Growing up, my family enjoyed the benefits of union membership. (My dad was a Teamster.) I was fortunate to experience the positive impact of unions and their importance in protecting workers’ safety and other rights. Not long after starting my professional career, I worked on a major public awareness campaign with the UAW in Toledo, OH (home of the Jeep Liberty). The union went to bat for local businesses and workers and helped secure additional contracts from Chrysler. So, needless to say, I have a different perspective on unions than many in the general public.
But, even I know that the UAW is facing a serious PR crisis. And, it’s their own fault.
By now, I think everyone has accepted the fact that there will be some type of automaker bailout. No one wants to see what would happen to our economy if Ford, GM or Chrysler went under.
The Big 3 should be blamed for their woeful situation. From ignoring (or not anticipating) consumers’ demand for fuel efficiency … to churning our lower quality automobiles for far too long — automakers reap what they sow. One could also argue that management should take some blame for the financial burden they face as a result of contracts with the UAW. If you were a UAW member, wouldn’t you try to squeeze every penny from your employer? Just about any employee at any job wants to get paid as much as possible. It’s just a fact of life.
That being said, the UAW has their own set of problems. The UAW is fighting an uphill communication battle because people just don’t get why unions are still viable and necessary. As a result, the general public’s natural inclination is to cast blame on the UAW for the Big Three’s financial crisis.
And, when the UAW appears unwilling to give up job banks (where workers get paid a significant part of their salary even when not working) or make salary concessions, it’s hard to persuade the general public not to blame the union.
UAW: You have a PR problem. And it didn’t just start. It’s been going on for years, if not decades, but you thought you wouldn’t need public support, so you all but ignored communicating with anyone outside your membership. Hindsight is 20/20, but, boy, does that look like a dumb strategy. You should have spent time showcasing UAW success stories. Why not initiate a major media push featuring third-generation families that were lifted in the middle class thanks to the union? How about women who put their kids through college? Or families facing disease who could rely on their health insurance to get quality medical care?
If the UAW had taken a proactive stance to PR, instead of waiting for disaster to strike, perhaps the union could have avoided stories such as Frank Langfitt’s NPR report, which says that the UAW is going to “cash in the union check” after Barack Obama is sworn in as president. That same report asks why a waitress making less than $25,000 has to foot the bill to bail out union members making more than $60,000? The absence of communication from the UAW has left the general public without a good answer to that question.
It may be too late for the UAW to fix its short-term public relations problem, but hopefully other organizations can learn from their mistakes. For example:
- Don’t only communicate with your internal audiences.
- Reach out to a broad audience. You never know when you’ll need their support.
- Don’t wait for a crisis to start communicating. Take a proactive approach to PR. That way, if you are faced with a crisis, you’ll have some goodwill already established.
- Recognize your role in a crisis. By appearing unwilling to change, the UAW reinforces the perception that it doesn’t care about the long-term success of the Big 3. That’s just bad PR.
Perception is reality, so what does the UAW need to do to improve how Americans perceive the union?