Employees at Geico’s regional center in Amherst are trying to organize the workforce and create what would likely be the first union at the company, if they prevail.
But leaders of Geico United say they have faced resistance from the insurance giant over their efforts to unionize a prominent employer in the Buffalo Niagara region.
Geico United supporters employed at the company’s location in CrossPoint Business Park in Getzville cite complaints including dissatisfaction with pay raises, micromanaging of the workforce and changes to employees' jobs without their consent or input.
Their campaign is happening amid a wave of organizing drives in industries and sectors where unionized workforces are uncommon. The push to organize Starbucks stores around the country began with an election at a store on Elmwood Avenue. Workers at an Apple store in Maryland voted to unionize. An independent union has sprung up at T-Mobile, and it is attempting to organize workers at the telecommunications company.
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Geico United leaders say they were inspired by a successful union drive at a downstate Amazon warehouse.
But organizers face challenges.
They are trying to organize workers at one facility of a huge corporation that doesn’t have a tradition of unionized employees. Geico United is also seeking to represent them as an independent union, rather than affiliating with an established union.
Geico United's goal is to obtain signatures from at least 30% of 2,685 workers from the Getzville site – the threshold that must be reached for the National Labor Relations Board to hold an election.
Organizers have obtained more than 200 out of the roughly 800 digital signatures they need, and were collecting them at a fast clip until Geico began reacting, said Lila Balali, a Geico United leader.
First discussions
Asked to comment on the organizing drive, Geico said: “We respect our associates' rights to make their own decisions about union issues. Associates have a legal right to support union representation and to oppose having a union. We recognize these important rights.
“We also believe that it benefits everyone to have an open and transparent dialogue with our associates without the constraints that are associated with collective bargaining,” the company said. “We are committed to supporting all of our associates and hearing directly from them about important issues.”
Balali said workers at Geico first started discussing unionizing early in the pandemic. When employees were shifted to remote work, they were told they wouldn’t get reimbursed for buying equipment, such as headsets, to do their jobs, she said. Employees instead used their cellphones to handle the influx of calls, Balali said.
“The majority of us are taking phone calls 40 hours a week, and the calls are back to back,” she said. “You hang up and there’s another call. There’s not even a second between calls.”
Employees also learned they would be selling insurance to customers in many more states than before, but without the extensive classroom training they used to receive, Balali said.
Despite their shared frustrations, the idea of organizing didn’t take off, she said.
“We just kind of stopped thinking about it, because we didn’t fully understand it and we just didn’t think it was possible,” Balali said. “We thought it was a blue-collar thing and there wouldn’t be that much interest."
But after Geico started making other changes this year, the idea of organizing resurfaced.
Geico notified employees they would no longer sell insurance over the phone to customers in 16 states. Instead, she said, customers in those states were instructed to go online for those transactions.
Amid those changes, employees were reassigned to other job categories. Balali, 36, had been working in sales for eight years and was moved into a customer service role – a choice she said she would not have made at this stage of her career.
“We make bonuses in sales,” she said. Her work schedule also changed as a result.
As Balali and her colleagues from other departments shared their concerns, the talk to turned to organizing, which kicked off the current campaign.
An independent campaign
Balali said she spoke with a number of leaders of area unions, but Geico United decided to stay independent, at least for now. The approach is different from workers at Starbucks, who have affiliated with the Workers United labor union.
Balali said Geico United organizers felt they had already taken a number of significant steps on their own, and found their message of independence resonated with co-workers.
"We’re inspired by the Amazon movement," Balali said.
The Amazon Labor Union, an independent union, earlier this year won an election on Staten Island that resulted in Amazon’s first unionized warehouse in the country.
“They organized over 8,000 people,” Balali said. “I think we can do 2,600. It’s possible.”
The independent union approach can be a tougher path for organizers who are new to union elections, said Cathy Creighton, director of Cornell University's School of Industrial Labor Relations Buffalo Co-Lab. "It’s harder if you don’t have someone educating on what you have to do, how to navigate the system."
There is also the challenge that comes with attempting to become the first union at a big employer, she said: "The whole goal for the company would be to nip it in the bud."
Creighton said the organizing drive at Geico reflects how interest in forming and joining unions has expanded beyond traditional sectors like manufacturing.
The campaign at Starbucks stores "ignited a whole generation of workers to say, 'Wait a minute, I can do something about my terms and conditions of my employment, I have a way to have a say at work, and I can do that through a union?' " she said.
Maryland-based Geico, which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, has more than 43,000 employees at 18 major offices around the country. Getzville is one of its 10 regional centers.
Making a push
Balali said Geico has made it difficult for organizers to spread their message.
“I was genuinely convinced they would let us organize, get to an election and probably not be the best to deal with during negotiations,” she said. “But I thought they’d at least let us the opportunity to talk to the employees.”
Employees work at the Getzville office infrequently, and when they are, Geico United representatives aren’t allowed to approach their co-workers at their workstations, Balali said.
After organizers put up union fliers on bulletin boards at the office, Geico took down the billboards, she said.
The Geico campaign has attracted attention from media outlets, given that it is in a sector that does not typically have a unionized workforce. The union campaign was first reported by Investigative Post.
In August, Geico sent emails – which were posted on Reddit before being taken down – to employees saying the company had not “authorized” visits by Geico United to workers’ homes to talk about joining a union, and said if employees felt uncomfortable with an uninvited person showing up at their home, they had "every right to contact the police."
Another Geico message to workers also questioned whether employees would be “better off” with union representation.
"Just because a union calls itself 'Geico United,' this does not mean it would deliver on the many promises made in leaflets," the email said.
Amid published reports of those emails, six New York state lawmakers co-signed a letter to a local Geico official raising concerns about “potential union-busting activities."
“Geico employees should be allowed to organize freely, if they wish, without improper influence by the company,” the lawmakers wrote to Mindy Seibold, Geico’s regional vice president for Buffalo. “We recognize Geico’s valued role as a longtime employer in Amherst, while also acknowledging that the company has benefited substantially from a subsidy package from New York state and the Amherst Industrial Development Agency.”
Major employer
Geico opened its Amherst center in 2004. At the time the project was announced, Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway’s chairman, said he had been a “cheerleader” for the company to choose the Buffalo area for a new center in the Northeast. (Berkshire Hathaway owned The Buffalo News before selling it to Lee Enterprises in 2020.)
The project was hailed by government and economic development leaders as a major win for the region, and Geico became an anchor tenant for the CrossPoint park. The company has expanded its local operations over time.
Geico United leaders attended a Labor Day event in South Buffalo, joining other leaders in the labor movement, including Starbucks Workers United. Balali said Geico United will continue with its push to collect enough signatures to hold an election.
“I think the bigger picture is, we can make our workplace better,” she said. “That’s why I’m doing this.”