How a pair of “union avoidance” consultants using fake names turned a small Midwestern workplace upside down.
Early last year, the president of a small manufacturing company in Missouri received a cold call from a man who went by the name of Jack Black. Workers at the company, called Motor Appliance Corp., or MAC, had just asked to hold a union election. Jack Black specialized in “union avoidance.” He wanted to offer his services.
“Jack made a convincing argument,” the president, Evan Ballman, testified last September in a hearing before the National Labor Relations Board, the government agency that oversees union elections. “I don’t know if I committed on the one phone call, but it wasn’t long after.”
Jack Black’s firm has brought in millions of dollars over the years by providing employers with “persuaders,” or, to use unions’ less charitable term, “union busters” — consultants who try to convince workers not to organize. Persuader work is big business these days. The number of union elections in the U.S. has surged amid an organizing wave over the last two years. Employers are now paying upwards of $3,000 a day, plus expenses, for each persuader. Amazon alone dished out more than $14 million to consultants last year.
But more often the employer is a little-known firm like MAC, which produces electric motors and battery chargers. The consulting work at MAC ultimately led to employee resignations and a hearing before the NLRB that shed new light on the opaque world of persuaders. This story is based primarily on testimony from that hearing, which was obtained through a public records request.
“We are a small company,” MAC’s Ballman said. “I felt that we needed some help on something that we knew virtually nothing about. We needed to do things right.”
A reformed persuader once memorably wrote that “union busting” is a field “built on deceit.” Jack Black’s real name was Jim Teague. He had once done some work for the United Steelworkers before becoming a consultant-for-hire against unions.
Teague testified before the labor board that he went by a different name in his work to protect himself and his family, suggesting he had once been assaulted. But an alias could also make it harder for workers to poke around on Teague’s background. An anti-union firm that previously employed Teague had once sued him, alleging he embellished his resume and tried to poach the firm’s clients. (The case was settled.) The Teamsters had distributed flyers that accused Teague of being a “union buster” and exaggerating his union work.
As Jack Black, Teague secured a contract to defeat the union campaign at MAC, which involved only around a dozen workers. The company agreed to pay $375 per hour, with a $5,000 retainer upfront, to have an anti-union consultant on site, according to a copy of the contract obtained by HuffPost.
The contract laid bare the real purpose of persuader work, in almost militaristic terms. One of the primary goals: “Minimize the likelihood of future union encroachment.”
When they speak to workers, many persuaders cast themselves as neutral parties who can provide unbiased information about the unionization process. But the contract between Teague’s firm and MAC laid bare the real purpose of persuader work, in almost militaristic terms. One of the primary goals: “Minimize the likelihood of future union encroachment.”
The agreement assured consultants would carry out a “thorough assessment” to pinpoint what led to the organizing effort, and conduct “role-playing scenarios” with supervisors on how to interact with workers. It also promised a system of “captive audience meetings” — an industry term for speeches where consultants generally deliver anti-union talking points.
“A systematic, organized counter-campaign will be implemented to secure an election win,” the contract assured. “Time is of the essence in commencing work on behalf of the company. Any delay is injurious to the company’s chances.”
Teague himself would not be going to Missouri. He subcontracted the work out to a man who would also work under a pseudonym — one that complemented the name Jack Black.
The workers at MAC had been meeting with a union organizer at a Super 8 motel a couple of miles from the facility. They were thinking about joining the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, or the IAM, which has more than 500,000 members, many of them at manufacturing companies like Boeing and Harley-Davidson. Another group of workers in a separate division at MAC were already represented by the Teamsters.
One MAC worker later testified before the labor board that she supported the union effort because of harassment in the workplace. “Every day it was something sexual, disgusting,” she said of a male co-worker. She said she brought her concerns to supervisors, human resources and the president. “I filed complaints with each one of them, and nothing [came] of it.” (Unless otherwise noted, quotes attributed to workers and consultants in this story come from the labor board hearing transcripts.)
A mere 6% of private-sector workers in the U.S. belong to a union today, down from a high of around 33% in the 1950s. There are plenty of reasons for the long and steady decline: The loss of union-represented manufacturing jobs; weak labor laws that make unionizing more difficult; and increasing resistance to collective bargaining from American employers, to name just a few.
Persuaders help employers craft a playbook against the union. They figure out who supports the union, who opposes it and who sits on the fence. They hold group and one-on-one meetings that sow doubt about what a union can accomplish.
But persuaders play an undeniable role in suppressing union membership. They help employers craft a playbook against the union. They figure out who supports the union, who opposes it and who sits on the fence. They hold group and one-on-one meetings that sow doubt about what a union can accomplish. Some push the boundaries of what’s legal and even step over them, according to labor board case files.
Teague had been in the “union avoidance” industry for more than a decade, according to Labor Department filings and court records. He had done some union organizing at one point, but his true résumé was the subject of debate. A spokesperson for the Steelworkers said Teague had once worked for the union as a “casual organizer” but not a full-time staffer. Teague and the union “mutually agreed” to part ways in 2006, the spokesperson said. At some point, Teague began popping up on the other side of union campaigns.
He went to work for one of the country’s leading anti-union consulting firms, the Labor Relations Institute, or LRI, and became its vice president of sales, junior only to the firm’s founder and president, according to court files. But in 2013, LRI sued Teague for alleged fraud, breach of contract, copyright infringement and unjust enrichment.
LRI claimed Teague had inflated his past work by saying he’d been the Steelworkers’ “director of corporate campaigns and strategic projects.” LRI also accused Teague of steering its clients to a separate firm he had created with an LRI consultant who the firm said had recently served jail time for tax evasion. In an ironic twist, LRI claimed it became aware of Teague’s alleged résumé distortions because of the Steelworkers, a union LRI had spent years undermining. Teague denied the central allegations and the case was settled.
The persuader world is an alphabet soup of similar-sounding limited liability companies. Teague created a firm called International Labor Relations Inc. The firm’s acronym, ILR, sounded a lot like LRI. Both were based out of the Tulsa, Oklahoma, area. Teague formed a separate firm, Sparta, as a subsidiary of ILR. Despite this complicated corporate structure, ILR/Sparta was nothing but a “one-man band,” Teague testified before the labor board. He referred to himself as “president, CEO, founder, janitor, and all in-between.”
Teague’s firm pulled in $2.8 million in 2014 alone, as he helped manufacturers, food distributors, retailers, car dealerships and other employers deal with unions, according to disclosures filed with the Labor Department, as required under the law. One of his most reliable clients was the powerful food multinational Sysco, which hired Teague’s firm through more than a half-dozen of its subsidiaries to deal with the Teamsters.
By his own account, Teague was more of a salesman than a consultant, handing the work off to others and splitting the fees. “I try to keep my focus on doing the cold calls,” he later testified. “That is what I do. Ninety-nine percent of my…