International Labor Relations

Know your labor risk
before a petition
is filed.

Confidential labor-relations assessments, campaign response, and workforce-risk strategy for employers facing organizing activity, NLRB filings, or rising employee dissatisfaction.

Active campaign or petition filed? Call (212) 335-0339 now
Confidential Intake
Reviewed by senior labor-relations advisors. All inquiries strictly confidential.
🔒 All inquiries are strictly confidential. Reviewed by senior advisors only. We will never share your information.
200+ NLRB Elections Advised
50+ Years Collective Experience
Former Union Officials on Staff
NLRB Veterans
Labor Attorneys
National Deployment — All 50 States
24-Hour Response for Active Campaigns
Choose Your Situation

Every labor challenge is different.
Tell us where you are.

The right strategy depends entirely on your timeline. Select the situation that matches yours and we'll show you exactly how we help.

Urgent

A petition has been filed or election is pending.

You're on the NLRB's timeline now. Every hour matters. You need experienced campaign counsel immediately — not after the weekend.

NLRB petition received
Election date scheduled
ULP charge filed against you
Cards circulating on the floor
Call (212) 335-0339 Now →
Early Warning

No petition yet — but something is changing.

You're sensing dissatisfaction. Turnover is up. Conversations have shifted. You don't have a campaign yet, but you may have the conditions that create one.

Unusual employee clustering or conversations
Increased grievances or HR complaints
Outside organizer contact reported
Key supervisor relationships fraying
Request a Vulnerability Assessment →
Strategic

Already unionized or bargaining is coming up.

You need experienced negotiators at the table who understand what the union wants, what they'll accept, and what your operational red lines need to be.

First contract negotiations beginning
Contract renewal approaching
Grievance arbitration exposure
Multi-location bargaining complexity
Discuss Negotiation Strategy →

What happens after
you reach out.

1
Confidential Intake
A senior advisor reviews your situation, timeline, workforce size, and locations. No sales pressure. No obligation.
2
Risk Readout
We identify the likely labor-relations risks specific to your situation and outline your most important immediate next steps.
3
Action Plan
If further help is warranted, we outline scope, timing, deliverables, and cost — clearly, before any engagement begins.
4
Deployment
For active matters, senior advisors deploy quickly. For prevention work, we build the program around your specific workforce and risk profile.

This is not a sales call. Our initial conversation is a genuine assessment of your situation by people who have been inside hundreds of labor matters. You'll leave with more clarity than you arrived with — regardless of whether you engage us further.

Your organization is
sending signals.
Are you reading them?

Most companies discover they have a labor problem when a petition lands on their desk. By then, the campaign has been running for months. Informal leaders have been identified. The narrative has been set.

Our SentimentIQ™ Vulnerability Audit gives leadership a complete picture of workforce sentiment, department-level risk, and the operational conditions driving dissatisfaction — lawfully, confidentially, and before any of that happens.

"By the time you see the signs, the campaign has already started."
— ILR Advisory Principle
Early Warning Indicators
⚖ Legal Activity
ULP charges filed with the NLRB — even unfounded ones — signal organized, coached activity. This is rarely a first step; it means a campaign is already structured.
👥 Workforce Behavior
Unusual employee clustering, shift changes in communication patterns, sudden solidarity on grievances that were previously individual complaints.
📊 Turnover Spikes
Sudden increases in voluntary departures — particularly among supervisors or long-tenured employees — are a leading indicator of broader, organized dissatisfaction.
📡 External Contact
Union organizers approaching employees off-property. Social media activity. Employees asking unusual questions about NLRA rights or the petition process.
30%
Valuation Impact
Companies that become unionized can lose up to 30% of enterprise valuation — a direct result of constrained operational flexibility and increased labor costs.
$2M+
Campaign Defense Cost
The fully-loaded cost of defending an active organizing campaign — legal fees, consultant fees, lost productivity, management time — routinely exceeds $2 million.
18mo
Average Lead Time
Organizing campaigns typically begin 12–18 months before a petition is filed. That's your window. An audit identifies the problem while you still have time to act.
SentimentIQ™ — Workforce Risk Assessment
⚠ Internal Use Only — Labor Consulting Confidential
Sample output — for illustration purposes
Total Workforce Assessed
264
Employees across all departments
Avg. Management Score
2.76
Out of 5.0 — Critical range
Pro-Organizing Sentiment
68.2%
Of total workforce assessed
Elevated-Risk Employees
60
Require immediate strategic attention
Avg. Scores by Category  ·  1 = Very Negative  |  5 = Very Positive
Management
2.76 ⚠
Organizing Propensity
3.18 ⚠
Pay & Benefits
4.14
Communication
3.75
Safety / Conditions
3.14 ⚠
Work Experience
2.95 ⚠
Workforce Disposition Distribution — 264 Employees
36
48
72
48
60
Strongly Company-Leaning (36)
Leaning Company (48)
Undecided — Critical Swing Group (72)
Leaning Organizing (48)
Elevated Risk — Strategic Priority (60)
Key finding: With 72 undecided employees and historical data showing 65–70% of neutrals move toward organizing without intervention, this organization is at active election risk. Immediate management effectiveness programs are warranted.
Elevated Risk
60
Require strategic engagement priority
Monitor Closely
48
Persuadable — active retention focus
Undecided
72
Critical swing group — outcome determinative
Company-Leaning
84
Maintain relationships and communication
Audit scope: Assessment covers management effectiveness, workforce disposition, compensation equity, communication health, safety culture, and general work experience — by department, location, shift, and supervisor group. Findings are used to identify operational root causes and build targeted improvement programs.

Six dimensions. One complete picture.

01 — Management
Leadership Effectiveness
How employees experience their direct supervisors — the single biggest driver of organizing activity. Assessed by department, shift, and supervisor group to pinpoint exactly where friction originates.
02 — Organizing Propensity
Workforce Disposition
An aggregate measure of organizing sentiment across departments, locations, and seniority groups — identifying where risk is concentrated and which operational conditions are driving it.
03 — Pay & Benefits
Compensation Equity
Whether employees believe they are fairly compensated relative to the market and to peers. Wage compression and perceived inequity are among the most commonly cited organizing triggers.
04 — Communication
Information Flow
Whether employees feel heard and informed. One-directional communication — downward only, with no upward channel — is a consistent leading predictor of organizing activity across industries.
05 — Safety & Conditions
Workplace Environment
Physical working conditions, equipment maintenance, and safety culture. Unresolved safety concerns are frequently cited in both ULP charges and organizing campaigns as primary grievances.
06 — Work Experience
Overall Satisfaction
The composite employee experience — whether people feel respected, valued, and engaged. The gap between how leadership believes employees feel and how they actually feel is where campaigns are born.
Request a Confidential Vulnerability Assessment

We conduct a confidential intake to understand your organization's size, industry, and current situation. If an assessment is warranted, we outline exactly what it involves, what it delivers, and what it costs — before any engagement begins.

Request Assessment →
Confidential · No obligation

24-Hour Campaign
Response.

When an NLRB petition is filed, the clock starts immediately. The timeline is compressed, the stakes are high, and the cost of disorganized response is enormous.

Our campaign response team has advised employers through more than 200 NLRB elections across every major industry. We deploy quickly, establish strategic direction within hours, and coordinate every element of your response — legal, operational, and communications.

We have been in this situation before. Many times. We know exactly what to do — and what not to do.

Hour 1
Situation Assessment
Senior advisor on a call with your team. We establish the timeline, understand the workforce composition, identify known organizers and informal leaders, and map the immediate legal landscape.
Day 1–3
Strategic Direction Set
Campaign strategy established. Legal coordination confirmed. Supervisor training program initiated. Communication timeline built. We are present and directing — not advising from a distance.
Week 1–2
Full Program Execution
Workforce communications deployed. Supervisor coaching underway. Employee listening sessions structured. Legal filings coordinated. We manage the entire campaign response as an integrated operation.
Election Day
Election Support
On-site presence, last-day communications, and legal observation. Whatever the result, we have positioned the company to move forward from a position of knowledge and strength.
What's Included in Campaign Response
NLRB Legal Coordination
We work alongside your labor counsel — or connect you with experienced labor attorneys — to ensure every NLRB filing, response, and hearing is handled with precision.
🎯
Supervisor Training & Coaching
Frontline supervisors are the most important factor in an election outcome. We train them on what they can say, what they cannot say, and how to have authentic conversations with their teams.
📣
Workforce Communications
A lawful, credible, and strategically sequenced communications program that gives employees the information they need to make an informed decision.
🧭
Insider Campaign Intelligence
Several of our team members have run union campaigns. They know every organizing tactic, communication strategy, and pressure point — because they've deployed them. That knowledge informs everything we do.

We've been in
your situation before.

Client identities are always protected. These outcomes represent the type of situations we navigate regularly.

Manufacturing — Multi-Location
Early organizing signals detected before any petition was filed.
Our team deployed a full SentimentIQ™ assessment across 4 facilities. We identified management effectiveness gaps and compensation perception issues driving dissatisfaction in two specific departments. A 90-day supervisor training and communication reset program was implemented.
Outcome
No petition was ever filed. Within 6 months, voluntary turnover in the affected departments dropped by 34% and management satisfaction scores improved significantly across all facilities.
Healthcare — Regional System
NLRB petition filed with a compressed election timeline.
Our campaign response team engaged within hours of the petition. We established legal coordination, initiated supervisor coaching, and deployed a workforce communication program. Former union officials on our team provided direct intelligence on organizer strategy and tactics.
Outcome
Employees voted to remain union-free. Post-election, the organization implemented a structured employee listening program that addressed the core concerns that had driven organizing interest.
Distribution — Private Equity Portfolio
Unionized operation entering first contract negotiations.
Our negotiating team conducted full cost modeling, built the company's bargaining strategy, and represented management at the table. We identified operational flexibility provisions that were non-negotiable and structured proposals around them from the first session.
Outcome
Contract ratified preserving key operational flexibility. Labor cost increase held within PE portfolio projections. Management credibility with the workforce meaningfully improved through the process.

We know how organizing
campaigns are actually run.

International Labor Relations was built with one standard: assemble the most experienced labor relations professionals in the country and give them the resources to do their best work.

Several members of our team have worked inside union campaigns, labor organizations, management teams, and NLRB processes. That experience helps us anticipate organizing dynamics, understand employee concerns at a level that goes beyond the surface, and help employers build stronger direct relationships with their workforce — lawfully, credibly, and operationally.

We are not ideological. We are not anti-union as a matter of principle. We believe that when employees and management have a genuinely strong direct relationship, outside representation becomes unnecessary. When that relationship has broken down, we help rebuild it — and when a campaign is already underway, we know every move that's coming.

Former Union Officials NLRB Veterans Labor Attorneys HR Operations Leaders Industrial Relations Specialists C-Suite Advisors
"
I spent over a decade organizing workers. I believed in it. But I came to see that the adversarial model too often extracts value from both sides rather than building something lasting. Here, I can help employers and employees build workplaces that actually work — without a middleman whose business model depends on the conflict continuing.
Former Regional Director, National Labor Union

Comprehensive labor strategy,
from prevention to resolution.

We are not union busters. We are advisors who believe that when a company and its workforce have a genuine, direct relationship — built on transparency, fairness, and operational clarity — outside representation becomes unnecessary. Our services reflect that belief.

🔎
Vulnerability Assessment

A rigorous workforce-risk audit that identifies the specific operational and cultural conditions driving dissatisfaction — and maps organizing risk by department, location, shift, and supervisor group.

Request Assessment →
🛡
Campaign Response

When a petition is filed or organizing activity is confirmed, we deploy immediately — legal coordination, supervisor training, workforce communications, and full election-day support.

Call (212) 335-0339 →
🤝
Proactive Relations Programs

Structured, ongoing programs that build the management culture, communication infrastructure, and leadership behaviors that make direct employee relationships durable.

Learn More →
📋
Contract Negotiations

For unionized workplaces, our experienced negotiators represent your interests at the table — protecting operational flexibility and financial position with full preparation and strategic clarity.

Discuss Strategy →
🎓
Supervisor & Leadership Training

The frontline supervisor is the single most important factor in employee satisfaction. We build the communication skills and leadership behaviors that determine how your workforce experiences the company daily.

Learn More →
📊
HR & Operational Audits

An objective review of your HR policies, compensation practices, and operational procedures — identifying gaps that create dissatisfaction and legal exposure before they become liabilities.

Learn More →

The review is free.
The insight is immediate.

One conversation with our team will give you a clearer picture of your organization's labor risk than most assessments. We'll listen, ask the right questions, and give you an honest read — no obligation, no pressure. If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you that too.

📞
Call Direct
For active campaigns — call now. For all others, leave a message and we'll respond same day.
Email
Confidential. Reviewed by senior advisors only. Typically responded to within 4 business hours.
🗓
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Full Intake Form
All information is strictly confidential and reviewed only by senior advisors.
🔒 All inquiries are strictly confidential. Reviewed by senior labor-relations advisors only. We will never share your information with any third party.