Should Sales Pros Form a Labor Union?
The Supreme Court has ruled that both corporations and unions can donate unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns. Since corporations and unions are natural enemies when it comes to economic policy, workplace conditions, and so forth, that sound fair enough, except for one thing.
Unions have a teeny, tiny fraction of the amount of money that huge corporations wield. Union-busting and outsourcing have caused union membership in the private sector to decline to insignificance, and now it appears that public sector unions will be legislated out of existence as well.
All of that is good news for top management at huge corporations, but it may be bad news for the country, since huge corporations, by the nature of their fiduciary duty and structure, often act against the public interest, unless constrained by law, labor unions or public opinion.
Since unlimited corporate political donations probably means the end of meaningful regulation of entire industries (like the financial sector), and the massive application of corporate money to promote corporate-friendly disinformation is successfully directing public ire towards the still-employed rather than the people who created the unemployment, there's essentially nothing left to restrain huge corporations from doing whatever they want, even if it creates massive pollution, kills people, or completely destroys the economy. Yet again. (See "Top 14 Financial Frauds of All Time.")
While unions in the past often behave in ways that are counterproductive and highly questionable, they have traditionally formed a counterweight against the abuses of corporate power. So I'm wondering whether the country might not be well-served if sales reps (the largest single job description in the country) banded together to form a labor union.
Not a necessarily union in the "look for the union label" manner, but aybe something more like the Screen Actors Guild or the Screenwriters Guild. The members of those organizations are highly trained "professionals" but they've banded together to make sure they don't get screwed over on a regular basis. They make sure their people get paid fairly, get insurance, and can't arbitrary fired.
The benefits of a sales rep union for sales professionals would be numerous.
First, a sales rep union might be able force businesses to make painful decisions that top management is unable to make. As I pointed out in the post "Sales Pros Know More than CEOs", sales reps usually know more about what's going on in the real world than C-level executives because reps deal with it on a day-to-day basis.
Second, a sales rep union might prevent abuses of power. As exemplified in the post "Worst Sales Manager Contest," there are plenty of sales managers who abuse sales reps. If sales reps were unionized, this kind of corporate behavior would come to a screeeeeeeching halt.
Third, a union bring some well-needed democracy to the workplace. According to the poll in the post "Should Businesses be Democracies," a majority of Sales Machine readers believe that employees should be able to vote on strategy, corporate direction, and CEO compensation.
Fourth, a union could impose standards of ethics and competence which are entirely missing in the sales world. It would increase the social status of a sales job if such jobs weren't open to every bozo who can't find a job doing something else and thinks he can sell for a living.
Finally, a union would force companies to realize that, if they don't have sales reps, they don't have a business. I'm tired of hearing non-sales folk claim that their jobs are as important as selling. They're not, and never will be, because, as I've repeatedly pointed out, if sales don't take place, you're outta business.
There's no question that sales rep union would have real clout because, well..., if you don't have a sales force, you don't have a business. With all this in mind, I'm can't help but wonder whether a little organizing might not be a good idea.
I can't help but think that if sales reps (and by extension regular, non-executive workers) had a bigger voice in the decision-making process of the U.S. government, the country would be in better shape. I mean, do we really want to have most of the power in the country concentrated into the hands of a bunch of overpaid, narcissistic CEOs? Because that's pretty much where we're headed.
READERS: What do you think? Leave a comment if you like, and here's a poll:
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