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THE FIRM THAT IS THE FOCUS OF THIS ARTICLE IS NOT A "BAD" EMPLOYER IN THE TRADItional sense. Its clients are normally extremely satisfied with its service. Indeed, it may well be, as it frequently claims, the nation's leading company providing this particular service. Among its hundreds of satisfied clients over the past two decades are General Electric, MCI, K-Mart, Honeywell, Coca-Cola, and several large hospital chains, including Catholic Healthcare West, the largest private hospital chain in California. According to all available information, moreover, the firm treats its employees extremely well-most are handsomely rewarded for their efforts, earning around $180-$250 per hour plus expenses in compensation.
THE PROBLEM WITH THIS FIRM IS THE SERVICE IT provides-sophisticated and aggressive antiunion campaigns that are custom-designed to undermine employees' right to choose a union. While it is probably unfamiliar to many scholars of labor-management relations, the firm is intimately familiar to union organizers throughout the country who rank it alongside New York lawyers Jackson-Lewis as one of the most notorious union-busting firms in the nation. The firm has orchestrated approximately 800 antiunion campaigns since its founding in 1981, charging millions of dollars (including state and federal tax dollars from employers that receive public money)1 for its services, and has been involved in dozens of organizing drives tarnished by allegations of unfair labor practices (ULPs). The name of the firm is the Burke Group.
Modern day antiunion consultants have operated since the 1940s. However, the consultant industry expanded enormously in response to the intensification of employer opposition to unionization during that decade.2 By the 1990s, one scholar estimated, American employers were spending over $200 million per year in direct payments to consultants, but that the true value of the antiunion industry rose to over $1 billion per year when one included the cost of management and supervisor time off to fight unionization.3 Recent studies have demonstrated that antiunion consultants are now part of standard operating procedure, with three-quarters of employers engaging their services when confronted by an organizing drive, and that unions win significantly fewer National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) elections when employers engage the services of a consultant.4 Over the past three decades, consultant activities have transformed the character of union representation campaigns, turning them into...