Crisis Communications

TURNING AROUND PUBLIC OPINION DURING AN EMOTIONALLY CHARGED LABOR ACTION

Strategic Communications Management Buffers Strike Fallout Against a National Facilities Management Company

Our client, one of the nation's largest and most respected facilities management companies, faced a major crisis when thousands of union employees in a major East Coast city took to the streets in an emotional, noisy strike that lasted several weeks. Within hours, the Company's reputation was being dragged through the mud in what could have been a costly labor action.

Background and Situation Analysis

The client's world changed dramatically on a clear fall day in 2002 when the local unit of a national union went on strike. On day one, some 17 city buildings were targeted. More followed in the days ahead. Almost immediately, a well-orchestrated PR campaign hit our client from all sides. Suddenly, a company that normally operated well below the radar screen was in the spotlight.

Chanting marchers took to the streets. Some blocked traffic. The mayor threw his support behind the strikers. The state's U.S. senators quickly jumped on the bandwagon. Sympathetic workers from other labor unions refused to cross picket lines. Some customers, including the state government, tried to terminate their cleaning contracts.

There was more: advocacy groups joined hand-in-hand with the strikers. College students were recruited to march on the strikers' behalf. The local clergy reached out to help the strikers. The city's top business leaders criticized the cleaning company. A strike fund was formed. The union began running critical radio ads. Flyers were passed out to executives working in downtown high-rise buildings. The company's headquarters was leafleted and picketers even showed up in front of the CEO's home for a night vigil.

It seemed that wherever it turned, the company found itself being portrayed as "public enemy #1."

At the outset of the strike, the company managed communications internally, with some assistance from a public relations firm that had been handling the organization's vertical market trade press. As negative press mounted, Nicolazzo & Associates was called in to provide crisis management counsel.

In our view, because of a lack of strategic pre-planning, the Company left itself exposed. While the union organized and executed a carefully designed communications campaign, the Company made a conscious decision to "take the high road."

In effect, while the Company was sitting back waiting for contract negotiations to begin, the union was setting the "context" of the situation with a series of behind-the-scenes meetings with newspaper reporters, editors, community leaders, politicians, and other influencers. We later learned that no less that 10 "media specialists" were dispatched to the Boston region by the union. Their day-to-day job was to portray building contractors (in particular our client) as the "bad guys."

When the strike did hit, our client was slow to react. The Company let the strikers drive the communications agenda. When it did respond, there was some confusion in its statements and they were being delivered by different spokespersons. The union events that unfolded in Boston, it seemed, were part of a deliberate plan to disrupt and damage our client's business.

The Plan

Once retained, Nicolazzo & Associates realized that time was of the essence. Given the union's head start, it was unrealistic to believe that "press reports" could be immediately turned around. After in-depth meetings with the company's CEO and COO, N&A recommended a strategically focused response that would blend paid and non-paid communications tactics. Said another way, it was a strategy to play "catch up." Simultaneously, N&A developed a multi-tiered strategy and plan for the company to deal with all its audiences.

Within 24 hours, agency executives were on site at the Company's headquarters writing a full-page advertisement to appear in a Sunday newspaper with a circulation of 1 million. Point-by-point, the ad refuted the union's contentions on wages and benefits. A few days later, the ad appeared in a second newspaper with a circulation of more than 400,000.
At the same time, N&A crafted radio ads in English and Spanish that were aired on major broadcast outlets around the region. The ads, which aired during the busy drive-time period, reinforced the key messages already laid out in the newspaper ads...workers were being offered "good jobs at good wages with good benefits."
A day later, the agency worked with its client to craft a letter from the CEO to every customer contact. In addition to letters, company executives made personal calls to approximately 20 top customers. Key messages were emphasized in written and oral communications.
A few days later, N&A proactively contacted one of the top business journalists in the city and arranged a one-on-one interview with the company's CEO. The resulting story, which appeared prominently on the front page of the business section, contained major new revelations that bolstered the company's position and buffered the striking workers' rhetoric.
In this same time period, we counseled the CEO and lead union negotiator to travel to Washington, D.C. to meet with one of the state's U.S. senators. This action immediately decreased the volume of the union supporting sound bites emanating from the senator's office.
Media relations -- which were being handled by different spokespersons within the Company - were centralized. The Company now began to stay on message and speak with one, clear, concise voice. The Company spokesperson also became more proactive in contacting news media outlets and presenting messages that countered misinformation that was being disseminated by the strikers.

The Results

While intense press coverage ensued for several days, stories started to become more "balanced." Clearly, the Company's position was starting to get across.
Rhetoric from the business community, building owners, and political leaders - three groups that had initially been a thorn in the side of the Company - began to subside. No longer were these groups speaking out and publicly criticizing the cleaning companies.
The city's mayor, in particular, grew increasingly irritated with "street theatre" demonstrations and even criticized the strikers when they intimated they would conduct a "day of chaos."
Acting on our counsel and strategy, the company turned around the mayor to the point where he and his key lieutenants were actually participating in the settlement negotiations and helping bring the strike to a dramatic close.
As a settlement grew near, it became evident that the strikers were not going to win the kind of deal they had hoped for at the outset. In fact, as it turned out, the offer they finally accepted was not even as good as an earlier offer on the table.
The final settlement was not enough to elevate the pay of janitors into the top tier of comparable hourly rates in such cities as New York or San Francisco. The wage gains were smaller than those won in a strike in another city two years earlier. And, only a small percentage of the strikers gained any type of health care coverage.
Despite aggressive union tactics and visible demonstrations, when the smoke had cleared our client did not lose one customer.