The Labor Relations Research Edge

From SEIU Organizer to Employer-Side Researcher Nancy Jowske spent a decade as a union organizer for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) before crossing to the employer side, where she has done research work almost exclusively for LRI for the past several years. How The Research Practice Grew Phil and Nancy trace how her practice grew from a single client's site reports into full industry and regional analysis, and walk through what that research actually involves: cleaning messy National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filings and duplicate contracts, digging through Facebook pages and union websites, and reading LM-2 reports for what they really show. What the Research Process Looks Like Nancy skips total revenue and goes straight to dues and per-capita income, because that's a union's actual business, and flags a common trick: counting retirees as members to make declining unions look like they're growing. She talks about diving deep into OLMS data as the starting point, along with grounding herself in industry knowledge to be effective. What The Data Can Reveal She shares a favorite find, a North Carolina organizing campaign secretly led by a professor who took a job at the worksite specifically to run it, and a less dramatic but more telling pattern: Union wages in manufacturing and warehouse work have lagged non-union wages during recent inflation, the opposite outcome of what most people would expect. Why the Data Matters for Employers and Workers The episode closes on why the work matters. For employers, it means not assuming who's really behind a picket line. For workers, it means holding unions to the same transparency any member would expect from an institution they're paying into. Key takeaways Research grows from raw questions ("should I worry about this location?") into a repeatable process once the underlying data is cleaned and structured. NLRB and Department of Labor filings are messy by default: duplicate petitions, refiled contracts, and inconsistent union names all have to be sorted out before the numbers mean anything. LM-2 reports reward reading past the headline figures: dues revenue, real membership counts, and where organizing costs get buried in representational spending tell the real story. Contract press releases and LM-2 filings routinely diverge from what unions publicly claim. Union wages have not consistently outpaced non-union wages during recent inflation, despite the narrative Good research protects employers from bad assumptions and gives union members the transparency they're owed Sound Bites Research reveals truths that contracts often hide. Data integrity is crucial for accurate insights. Informed workers make better decisions. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Nancy Jowske and the episode's focus 02:02 Nancy's background in union organizing and research 04:02 The evolution of research from site reports to industry analysis 06:56 Common triggers for research projects in labor relations 10:00 Data collection methods and tools used in research 13:02 Challenges in analyzing union contracts and reports 16:00 The importance of data cleaning and verification 20:03 What to look for in LM2 reports and union financials 23:00 Uncovering hidden issues and anomalies in union data 27:00 Notable findings and surprising discoveries in research 30:03 The significance of accurate research for workers and employers 34:06 The future of labor research and transparency 35:03 Closing thoughts on the importance of truthful information