Union Advantages?

Private security's roots have a controversial anti-union history that we pride ourselves in. It's easy to see the conflicts-of-interest that the usually-mixed unions courting the security industry create. Even for a cutting-edge lefty-progressive like myself, unions put employees at odds with security business ownership, a problem because I want to see more worker-cooperatives in the security industry.

However, I have noticed that the top performing security companies in the Seattle area in 2010 have strong relationships with unions. This has forced me to look beyond my ideology and ask "is there a serious advantage to a security company being unionized?" I have come up with 4 points so far that are not dependent on each other, so any one of them stands as an advantage without any of the others:

1) I have heard "a good HR person can get around 80% of the union grievances that can come up, seriously deflating the power of the union: unions tend not to have the mental and monetary resources they need to do provide effective services." The problem with this claim is that it outlines an important specific advantage for a security officer to be in a union: a good 20% of the time, the union will be able to keep him from getting fired when things get ugly.

2) Another claim is "all unions do is protect bad employees." In the security industry, "training = good employees." Unions often pressure employers to make training options more available to their employees. Unions also raise what employees can make at a job, increasing the odds of employees staying instead of moving to another job, thus increasing the amount of experience on the security team.

3) The companies that try to find loopholes out of contractual obligations to have their security officers unionized are not fairing well right now. Though politics is a major factor, keep in mind there are politics going on for the individual security officer as well. If the security officer is not unionized and has to keep employees from stealing who are unionized, that security officer has a huge disadvantage in "my word against yours" situations. You can bet that many clients (or the people they answer to) understand this about security-services quality, in spite of whatever political pressures they are under.

4) Saying "unionization requirements for security accounts is only about politics" is taking a very narrow view, and ignores the academic management studies on this topic. People feel like they need to protect their jobs, and often keep feedback from their superiors. Because of this, HR often prides themselves in "telling people what they need to hear, even if it is not what they want to hear." Where Unions come into play is when HR or upper management needs to hear something that they don't want to hear. The union can give realistic information about employee needs and the health of the account that upper management can't get anywhere else.

Again, I sympathize with those that are concerned that unions harm the security industry. We need solid chains-of-command so we can act fast in emergencies. This does not invite employee feedback, and until recently we have thrived as we have rejected unions. However, we are in the middle of major paradigm shifts in the security industry right now. In nature, the more adaptable a creature is, the more likely it is to survive. The security companies that can't learn to live with unions will also fail to learn to live without them.