You are the Employee Relations Specialist for a national retail company with locations across the United States. The nearly 500 company employees are diverse in terms of age and demographic differences. Your primary work location is Southeast Pennsylvania. Recently, the employees in the mid-Atlantic region, managed by Kristopher Kolumbus, have expressed dissatisfaction with the work environment. There are approximately 125 employees in the mid-Atlantic region. Their specific concerns include receiving small pay raises for the past 2 – 3 years, limited employee benefits, lack of career mobility and progression, and heightened security controls implemented due to theft concerns. There has been recent talk among the employees about the possibility of unionization, and some workers have begun exploring options such as United Food & Commercial Workers International Union and the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union. Before either of these unions will send an organizer to the organization, it wants to be sure that sufficient employees will back union representation. Some employees have started company-wide communication to increase interest in unionization.

As the Employee Relations Specialist, it is your responsibility to ensure that supervisors and managers follow the rules regarding a union organizing campaign. In response to this potential campaign, you decide to take some initial actions and prepare several documents to share with your boss, the Director of Human Resources:

• A summary email to the Director of Human Resources describing the issues and what actions you are taking (which include the below items)
• A one-page memo to all managers and supervisors indicating what they can and cannot do during any union organizing effort.
• An email to your human resource colleagues about actions the HR team should consider in response to some of the concerns raised by the Mid-Atlantic Region employees
• An outline for a meeting to be held between Human Resources and the organization’s leadership team regarding the organizing effort

Requirements include:

• Cover Page with Name, Date, and Title of Assignment
• Each of the 4 items indicated above (summary email, one-page memo, email to your human resource colleagues, and outline for a meeting)
• Headings to separate the sections of the paper
• A minimum of three sources (two must be from the course materials) for each response
• In-text citations in APA style
• Reference page using APA style