[1] They were outlawed in the United States by the 1935 National Labor Relations Act §8(a)(2),[2] due to their use as agents for interference with independent unions.
"[4]A "company union" is generally recognized as being an organization that is not freely elected by the workforce, and over which an employer exerts some form of control.
Workers' and employers' organisations shall enjoy adequate protection against any acts of interference by each other or each other's agents or members in their establishment, functioning or administration.
[6] According to Zeev Sternhell, the yellow union of Biétry had a membership of about a third of that of the Confédération Générale du Travail, and was funded by corporate interests.
During the Nazi occupation of France, unions were banned and replaced by corporations organized along the fascist model by the Vichy Regime.
The movement was joined by former members of the Confédération des syndicats professionnels français, a union created by François de La Rocque in 1936.
The CGSI declared that it was formed by "des hommes d’origine et de formation différentes [qui] se sont trouvés d’accord pour dénoncer la malfaisance de la CGT communisée" (men of different origins who agreed to denounce the malfeasance of the communist CGT).
It was declared a representative union on January 7, 1959, but the decision was overturned by the State Council on April 11, 1962, following a lawsuit by the Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens (CFTC) based on the funding of CFT by companies.
In the continuity of the company union of Biétry, the CSL is in favor of the association of capital and labor, is opposed to Marxism and collectivism, and denounces the French Communist Party as a civil war machine.
This event, known as the Ludlow massacre, was a major public relations debacle for mine owners, and one of them—John D. Rockefeller Jr.—hired labor-relations expert and former Canadian Minister of Labour William Lyon Mackenzie King to suggest ways to improve the tarnished image of his company, Colorado Fuel and Iron.
Section 8(a)(2) of the NLRA makes it illegal for an employer "to dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of any labor organization or contribute financial or other support to it.
"[17] Company unions were considered illegal under this code, despite the efforts of some businesses to carry on under the guise of an "Employee Representation Organization" (ERO).
[14] In the mid-20th century, managers of high-tech industry like Robert Noyce (who co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel in 1968) worked to rid their organizations of union interference.
"[18] One way of forestalling unions while obeying the Wagner Act was the introduction of "employee involvement (EI) programs" and other in-house job-cooperation groups.
Pat Hill-Hubbard, senior vice-president of the American Electronics Association, said in 1994: "Unions as they have existed in the past are no longer relevant.
[27] In 1997, the government of Guatemala received a loan for 13 million USD from the World Bank to privatize its seaport, electrical grid, and telephone and postal services.
[citation needed] For example, economist Leo Wolman wrote in 1924: "[T]he distinction ... between trade unions and other workmen's associations is frequently a vague and changing one.
They "explicitly advocate for collaborative relationships with employers and disparage conflict as a means of achieving gains for workers from the outset.
"[4] Though all trade unions do in fact compromise with employers as a matter of arriving at collective agreements, the accommodationist attitude more broadly, and the company union as a specific adoption of that attitude, maintains that workers should not exert any strictly independent collective agency with regard to their employment.