Ten Companies Noted for Year of Good Labor

American Rights at Work’s third annual report profiles ten corporations that demonstrated successful labor relations.

By Danielle Lee

In its third annual edition of “Labor Day List: Partnerships that Work,” labor policy and advocacy group American Rights at Work profiled several companies, including AT&T and Thompson Electric, that it found have maintained successful partnerships between employees, employers and unions.

The profiled companies, which vary in size, span the telecommunications, construction and healthcare industries and many have implemented higher labor standards than those mandated by U.S. law, according to the report. They range from the 12,000 employees at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City to the 60-employee Northern California-based Swanton Berry Farm, which was the first certified organic strawberry grower in California and the first organic farm to have a union contract, according to the report.

“Everything we do is the result of a number of discussions between employees and management on what is the best way to do things,” Swanton Founder Jim Cochran said in the report.

The report commended AT&T, the largest corporation listed, for incorporating training and workshops into its decades-long labor alliance. The labor advocacy group also praised AT&T for allowing workers to form unions via majority sign-up prior to the Cingular merger, thwarting disruptive union organizing drives involving Cingular Wireless and the Communications Workers of America prior to the Cingular merger.

Another listed company, DoubleTree Hotel San Jose, also utilized the majority sign-up process.

American Rights at Work Executive Director Mary Beth Maxwell said the 10 companies on the list hold “an alternative vision for the American workplace.”

Other companies on the list included SCA Tissue North America and Stromberg Metal Works, which demonstrated a vision of unions being an asset, not an obstacle, to business success, according to the report.

“AT&T and its customers benefit from the skills and professionalism of union-represented employees in our business units,” Mark Royse, AT&T’s Executive Vice President of Labor Relations, said in the report. “Our company has long taken pride in our cooperative and respectful relationship with the unions that represent our employees.”