Idea in Brief
The History
For much of the past century, U.S. companies feared that unions would hurt shareholder value and innovation, so they responded to organized labor with one strategy: Fight, at all costs. They were so successful that today’s business leaders have little experience with organized labor.
The Challenge
With worker interest in joining a union now at its highest in decades—and public support for unions in the United States as high as it was in 1965—business leaders need a new playbook.
The Solution
Companies need to reinvent corporate America’s relationship with labor so that more people can share in the rewards and firms can compete and grow in new ways. That will require leaders to learn how to work with, rather than against, organized labor.