New attitude towards unionism

August 28 2002- Most Americans have a deep mistrust of corporate executives, and are showing more favorable attitudes towards unionization and government involvement to achieve economic stability and greater protection against corporate misdeeds that threaten pensions, according to a new poll.

The "America At Work" Labor Day poll, released by the Employment Law Alliance, also shows that employees want representation on corporate boards.

Charles T. Huddleston, chair of the Employment Law Practice at Arnall Golden Gregory, said the poll indicates that workers are inflamed over the accounting scandals that continue to eat away at the value of public companies.

"Although union membership has been on the wane for decades, this poll indicates that workers today are more sympathetic to what unions have to offer," AGG's Huddleston said. "It remains to be seen whether this is a temporary mindset or whether corporate America's accounting woes will result in more unionization and greater government intervention.

"It's also unclear whether corporations will adopt employee representation on their boards as a standard," he said. "Even though most companies will not feel it is appropriate to put an employee representative on their board, they would be wise to review their employee communications programs and to develop other HR policies and practices that build employees' trust in the company's leadership."

The ELA is the world's largest network of employment and labor lawyers. The survey, taken within the past two weeks, polled 1,000 Americans on who they trust to help boost the stagnant economy and repair the image of corporate America, and what specific actions they believe can have a positive impact. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent.

As for what specific actions should be taken, the poll revealed the following:

* 84 percent said employee pension funds should force corporations to become more accountable

* 79 percent said new laws are needed to prevent corporate abuses

* 75 percent said the federal government needs to be more aggressive in its oversight of businesses

* 73 percent said there should be mandatory representation of rank-and-file workers on corporate boards

* 59 percent supported unions organizing workers in more companies to ensure they are better protected

"Labor unions have a lot to feel positive about on this Labor Day," commented Theodore Reed, survey director of the "America At Work" poll. "On the one hand, unions are held in comparatively high esteem on the trust factor and, because of the size of union pension funds, they would benefit greatly if pension funds were to exert more influence over the companies in which they invested."

The poll also indicates how much mistrust, anxiety and frustration employees feel as a result of recent scandals in corporate America.

* 53 percent said they have little trust in corporate executives to solve the problems

* 35 percent said they have little trust in the legal system to help solve the problems

* 35 percent expressed little hope in labor unions to help solve the problems

* 34 percent said they have little trust in government to fix the problems

* 30 percent said they had little trust in independent auditors