Unions' Disarming New Tactics

I wrote last week that unions were having difficulty organizing employees at such places as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in the face of a weak labor market, and they were therefore adopting tactics that you might call "alterna-organizing": turning to the firm's clientele or the government, rather than employees, to help them raise wages. That's why OUR Walmart is running an informational campaign against Wal-Mart rather than trying to establish a union -- it gives it more leeway to enlist customers and voters in its drive for higher wages at the company's stores.

Well, here's another exhibit in the trend: The Service Employees International Union is sponsoring ballot initiatives in California and Oregon that would cap executive pay at hospitals and limit how much customers can be charged. But what does this have to do with the workers? you will ask. The answer is nothing, directly. Instead, the ballot initiatives are bargaining chips. If the hospitals will "work with" the union, the SEIU will back off the ballot initiatives, which threaten hospital profits.