How Companies Prevent Unionization – Diversifying the Workforce

Divide and conquer is a common technique used by businesses to prevent unionization. Numerous studies throughout the years have discovered that highly diverse workforces have a far lower risk of forming a union. The same phenomenon is found through divisive politics, which aims to weaken the strength of the people by dividing us from our identities as citizens and instigating an emotional response that causes us to align more so with our race, gender, religion, social class, and voting patterns rather than citizens of a nation. In the workforce, DEI initiatives are only intended to weaken the power of the collective.

Racial Diversity and Union Organizing in the United States, 1999–2008, published in 2015, analyzed 7,000 organizations between 1999 and 2008 to see which ones were more likely to unionize. Researchers compared the National Labor Relations Board’s information on union activity with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s surveys of large establishments to identify racial diversity among employees. “The study finds that more diverse establishments are less likely to see successful organizing attempts. Little evidence is found, however, that this is because workers are less interested in voting for unions. Instead, the organizers of more diverse units are more likely to give up before such elections are held,” the study found. Why? The employees were more likely to blame racial injustice for unfair work practices rather than realizing that the entire workforce as a whole was facing injustice.

Whole Foods created a heat map to track the risk of unionization and compiled data from the National Labor Relations Board. The company looked at “external risks,” “store risks,” and “team member sentiment.” Stores in closer proximity to other unions had a higher rate of external risks, as did stores with a higher percentage of families living under the poverty line in the store’s respective zip code.

Store risks showed a direct correlation between diversity and unionization:

“Store-risk metrics include average store compensation, average total store sales, and a “diversity index” that represents the racial and ethnic diversity of every store. Stores at higher risk of unionizing have lower diversity and lower employee compensation, as well as higher total store sales and higher rates of workers’ compensation claims, according to the documents.”

Team member sentiment was also adversely affected by diversity. Once again, employees were more likely to feel that management was singling out people based on race than believe that management had implemented unfair practices against the collective workforce.

Amazon, the parent company of Whole Foods, has been combating unionization efforts for years. Both companies promote DEI initiatives and tout high scores on the Human Rights Campaign’s CEI scoring. In truth, they spent money to learn how to weaken the power of their workforce.

At a higher level, we see these same divisive practices from world leaders who hone in on our differences to diminish the power of united citizens. This is why we see woke policies, DEI hiring, and an increased insistence that we defend our individual identities that we were never at risk of abandoning. It is why they want us to feel confused in our own skin, the reason they ask children in elementary school to choose their pronouns and sexuality. This is why the slavery reparations argument resurfaces every few months and why they want to impose late-term abortion in the Bible Belt rather than allowing individual states to decide. Everyone is focused on defending their identity based on race, religion, etc., rather than realizing that those at the top effectively turned neighbor against neighbor.