If you want more information than you’ll ever need on the wealth of successful business employing unionized workers, you need look no farther than the group American Rights at Work. Every year they publish the Labor Day List, to “recognize successful partnerships between employers and their employees’ labor unions that are working well in the global economy.”
You can download the 2008 report here (PDF), and see a full list of past reports here.
(Note that because the most recent Labor Day List came out last year, the companies highlighted in it don’t necessarily meet the criteria we’ve set up for our growing list of profitable, unionized companies.)
I asked Nikki Daruwala, who directs the Socially Responsible Business Program at the group American Rights at Work, why the perception that unions always hurt businesses persists if all this information is so easily accessible.
“I think it has to do with the fact that people have this knee-jerk reaction–that union and management are on the opposite poles,” she said. “They’re not open to the idea that there are very successful partnerships…helping the companies, helping society.”
