The labor-busting law firms and consultants that keep Google, Amazon and other workplaces union-free

Photo caption: Rite Aid hired anti-union consultants to try to prevent workers from successfully organizing. Amy Niehouse/Flickr, CC BY-SA. Article by John Logan.

American companies have been very successful at preventing their workers from organizing into unions in recent decades, one of the reasons unionization in the private sector is at a record low.

What you may not realize is that a handful of little-known law and consulting firms do much of the dirty work that keeps companies and other organizations union-free.

IKEA, for example, turned to Ogletree Deakins, one of the largest law firms that specialize in so-called union avoidance activities, to help it crush unionization efforts in Stoughton, Massachusetts, in 2016. Google hired IRI Consultants, a firm known for its anti-union activities, for advice on how to deal with growing worker unrest. And just this summer, two liberal-leaning organizations – the Scholars Strategy Network and ACLU Kansas – recruited the services of Ogletree when their employees tried to form unions. […]

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