Just the facts: Employer use of social media for labor relations on the rise

 Hyatt Hotels using social media, YouTube to reach employees during union contract dispute 

This is a pretty interesting development in employee and labor relations communications.   Labor unions have increasingly been  utilizing  social media to communicate their issues around organizing for a while.  They have also been doing the same in collective bargaining situations where they have faced tough bargaining by an employer.    I have written about social media campaigns being used during work stoppages  previously, including how social media was used to damage the brand of Doctor Pepper Snapple during a recent strike at Mott’s, and the use of flash mobs and YouTube in labor disputes.

Now we are starting to see employers get in on the act as well.  The LA Times is reporting on the use of a YouTube video by Hyatt Hotels to share their most recent contract offer with their workers, in the face of the rejection by that offer by the union representing their employees, UNITE HERE.     You can see the complete video, available in several different languages including Spanish and Chinese, after the jump for the article from the LA Times.

Labor-management battles, once fought on picket lines and behind closed doors, are now being waged in cyberspace. Borrowing from the union’s playbook, Hyatt Corp. laid out its latest offer to hotel workers on YouTube last week.

Hyatt also played the video continuously on television monitors in employee cafeterias of properties in Chicago. Hotel workers said the video, which featured actors speaking in English, Cantonese and Spanish, caused a stir by noting that a $1,000 employee bonus expired Dec. 20.

“They put it right in front of the cafeteria in a continuous loop. Every day. Every hour. People are just sick and tired of it,” said Cristian Saez, 36, a waiter at Hyatt Regency McCormick Place. “The fun part of mocking the videos is over, and now it’s just insulting.”

On Tuesday, the YouTube video had more than 570 views.

“We have been listening to the union as they go on YouTube, go to our employees, to the newspaper and our civic leaders, and a lot of it has been misinformation,” said Patrick Donnelly, general manager of Hyatt Regency Chicago, which produced the video in a month and distributed it to other Hyatt properties in Chicago. “We wanted something that would give out the facts.”

Hyatt had offered employees $1,000 bonuses if the union agreed to management’s latest contract offer by Dec. 20. That deadline passed, leaving some employees angry with the union.

Saez said the reference to the lost bonuses has sparked debate and splintered Hyatt employees.

“It’s pitting some people against other people because some people don’t understand what they’re actually losing,” Saez said. “They’re like, ‘I need the money. I need the money.’ ”

Bob Bruno, director of the Labor Education Program at the University of Illinois in Chicago, said Hyatt circumvented the union’s message to its members by using YouTube.

“That’s a win for the employer, who would like to weaken degrees of solidarity around the union’s position,” Bruno said.

In the more than 16 months since contracts expired for Chicago hotel workers, the union has seemingly tried everything to pressure Hyatt into striking a deal, including enlisting the help of rabbis and posting videos on YouTube. The union’s videos range from Unite Here Local 1 hotel workers speaking directly to management to acts of civil disobedience. Some of the union videos have had thousands of views.

Now Hyatt’s video is there too.

“Instead of fighting for you, we believe [the union is] using you as bargaining chips in a national agenda that has nothing to do with you or us or Chicago. Enough is enough,” an actor says, as he details Hyatt’s contract offer that affects 8,000 hotel workers in the Chicago area.

Using social media as a tactic for labor negotiations is relatively new for employers, Bruno said.

“You want to create a buzz around an alternative way of framing the situation,” Bruno said. “Studies show that with the exception of maybe the lowest-paid union members, the overwhelming majority have access to the Internet, and they go on the Web.”

Labor laws prohibit employers from negotiating directly with their unionized employees. YouTube is the next best thing, Bruno said.

“[At work] they’ve got them captive and they can control the message,” he said. “[With YouTube], employees could go home and they could look at it again at home. They could share with people who aren’t in the workplace.”

Just the Facts: Hyatt Hotels in Chicago & Unite-Here

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Tagged as: Chicago, contract negotiations, Employment, Hotel, Hyatt, Los Angeles Times, Patrick Donnelly, Trade union, UNITE HERE, United States, Work, YouTube