The union-busting playbook: exposed

The scale of the industry is staggering. A recent article in The Guardian quoted a 2026 report by the Economic Policy Institute which found that US employers spend more than US$1.5bn a year on union opposition efforts. This includes US$442m annually on specialist union-avoidance consultants alone. Amazon spent US$26.6m on such consultants in 2025. A previous EPI report found that US employers are charged with violating labour law in 41.5 per cent of all union elections. Union density in the US has fallen from 20.3 per cent in 1983 to ten per cent today. The union-busting industry bears significant responsibility for that decline. As one of the report's authors put it, this is millions or even billions of dollars that is not going towards workers or investing in their workplace.

The tactics and why they are wrong

Anti-union campaigns follow a recognizable pattern of tactics designed to suppress workers' free choice through fear, misinformation and pressure.

Mandatory captive-audience meetings. Employers force workers to attend meetings during working hours where management delivers one-sided anti-union messaging. Workers cannot leave and there is no right of reply. At Mercedes-Benz in Alabama, this was one of the tactics so egregious that IndustriALL withdrew from its global framework agreement with the company. In the agreement Mercedes-Benz had explicitly committed to neutrality.

Scripted one-on-one pressure.Supervisors, coached by outside consultants, are deployed to have individual conversations with workers. The message is always the same: a union will put your job at risk, damage your relationship with management, threaten investment.

Paid consultants and surveillance. Specialist firms are brought onto company premises. Workers often do not know who these people are or who is paying them. Increasingly, digital surveillance is deployed alongside them: monitoring social media, flagging workers who discuss union matters and infiltrating online groups to track organizing activity.

Dismissal of union activists.Firing workers for union activity is one of the most powerful weapons in the playbook. It sends a clear message to every other worker watching. At the Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama, a 25-year employee with a spotless record was disciplined for telling colleagues he had union cards. The leading organizer, Jeremy Kimbrell, who had worked at the plant for 26 years, was fired in February 2025 on what the UAW describes as a fabricated pretext.

Law firms as instruments of union avoidance.The law firms and consultants at the heart of this industry openly advertise their services. Their own promotional materials describe "defeating a union" as "gratifying," promise to help employers maintain "union-free workplaces" and offer to get workers "to vote non-union." Several have documented records of unlawful conduct in previous campaigns. These are findings by federal labour judges that were publicly available before the companies that hired them signed the contracts.

A global problem in our sectors

Union busting is not isolated to the US. IndustriALL affiliates around the world encounter it.

Türkiye is one of the worst environments in the world for union organizing. Unions document dismissals, threats and employer interference across manufacturing and garment sectors. Workers at Digel Textile joined the garment workers union TEKSIF after it was confirmed as the legitimate collective bargaining agent. The company responded by dismissing four leading union members and threatening workers with factory closure if they did not resign. Metal-workers' union Birleşik Metal-İş was certified as the official bargaining agent at SAG Hidrolik. The company dismissed three union members without cause and threatened workers that the factory would close if they stayed in the union.

In Germany, Adidas left the sectoral collective bargaining agreement by downgrading its industry membership to avoid collective bargaining obligations - a decision whose repercussions extend across its global supply chains.

In Malaysia, IndustriALL filed a formal ILO complaint in March documenting union busting across twelve companies in the electronics, semiconductor, aerospace, automotive and paper sectors. Workers at Nexperia voted for their union with nearly 96 per cent support. At Boeing Composites Malaysia, 85 per cent voted in favour. Yet winning the ballot was not the end of the struggle. Companies dismissed workers and threatened migrant workers with deportation. Companies weaponized the courts, filing challenge after challenge to delay union recognition by years, in one case more than a decade.

Workers have the right to know

ILO Conventions 87 and 98 enshrine the right to organize and bargain collectively. IndustriALL embeds it in the global framework agreements it negotiates with multinationals. Those companies have committed, in writing, to uphold it everywhere they operate.

Says IndustriALL general secretary Atle Høie:

"Union busting violates those commitments. When a company signs a global framework agreement promising neutrality and then deploys tactics designed to defeat union campaigns, it is not navigating a legal grey area. It is breaking its word and undermining a fundamental human right. Freedom of association is not optional and it is not a local exception."