O/T: Law360 Staffers Vote 141 To 11 — In Favor Of Strike

I must say, this is remarkable. Remarkable that management failed to negotiate in good faith (thus allowing the union to win an election, in a clearly white collar workplace); and then doubly remarkable -- that management stone-walled for two years. . . leading to last night's strike vote.

The idea that Lexis/Nexis would allow very minor contractual issues -- and reasonable asks by the employees, at that, to injure the fine brand that has been a great source of legal "inside baseball" (since its predecessor services at what was then called CounselConnect were acquired by Lexis), around the year 1999 -- is hard to fathom. The strike -- should it occur -- will be primarily over getting paid for like five vacation and personal days. Here's the bit, from competitor in the legal insider news field Bloomberg:

. . . .Employees of Law360, a unit of LexisNexis, voted two years ago to unionize but have been unable to secure a contract. On Tuesday night, they voted 141 to 11 to greenlight a work stoppage, according to the Communications Workers of America’s NewsGuild. . . .

Spokespeople for LexisNexis and parent company RELX Group didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. RELX boasts 30,000 employees and a market capitalization of $38.6 billion. The company said it provides information and analytics for customers in 180 countries. . . .

I chose to write on this topic this morning because I go way back with the original writers of CounselConnect -- in addition to having relied on the service for story ideas since at least 1994. More generally, these signs of increased union activity are a warning to management(s): management(s) too often overplay the hand dealt, compared to an increasingly sophisticated and mobile 21^st Century workforce. That is my view, from here.

Onward. Ever. . . onward.

नमस्ते