U.S. Employers Spend $1.7B Annually on Union Avoidance

U.S. employers spend roughly $1.7 billion a year on union avoidance consultants and law firms to keep their workers from organizing and bargaining for better pay and working conditions, according to a recent Economic Policy Institute and LaborLab report.

Union avoidance consultants often work to prevent a union election from taking place—and if that fails, to ensure that workers vote against the union and then stall negotiations over a first collective bargaining agreement. During the past several decades, large law firms—such as Littler Mendelson, Morgan Lewis, and Jackson Lewis—have developed substantial business specializing in union avoidance services.

Through analyzing Law.com and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) case data, the report calculates the revenue law firms generate from employers who try to avoid unions and collective bargaining with their workers. The report also updates previous EPI research on spending on union avoidance consultants. After accounting for overlap between these two totals, the report estimates that spending on attorneys (whether for representation, consultation, or both) and non-attorney consultants is roughly $1.7 billion a year.