How Companies Prevent Unionization – Diversifying the Workforce

Divide and conquer is a common tactic used by corporations to prevent unionization. Numerous studies over the years have shown that highly diverse workforces are much less likely to form a union. The same phenomenon is found in divisive politics, which seek to weaken the power of individuals by dividing us from our identity as citizens and eliciting an emotional response that pushes us to align ourselves more with our race, gender, religion, class, and voting habits than with citizens of a nation. In the workplace, DEI initiatives only seek to weaken the power of the collective.

The study Racial Diversity and Union Organizing in the United States, 1999–2008, published in 2015, analyzed 7,000 organizations between 1999 and 2008 to determine which were most likely to unionize. The researchers compared information from the National Labor Relations Board on union activity with surveys of large workplaces from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to identify racial diversity among employees.The study finds that successful unionization attempts are less common in more diverse plants. However, there is no evidence that this is because workers are less interested in voting for unions. Rather, organizers in more diverse units are more likely to drop out before such elections are held.,” the study found. Why? Employees were more likely to blame racial injustice for unfair work practices rather than realize that the entire workforce as a whole faced injustice.

Whole Foods created a heat map to track unionization risk and compiled data from the National Labor Relations Board. The company looked at “external risks,” “in-store risks,” and “team member sentiment.” Stores closer to other unions had higher rates of external risks, as did stores with a higher percentage of families living below the poverty line in the store’s respective ZIP code.

In-store risks showed a direct correlation between diversity and unionization:

“Store risk measures include average store compensation, average total store sales and a “diversity index” that represents the racial and ethnic diversity of each store.Stores at higher risk of unionization have lower diversity and lower employee pay, as well as higher total store sales and higher rates of workers’ compensation claims, the documents show..”

Diversity also had a negative impact on team member sentiment. Once again, employees were more likely to believe that management targeted people based on their race than to believe that management implemented unfair practices against all employees.

Amazon, Whole Foods’ parent company, has been fighting unionization efforts for years. Both companies promote DEI initiatives and boast high scores on the Human Rights Campaign’s CEI. In reality, they’ve spent money learning how to undermine their workers’ power.

At a higher level, we see these same divisive practices from world leaders who exploit our differences to diminish the power of united citizens. It’s why we see woke politics, DEI recruitment, and an increased insistence that we defend our individual identities that we never risked giving up. It’s why they want us to feel bad about ourselves, why they ask elementary school kids to choose their pronouns and sexuality. It’s why the slavery reparations argument resurfaces every few months, and why they want to mandate late-term abortion in the Bible Belt rather than allowing individual states to decide. Everyone is focused on defending their identities based on race, religion, etc., rather than realizing that those at the top have effectively pitted their neighbors against each other.