LaborLab's Bob Funk on the $1.7 Billion Union-Busting Industry

Bob Funk, Founder of LaborLab, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to discuss a new report produced in partnership with the Economic Policy Institute that puts a number on what U.S. employers spend annually to prevent workers from organizing: $1.7 billion, and Funk believes the real figure is even higher.

The report accounts for both third-party consultants who run captive-audience meetings and the major law firms — including Littler Mendelsohn and Jackson Lewis — that handle National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) cases and bargaining-table obstruction. These sectors have long operated without public scrutiny due to loopholes in federal disclosure law.

Funk also described the Department of Labor's ongoing failure to enforce the LM-20 disclosure requirement against union busters, the sharp increase in union-avoidance spending under the current administration, and how workers facing organizing campaigns can access LaborLab's Persuader reports and direct support at laborlab.us.

• The $1.7 billion annual figure covers third-party consultants and union avoidance law firms but does not include internal HR and labor relations teams, employee engagement programs designed to suppress organizing or employer polling operations. Amazon alone spent more than $26.6 million on outside union avoidance consultants in 2025, with one individual consultant earning $7 million. Meanwhile, law firms including Littler Mendelsohn, Jackson Lewis, Morgan Lewis and Fisher and Phillips handled more than 19 percent of all NLRB cases in 2024, generating an estimated $282 million from labor practices alone.
• Only about one in five union busters files the legally required LM-20 disclosure form within the federally mandated 30-day window. The Department of Labor's Office of Labor Management Standards, however, has consistently enforced disclosure requirements for unions while effectively turning a blind eye to employer and consultant violations. The approach continues despite an Office of Inspector General report explicitly finding that the agency is failing to protect workers’ rights to organize.
• Healthcare is at or near the top of all industries in union avoidance spending, with Unity Point Health in Iowa ranking as the second-largest spender on outside union-busting consultants in 2025, despite its patients dying in waiting rooms for lack of beds. Funk noted that the consultant who earned $7 million last year specializes specifically in busting nurses’ unions across the country.

A $1.7 Billion Industry That Mostly Operates in the Dark

Bob Funk has spent years tracking the union-avoidance industry through his nonprofit organization, LaborLab in Montana. The number he brought to America's Work Force Union Podcast this month is one he helped calculate in partnership with the Economic Policy Institute: $1.7 billion. That is the annual amount U.S. employers spend specifically on union-busting consultants and the law firms that back them up. Funk said he believes the true total could be even higher.

The $1.7 billion figure covers what most people think of when they picture union-busting: the outside consultants who arrive at a workplace, conduct captive-audience meetings, follow workers around job sites, and apply sustained psychological pressure against organizing campaigns. It also covers the major law firms — Littler Mendelsohn, Jackson Lewis, Morgan Lewis, Fisher and Phillips — that handle NLRB proceedings and drag out contract negotiations for as long as legally possible.

What it does not cover is the internal infrastructure. For example, Amazon and Starbucks both maintain large in-house labor relations teams that are deployed the moment a whiff of organizing activity is detected. Other employers run employee engagement programs specifically designed to preempt unionization or retain polling firms to continuously monitor worker sentiment.

Amazon and the Scale of Corporate Spending

Amazon spent more than $26.6 million on outside union avoidance consultants in 2025 alone. One individual consultant earned $7 million in a single year flying around the country and sending subcontractors to warehouses — a figure Funk described in the same breath as noting that workers are dying in Amazon facilities.

Amazon workers, by Funk's description, are the most surveilled workers in America, with phone and workplace monitoring used not just for operational efficiency but also to identify and suppress organizing activity. He described reports of organizers in North Carolina being followed and harassed by drones around their facilities.

Law Firms: The Backbone of Union Busting

Funk made a specific point of highlighting the law firm dimension of the industry, which has historically received less public attention than the consultants. Littler Mendelsohn, he said, is effectively Starbucks’ union-busting law firm — the firm that has helped drag out the contract process for more than four years across hundreds of organized Starbucks stores.

These firms have an explicit financial incentive to delay, because delay is billable. The longer a contract takes, the more they earn. And because of loopholes in federal disclosure law that allow firms to characterize their work as employer advice rather than persuader activity, many of them have never been required to disclose what they are being paid or what they are being paid to do.

The LM-20 Problem and the DOL's Blind Eye

Federal law requires union busters to file an LM-20 disclosure form within 30 days of being hired, documenting their pay and duties. Only about one in five complies with the requirement.

However, the Department of Labor's Office of Labor-Management Standards vigorously enforces financial disclosure requirements against unions — whose members have a right to know how their dues are spent — while effectively ignoring the same requirements as they apply to employers and their consultants, Fund explained.

An Office of Inspector General report found that the agency is failing to protect workers’ rights to organize. According to Funk, nothing has changed in response to that finding.

Healthcare: The Other Union Busting Front Line

Healthcare is either the leading or one of the top industries for union avoidance spending. Unity Point Health in Iowa, the second-largest spender on outside union-busting consultants in 2025, spent more than $2 million fighting its nurses while patients were dying in waiting rooms for lack of beds — the very conditions driving the nurses to organize. The nurses won anyway. Funk noted the irony of a healthcare system claiming it cannot afford to listen to its frontline workers while simultaneously prioritizing millions of dollars in union-busting spending over patient care.

What LaborLab Does and How to Access It

LaborLab is a nonprofit that collects the union-busting disclosures workers are legally entitled to and distributes them to organizing workers, activists, advocates and policymakers who would otherwise have no way of accessing them. Through its Persuader reports, LaborLab can tell workers exactly who has been hired to fight their campaign, what that consultant is charging and what tactics they have deployed elsewhere. Any worker or union facing an organizing campaign or a contract fight can reach out directly at laborlab.us or by email at contact@laborlab.us. Funk said the organization will get back to them with the information they need to understand what is happening behind the curtain.

The organization runs on donations from individuals and unions. Funk said the demand for its services is growing, and he encouraged anyone who values the work to support it at laborlab.us.

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