{"id":85489,"date":"2025-12-10T09:12:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T14:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mytotalretail.com\/?post_type=article&p=85489"},"modified":"2025-12-10T09:12:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T14:12:15","slug":"holiday-bells-ring-in-the-union-season","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.mytotalretail.com\/article\/holiday-bells-ring-in-the-union-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Holiday Bells Ring in the Union Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The holiday season is busy enough. Even nonpublic-facing American workplaces see spikes in stress levels and operational challenges around the holidays. For retail executives and managers, the holiday season sits in that space between welcome revenue surges and relentless headaches. Long hours, extended shifts, and amplified employee frustrations make December the most wonderful time of the year for chaos.<\/p>\n

For many retail HR teams, the holiday season is an exercise in triage. Like water that seeks its own level, workers find each other over collective workplace irritants in the holiday season. The chaotic environment that fosters these irritants also breeds union activity, and it’s critical to predict and prepare for the possibility so leadership can manage it better when it occurs. However, HR’s heightened awareness on employee complaints and frustrations also offers opportunity. It’s a time to reinforce trust, sharpen communication, and proactively mitigate risk before it becomes conflict.<\/p>\n

Any effective labor relations program must understand its vulnerabilities before it can begin to address them. Santa Claus has elves and magic to guide him around the world; for retailers, the path to a joyous holiday season requires a lot of hard work and a plan.<\/p>\n

1. Understand why union activity rises during the holidays.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The retail industry’s experience with unions is often regional and sporadic. The unfamiliarity often causes an inconsistent and ineffective response. Every union leader in any industry looks for fertile environments and uses leverage points to generate momentum. Union activity intensifies when employers feel the most pressure.<\/p>\n

In retail, no time generates more stress and pressure than the holiday rush. The calls for peace and joyfulness in the Christmas music on store sound systems never reach employees’ ears. Instead, necessity requires them to do more — work longer hours, appease haggard customers, and meet higher expectations. Temporary hires don’t share the same loyalty or appreciate company culture, and full-time staff grow frustrated when they feel unheard or overextended. The environment is ripe for union messages, and unions know exactly how to exploit it.<\/p>\n

2. Refresh frontline management training.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In any industry, front-line leadership is the key to both avoiding and defending organizing activity. In retail stores, the store manager is very often the only leader who truly knows the employee team. That limited access to leadership works well when the store manager is trusted and respected. It becomes a critical vulnerability when the store manager is the very problem that triggered the activity.<\/p>\n

Just as the Elf on a Shelf is the impatient child’s conduit to Santa, a store manager may be the only leader who can respond to a frustrated employee. Therefore, the company must train them on positive labor relations and the legal parameters within which they can operate.<\/p>\n

It’s not enough to warn managers what they cannot say to avoid legal issues; managers must understand what the law permits them to say. Managers should:<\/p>\n