“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” –Judge Sotomayor, 2001

“I’m sure she would have restated it… But if you look in the entire sweep of the essay that she wrote, what’s clear is that she was simply saying that her life experiences will give her information about the struggles and hardships that people are going through — that will make her a good judge.” – President Obama, 2009

By now the political press has replayed Judge Sotomayor’s statement ad nauseum. Setting aside the political opinions, this quotation and President Obama’s interpretation of it dramatically illustrate the importance of perception, context, and diversity in human relations.

How you perceive or interpret Judge Sotomayor’s remark depends heavily upon the context you bring to it. President Obama believes that “she would have restated it” because it is inconsistent with his understanding of “entire sweep of the essay that she wrote…” In other words the context of his understanding overrode her words.

Perception and Context

Let’s extend that concept to the workplace, and the importance of your company’s relationship with your employees.

Employee perceptions can and often do override the actions of the company.

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) will affect the vast majority of growing companies. As discussed in the previous post, the proposed EFCA legislation enables unions to organize many more companies, and gives unions tools, access, and a simplified method—card check—to gain approval as the company bargaining unit.

Pat Lynch, Ph.D., an expert on union history and CEO of Business Alignment Strategies, points out that an employer should know its “employees’ perceptions of how their employer treats them on a daily basis.”

An employee may be comfortable with the supervisor, the compensation, and even the work content, but still have a poor perception of the organizational culture. In this case, the context will open the door to possible unionization of that workplace.

Conversely, in difficult economic times such as this, an employee may not be satisfied with the supervisor, the compensation or the work content; but if the employee perceives the organizational culture to be fair and to value the employees, then that context will discourage potential unionizing.

Last week Pat called me with a request to clarify the EFCA and correct information that was in the previous post and I’m happy to do so.

Key Provisions of the EFCA

1. Unions will be certified without a secret ballot election by employees if more than 50% of affected employees sign authorization cards.
2. If management and union do not reach agreement on a contract within 120 days, a two-year contract would be imposed by a panel of arbitrators.
3. The Act imposes treble damages on employers who retaliate against employees who are involved in union organizing efforts.

Additional Considerations Regarding EFCA

1. Specific employers are excluded from the EFCA, such as those in the public sector, those covered under the Railway Labor Act, agricultural workers, and independent consultants, to name a few. The company size limit for EFCA is covered in the existing National Labor Relations Act, which would be amended by the EFCA.
2. The EFCA does NOT expand the definition of “employee” to supervisors. This proposed expansion is addressed in a different bill before Congress called the Re-empowerment of Skilled and Professional Employees and Construction Tradesworkers (RESPECT) Act.
3. The EFCA does NOT give unions the right to access a company’s e-mail directory, although there is a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) case that addresses this issue. The NLRB may change the existing ruling (which has the force of law) to enable unions to gain such access under certain conditions in the future.

Diversity

Back to my opening comments.

Our perceptions of diversity are often singular, as in the case of Judge Sotomayor, but in fact, diversity exists only within the context of a group. Any single individual is not diverse. Any single person makes decisions within the context of his or her individual experiences. The benefit of diversity is in its improvement of the collective decision-making of a diverse group–be it employees or the panel of judges on the Supreme Court.

But the power of diversity only works where each person has a perception of respect and value within the context of the workplace.

Perception, context and diversity—a powerful combination to improve employee relations and, not coincidentally, employee performance.

Fulfilling one of Obama’s campaign promises, Congress is now considering the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

Because opinions run hot and strong on this proposed legislation, you should read both the union perspective and the non-union perspective.

In short, this legislation would eliminate a secret ballot for union representation, replacing it with a public “card check,” one key difference of opinion is how the card check would give employees a free choice.

But, regardless of your opinion on the legislation, Pat Lynch believes it should be called the “Employer Free Choice Act” because it gives employers a free choice – either take care of their employees or the unions will.

Pat Lynch, Ph.D., university professor and CEO of Business Alignment Strategies has studied unions extensively, focusing on their impact on the American economy. I interviewed her recently to learn more about the EFCA.

She started with a long-term perspective of unions. Union membership has declined as a percentage of the workforce, roughly corresponding to the decline in the manufacturing sector of the economy, to a low of 7.6% of the private workforce as of 2008. Even though union membership in the public sector has climbed to 36.8% in 2008, total union membership is still only 12% of the entire US workforce.

In Pat’s opinion, unions believe EFCA will provide a significant opportunity to organize the newer businesses starting up in green industries. Especially with three key provisions in the proposed legislation:

• No lower limit on company size. EFCA will apply to every company in the United States, whether 10,000 employees or 10 employees.
• EFCA expands the definition of a union worker to include supervisors, in addition to line workers; with this expansion, unions can cover a much larger percent of a company’s workforce.
• EFCA gives unions the right to access the company’s email directory for union communications.

Pat works with companies to improve employee relations. In her opinion, employees rate their job satisfaction on four primary issues:

• Employee satisfaction with immediate supervisor
• Employee voice – do employees feel safe in challenging the status quo, do employees believe their ideas will be considered
• Employee perceptions of procedural fairness
• Rewards and recognition – these go far beyond compensation, which is not a significant element of satisfaction. Recognition is extremely important.

Employers need to improve the actuality, as well as the perceptions, but it takes time. Pat recommends that employers start now—before the EFCA becomes law.

Start by offering an online satisfaction survey to your employees to learn how your employees perceive your team.

Then act on the results.

And come back Thursday to hear Miki’s take on keeping employees happy.