The campaign

A matter of organization on campus: Art Tipton is director of human resources at Pierce University, a private university located in a big city. Ruth Zimmer, a maintenance and government services supervisor, just walked into Art's office to talk about her situation. Zimmer's division is responsible for the maintenance and cleaning of the institution's buildings. She is one of the supervisors of the department and is in charge of verifying that the employees maintain and clean the bedrooms of the house of studies.

In a few minutes, Zimmer expresses his concern about the campaign to organize a

union that has started among its employees. According to her, a representative of the Service Workers Union has met with some of them to ask them to sign union authorization cards. He has observed that some of his workers "corner" others to talk to them about the possibility of joining the union and to ask them to sign authorization (or representation) cards. Zimmer has seen this happen even during work hours, while employees fulfill their normal obligations in the dormitories. Zimmer adds that some have come to her for her opinion on the union. They told her that other supervisors in the department have instructed their employees not to sign authorization cards and not to talk about it while on campus. Zimmer also says one of her fellow supervisors told her workers that if she caught someone talking about the union or signing the authorization card, she would be subject to disciplinary action and would perhaps be fired. Zimmer says employees are very unhappy with their salaries and with many of the situations they have had to face, caused by students, supervisors and other staff. He says several workers informed him that they had signed the union cards because they thought the only way for the university administration to pay attention to their problems was to have a union to represent them. Zimmer adds that he has made a list of employees who, in his opinion, have joined or show interest in doing so and that he can provide it to Tipton to talk to them. Zimmer ends her talk by stating that she and other supervisors need to know what to do to end the threat of unionization in their department.

Suppose you are the labor relations advisors hired by the university to identify the issues and issues involved, as well as to advise Art Tipton on the rights of the institution and what it will do. Analyze the topics, describe them, and propose an action plan for Tipton.

Challenges:

1. What do you have to do now?
2. What should Art do?