Howard Levitt: How Employers Accidentally Unionize Themselves Through Absence
Unionization is rarely about ideology or political beliefs. Instead, it is fundamentally about absence—absent leadership, absent standards, and absent courage in the workplace. This insight comes from labor lawyer Howard Levitt, who emphasizes that employers typically do not intentionally invite unions into their businesses. Rather, they drift into unionization through inattention, fear, or the mistaken belief that being nice equates to being effective.
The Vacuum Created by Managerial Failures
Unions do not organize in happy, well-managed workplaces where employees feel valued and heard. Nor do they organize solely because wages are low. They organize because leadership has gone missing, creating a vacuum that unions are experts at filling. Silence, inconsistency, and managerial fear are the primary culprits that allow this vacuum to form. By the time employees start signing union cards, the workplace culture is already eroded, authority has diminished, and trust has collapsed.
The certification vote, if it even occurs, is merely the autopsy of a process that began much earlier. Most employers mistakenly believe unionization is something they can "deal with" if it ever happens, but this belief is catastrophically wrong. Unionization is not a minor speed bump, a simple compliance exercise, or a legal skirmish that can be managed by outside counsel once an application arrives. It represents the permanent transfer of control over the workplace from management to a third party whose interests are structurally opposed to those of the employer.
How Good Employers Lose Their Businesses Unknowingly
No employer consciously decides to bring in a union. Instead, they often say things like:
- "Let's not overreact."
- "Let HR handle it."
- "Legal told us to stay quiet."
- "We'll address it after busy season."
Unionization does not begin at the labor board with formal applications. It begins months or even years earlier within the organization, when standards slip, supervisors avoid conflict, complaints linger unresolved, and management mistakes silence for safety. Employers tend to call lawyers only when the law becomes visible—such as when certification applications surface or unfair labor practice complaints are filed. However, Levitt warns that this is precisely the wrong moment to act, as it is already too late to prevent the loss of control.
The Myth of the "Good Union" and Its Consequences
Even sophisticated employers often reassure themselves that if unionization happens, they can "work with it." Levitt describes this as naïveté masquerading as pragmatism. Once a company becomes unionized, management no longer manages people directly; instead, it manages collective agreement clauses. Every decision is filtered through language negotiated years earlier, usually by someone else for a different workplace under different economic conditions.
The consequences are severe and long-lasting:
- High performers tend to leave the organization.
- Poor performers become entrenched and difficult to remove.
- Flexibility and speed in decision-making disappear.
- Accountability shifts from performance-based to procedural.
- Workplace culture becomes irrelevant as every management decision becomes negotiable or grievable.
Weak employees gain leverage, while strong employees subsidize them until they become frustrated and depart. The business does not collapse overnight but instead calcifies, becoming rigid and unresponsive. This is not mere theory; it is the daily reality in unionized workplaces across Canada. Many of the country's once-great companies that became unionized no longer exist or are mere shells of their former selves, illustrating the profound impact of accidental unionization through managerial absence.
