak about unionfacts.org, a web site set up specifically to undermine workers' faith in organized labor. A quick whois reveals the site is registered to Berman and Company in Herndon, Virginia, a PR firm. Based on their proximity to Washington, they were most likely hired by someone like the National Association of Manufacturers or the National Chamber of Commerce.
It's a pretty slick site. You can be sure it won't be long before every union buster puts a link to this site in their literature and in emails to workers. And it won't be long after that when union busters have sites set up not about unions in general, but about each International and then even about each local union. unionfacts.com already has a page where you can look up an international's "Union Profile" at unionfacts.com/unions.
Mr. Shostak was tipped off about the site by a member who saw a full page ad for it in the Wall Street Journal. The full page ad showed a chained-locked gate with a sign that read "CLOSED". The caption saied "The New Union Label...Brought to you by union "leaders" who helped bankrupt steel, auto, and airline companies."
- Steve Dondley's blog
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Saw An Article in the Times
Yesterday the NY Times ran an article in the business section on the new organization. It was actually good with quotes from the AFL and SEIU. The article also noted the guy who is running the site hopes to lobby for a bill banning card check - so much for concerns about democracy.
Grover Norquist before the last election was quite clear that the dues base of unions would be one of the top targets for the new administration. He wants the agency fee rate to be something like 50% of dues. Whether he and his cronies will be successful at achieving this is yet to be seen, but they are anything but stupid and some type of coordinated response to new organizing initiatives is certainly in the works.
I think unions should be exploring organizational alternatives to guaranteed dues in closed shops. Bureaucracies are by nature resource intensive and expensive organizational models are vunerable to the types of attacks listed above. Membership retention and recruitment has to be able to withstand financial setbacks to be viable over the long term.
glass half full?
Couple of things about this news I find encouraging. The fact that the business "community" has found it necessary to pour a lot of money into the site suggests that they might be feeling a little heat. And if workers are encouraged by their bosses to check out an anti-union site, they may be more likely to check out the union's site as well.
AFL-CIO blog on Berman
The new AFL-CIO blog, mentioned elsewhere on this site, has a good bit on Richard Berman's other lobbying efforts. He'll be a story to follow - the press blitz continued on to the Washington Times ("America's Newspaper") with an editorial.
I doubt this is a 1 week media strategy - we'll expect Berman's "Center for Union Facts" to show up during the nationwide hotel worker contract campaign soon.
Other such sites
From reading your piece, I get the impression this is a new phenomenon in the US.
In Canada we've for several (5?) years had a simlar, very slick and carefully put-together site that gets a fair bit of traffic called www.LabourWatch.com.
Quite active, apparently 'neutral', and aggressive in getting the 'services' they provide known out there.