Instructions
Chapter 13 – Case Study: Avoiding a Union Effort at Technologies Essential (p. 531).
Jeannine Marquez has just become the CEO of Technologies Essential. The company is a 15- year-old, mid-size computer
software company headquartered in Columbia, Missouri. The company specializes in providing products that enable users to
more fully implement SAP solutions. Most of the 569 employees are software developers. These employees are well paid and
receive tuition reimbursement and excellent health and retirement benefits. The company rewards these employees well as
they are seen as the key to the company’s success.
The software developers seem content with the company, but the support staff are not. They believe that they are overworked
and underpaid relative to the software developers. They receive less vacation and personal leave time, are required to take
compensatory time off rather than receive overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours per week, and none of them
make over $42,000 a year even though many of them have worked for the company since it started and have supervisory
responsibilities.
The CEO has just received a letter signed by 25 employees indicating they wish to join the Office and Professional Employees
International Union (OPEIU). The letter listed a number of grievances including concerns about work schedules, concerns that
other employees who had expressed an interest in joining a union were fired by the former CEO, and dissatisfaction with pay
and benefits.
Discussion Questions
1. Describe the steps that employees at Technologies Essential should take if they want to unionize.
2. Research the OPEIU. What would be the advantages to these employees if they did join this union? What would be the
disadvantages?
3. If employees have been fired for unionizing, do they have any recourse?
4. What advice can you provide to Jeannine Marquez about how to address the concerns of these employees? Are there
legal issues regarding unionization about which she needs to be aware as she begins to address the concerns? If so,
what are they?
5. What is the best advice you can give managers to ensure they are not likely to face an effort by employees to
unionize?