Why HR leaders view unions more positively than executives overall

HR departments often play a key role in helping management respond to unionization efforts at their companies. When management takes a strong anti-union stance, talks between management and unionized workers can turn adversarial, putting HR pros in a tough spot.

But recent data from Payscale suggests HR has a more positive view of unions than executive leadership overall. A survey of HR and compensation professionals conducted in November and December of last year found 62% of those whose organizations bargain with unions believe their HR leadership views unions positively. By contrast, just 38% reported executive leadership views unions positively.

Why HR views unions positively. John Frehse, a senior managing director at consulting firm Ankura, wasn’t surprised to see HR leaders were perceived as being more favorable toward unions in the Payscale survey.

“Especially coming out of Covid, HR teams have been blamed for everything that goes wrong from a culture perspective, inside of organizations,” Frehse said. HR manuals often leave a lot to be translated, he noted, and “digested in different ways by different leaders.” Union contracts, on the other hand, are very specific.

Collective-bargaining agreements are negotiated between employees and management, and can take years to hash out when workers first unionize. They touch on terms and conditions of employment that often fall under the purview of HR, such as wages and disciplinary action. Such contracts take some of the guesswork out of certain employment conditions; if a contract has a wage progression scale built into it, for example, employees are less likely to come to HR and ask when they’re getting their next raise, Frehse said.

With union contracts, “there’s no real ability to go back to the HR team and complain about rules or about results from the language because the language is very clear,” he said.

What more unionization means for HR. Union membership has declined over the last 40 years; just 10% of US workers belonged to unions in 2023, down from 20.1% in 1983. Most respondents to Payscale’s survey (88%) said it was unlikely their workers would file for a union vote in the next year. Some 22% said their organization already bargains with a union, with 4% reporting they started doing so just in the last few years.

But 2023 was still a hallmark year for the labor movement, with major strikes rising to the highest level in nearly two decades, and workers in the automotive and entertainment industries scoring big contract wins. Recent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rulings are expected to spur more union organizing this year.

All this likely means that HR is increasingly more likely to work with unions and be involved in labor negotiations, Frehse said. He noted that in many cases, HR pros lack sufficient education to work effectively with unions. If their senior leadership team takes a strongly anti-union stance, HR pros only have so much power over how they can respond to unionization.

Still, there are ways to tap into positive views of unions in the interest of producing more fruitful negotiations, he said. Being “actively engaged in workforce culture,” as well as being able to “articulate business requirements to union leadership teams,” are two critical pieces of the process, said Frehse.