Now that I know that the Regis Corporation is anti union I will support a boycott. I hope others here do the same.
In today's New York Times
Keri Gorder, until recently the manager of a hair salon in Great Falls, Mont., said she was surprised last month by a document that her company wanted stylists to sign.
Ms. Gorder said the salon’s parent company, the Regis Corporation, had urged the four stylists at her salon, Cost Cutters, to sign a document that would seemingly nullify any future support they showed for unionization.
Labor leaders in Montana accuse the company of seeking to take away the stylists’ right to form a union. But Regis says the document merely seeks to ensure that workers choose unions through a secret-ballot election — at a time when unions are pushing legislation in Congress that would make it easy to bypass secret ballots.
also, coverage of Regis' bald faced lying about its efforts.
Regis executives said they had distributed the document out of concern that Congress would enact legislation backed by labor that would require employers to recognize a union as soon as a majority of workers signed pro-union cards, without holding a secret-ballot election.
Paul Finkelstein, chief executive at Regis, the nation’s largest hair salon company, said many employees signed such pro-union cards without understanding that it could commit them to joining a union. Mr. Finkelstein said the company’s focus groups showed that employees overwhelmingly favored using secret ballots to decide whether to join a union.
The document the hair stylists were asked to sign, titled Protection of Secret Vote Agreement, said, "In order to preserve my right to a secret-ballot election, and for my own protection, I knowingly and without restraint and free from coercion sign this agreement revoking and nullifying any union authorization card I may execute in the future."
So, basically what they want, then, is to intimidate their company's employees from unionization. This effort is likely a violation of the National Labor Relations Act.
According to Wikipedia, Regis is the parent company of a large number of haircut chains around the country.
Regis Corporation is the largest hair salon chain in the world, with over 11,000 salons (including both company-owned and franchises), it is ranked 778 on the Fortune 1000.
Its namesake is Regis Hair Salons, and it also owns the chains Images Salon in Las Vegas, NV, Michael of the Carlyle in Colorado Springs and Denver, CO City Looks, Famous Hair, Best Cuts, Saturday's, Hair Express, HCUK, Supercuts, Pro-Cuts, Hair Crafters, Magicuts, MasterCuts, Borics Hair,Hair by Stewarts, Trade Secret, PureBeauty, SmartStyle, Cost Cutters, TGF Hair Salon, Hair Masters, Style America, Holiday Hair, and Mia & Maxx Hair Studio mostly in the United States, First Choice Haircutters based in Canada, and Vidal Sassoon, Jean Louis David, and Saint Algue based in Europe. In 2005 the company acquired Hair Club for Men and Women, in the hair loss field. The company recently sold all of its beauty schools to Empire Beauty School.
On January 10, 2006 Regis Corporation announced it would acquire the Sally Beauty Company business of Alberto-Culver. Sally has 2,419 Sally Beauty Supply stores and 822 Beauty Systems Group stores. On April 5, 2006, Alberto-Culver terminated the merger agreement.
Regis is described elsewhere as a "global leader in the $170 billion hair care industry."
Incidentally, the ever spineless Harry Reid is now saying that Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is on hold
The debate over health care reform has pushed the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) off the Senate docket, possibly for the rest of the year, according Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Speaking to the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, Reid commented "We have too many other things on our plate."
Too many things on our plate? Give me a break!
Anyway, back to Regis. If the unions urge a boycott, though as far as I can see, they have yet to do this, I will gladly support it. I hope others here are willing to support unionization by doing the same thing.