Legal Definitions - organizational picketing

Organizational picketing is a specific type of protest activity conducted by a labor union outside an employer's workplace. Its primary purpose is to encourage the employer's unrepresented employees to join the union or to choose that union to represent them in collective bargaining. The picketing is not necessarily about an existing dispute over wages or working conditions, but rather about gaining support from the employees to become unionized.

Here are some examples to illustrate organizational picketing:

• Example 1: Retail Store Expansion

  A large national retail chain opens a new department store in a city where many of its other locations are unionized. A local union chapter sets up pickets outside the new store, holding signs that say "Join Our Union for Better Wages" and "Employees Deserve a Voice." The picketers also hand out flyers explaining the benefits of union membership to employees entering and leaving the store.

  This illustrates organizational picketing because the union's goal is to persuade the new store's employees to become members of the union, thereby organizing the workforce at that specific location rather than protesting an existing grievance.

• Example 2: Tech Startup Workforce

  A rapidly growing tech startup has a large number of software engineers who are currently not unionized. A prominent tech workers' union begins picketing outside the company's headquarters during lunch breaks, displaying banners that read "Tech Workers Unite!" and "Your Rights, Your Union." Union representatives engage with employees, discussing how joining the union could improve their job security and benefits.

  This is organizational picketing because the union is directly appealing to the unrepresented software engineers to join their ranks and form a collective bargaining unit within the company, focusing on recruitment and membership.

• Example 3: Healthcare Facility Nurses

  At a large private hospital where nurses are not currently unionized, a union representing healthcare professionals begins picketing outside its main entrance. The signs carried by the picketers state, "Nurses Deserve Fair Representation" and "Join Us for a Stronger Voice in Healthcare." The union's representatives are speaking with nurses during shift changes, explaining the process of unionization and the advantages of collective bargaining.

  This scenario demonstrates organizational picketing as the union's objective is to convince the hospital's non-unionized nurses to become members and select the union as their representative for future negotiations with the hospital management, aiming to organize the nursing staff.