Union-buster Steve visits Superstore, But Maybe Not After the PRO Act

The NBC comedy Superstore is set in one store of the fictitious big-box retail chain Cloud 9. The main characters are all store employees, and refreshingly, it frequently reveals the injustices that many workers face, such as the difficulty supporting a family on low wages, a lack of parental leave, inadequate health insurance, and many other indignities. These are all rooted in a fundamental imbalance between “corporate” and the realities of work on the shop floor (pun intended), and the prioritization of corporate interests. Appropriately, a repeated theme is corporate’s fear of worker solidarity, including corporate leaders going so far as triggering an ICE raid to derail the workers’ push for a union.

In the “Labor” episode, workers call corporate to ask about paid maternity leave, and after then mention the words “union” and “strike” in passing, corporate immediately escalates the situation, and reminiscent of stories heard about Walmart, the next day the workers are treated to a visit by Steve, a union-busting labor relations consultant:

Because it’s such a great portrayal of the stereotypical anti-union messages, I’ve reconstructed Steve’s whiteboard:

First there is the “unions are unnecessary” theme. Cloud 9 is pro-employee and has an open door policy. Then there is the “unions are bad” theme—the negative reference to “union bosses” (and the implication of unions as outsiders), unions as raising prices (and thus threatening the employees’ jobs), and the always-present mention of union dues (don’t you want to keep your money?). The prospect of having to strike as well as a union’s inability to guarantee any improvements are additional common anti-union themes not included here. And then there is the attempt to portray workers who support unions as delusional or misguided—they’ve been lied to, pressured, bribed, swayed by outsiders, or just don’t really understand. Note the paternalism inherent in such statements. 

Underscoring the realism of this fictional portrayal, note many of the same themes in this message sent out by CorePower Yoga in response to its instructors talking about unionizing:

But returning to Steve’s visit to Cloud 9 store #1217, being forced to listen to your employer’s anti-union presentation is called “captive audience speech”, and in the United States this is legal unless it’s within 24 hours of a certification election or contains threats or promises. This has long been controversial because unions do not have the same ability to present their message to the workers. But the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act—passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020, but not the Senate, and undoubtedly primed for reconsideration in 2021—would change this situation and make captive audience meetings illegal. If Steve is an outside consultant, the PRO Act would also require Cloud 9 to disclose its relationships with labor relations consultants. And the PRO Act would make many other changes, too, amounting to the most significant change to private sector labor law since the 1940s. This is definitely something to watch in 2021—along with Superstore of course!