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Union busters have often earned 20 times more than the workers they seek to “persuade” not to unionize. Operating largely in the shadows with minimal regulatory oversight, these so-called “persuaders” face little accountability for their tactics.
The union-busting industry thrives on secrecy, with consultants exploiting loopholes in disclosure requirements and filing mandatory reports months late — if they file accurate information at all. But recently, the upper limits of what they charge have evidently exploded far beyond long-outrageous multiples. Disclosures show that two union busters, including one hired by Amazon, recently set new records for the highest hourly and daily rates. The disclosures also provide a stark illustration of common tactics used by union busters to neutralize the intended educational benefit of their reporting requirements to workers.
A union buster for Amazon recently reported billing the highest daily rate ever observed by LaborLab, the workers’ rights watchdog organization that I lead. Anite Guillaume — working for one of Amazon’s favorite anti-union consultancies, Road Warrior Productions (RWP) — reported earning $9,000 a day for collecting information on drivers through one-on-one conversations. That’s roughly double the highest daily rate previously recorded by LaborLab.
If the average wage of an Amazon driver is $20 an hour, as Salary.com reports, and a driver’s average shift is 10 hours, as Amazon’s hiring site suggests, the drivers Guillaume was targeting would earn $200 a day on average.
Do the math: If her disclosure is accurate, union buster Guillaume may have bagged in a single day what the average Amazon driver takes 45 days to earn.
While Guillaume may have set a new record for the highest daily union-busting rate, the prize for the new highest hourly rate goes to The AZ Alignment Group Association. This case is worth looking at more closely: It reveals some reporting tricks that consultants use to undermine the purpose of mandatory union-busting disclosures, while also pointing toward some of the creepier aspects of their jobs.
The AZ Alignment Group Association — a consultancy based in Scottsdale, Arizona, that also uses a number of alternate names including The Alignment Group, TAG, and The Alignment Group Association — recently reported charging $625 an hour to Chico Heights Rehab and Wellness Center, a rehab center in Chico, California, that also does business as Autumn Creek Post Acute.
That’s equivalent to what a typical laundry worker — one of the types of workers that had been organizing — earns on average in about six days ($625 divided by an average daily wage of $112 equals 5.6 days) and what another — a certified nursing assistant — earns on average in about four days ($625 divided by average daily wage of $158.40 equals 3.9 days)
In true union buster fashion, Gabrielle Shores — the AZ Alignment consultant who union busted at Chico — failed to observe the 30-day filing deadline mandated by the agreement, disclosing her pay rate and a specific description of services a month late. She therefore denied these workers their legal right to grapple with her shockingly high compensation — and to fully consider why their employer felt the need to pay an outside “persuader,” rather than spending the money on its own workers or on equipment that might have benefited the patients they care for.
If workers at Chico Heights had kn