Pavithra Mohan at Fast Company reports Unions have grown more popular in recent years, with 16.5 million Workers represented by a Union in 2025 - the highest share of the overall workforce in 16 years. As Workers have mounted high-profile Union Campaigns at companies like Starbucks and Amazon, some employers have openly pushed back on those efforts, in turn becoming increasingly vocal about their opposition to Unions. But new research from Cornell University indicates a company’s stance on Unions can have a measurable impact on its workforce and shape Worker productivity. In an experiment that involved asking participants to act as Workers and managers, Researchers found when a company disclosed its opposition to Unions, some Employees took a cue from that and responded by working harder - but only if they were skeptical of Unions or thought collective bargaining was not in their best interests. “Workers use the manager’s public stance to infer how managers intend to set pay under individual bargaining,” Xinyu Zhang, an Accounting Professor at Cornell and Co-Author of the research paper, said in a statement. “Managers’ opposition gives Workers information and that information can change their behavior.” The Workers who were already in favor of individual bargaining seemed to interpret their employer’s stance as a sign that they could negotiate higher wages if they increased their productivity. But when Workers were in support of collective bargaining, their employer’s position on Unions did not change their behavior, in part because that knowledge seemed simply to affirm what they already believe - that individual bargaining puts managers at an advantage.

To Directly Access This Labor News Report In Its Entirety, Go To: Would you work harder if you knew your boss was anti-union?

And To Access The New Research From Cornell University Directly, Go To: When Managers Publicly Oppose Collective Bargaining: Effects on Worker Productivity and Wages by Martin Wiernsperger, Xinyu Zhang :: SSRN