Quick Start

Publicly traded companies that sell shares on a US stock exchange must file an annual report (called a 10-K) with the Securities and Exchange Commission that includes extensive information on financial performance, operations, risks, and strategy. You can search for publicly traded companies at the SEC EDGAR search page: https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch 

Public companies also usually have a webpage for “Investor Relations” where they post presentations, transcripts, and press releases for investors. 

Privately held companies do not have to disclose financial information or other operational details. The best sources of basic information on private companies include: 

• Start with the company’s own website and see what they choose to disclose about their business, including history, owners, locations, employee numbers, clients, etc. 
• Incorporation documents are available from the secretary of state’s office in the state in which the company is incorporated. Look for the “business entity search” on the secretary of state website. 
• News/web searches may provide background on the company through articles, press releases, or other public documents. 
• Business directories like Bloomberg, OpenCorporates.com, and industry-specific databases can also be helpful for confirming basic information like address/location, industry/NAICS code, and estimated revenue. 
• Some private companies issue debt that has publicly available credit ratings or is traded on an exchange and therefore has public filings via the SEC. 

Nonprofit organizations must file a 990 tax form with the IRS that provides basic financial information, executive compensation and other information. Several databases for 990s exist, including this one from ProPublica: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/ 

Nonprofits may also publish a more detailed annual report on their website. 

Public sector entities must generally submit a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report to the elected officials who oversee them. This annual report should be accessible on the public entity’s website. Public employers are also subject to public records requests. For a guide and template for submitting public records requests, visit: https://splc.org/lettergenerator/

Check out the organization’s website for information about primary operations.

For publicly traded companies, you can also read the company’s Annual Report, which you can find on the SEC’s EDGAR Database.

Need help using the EDGAR Database? Check out our tutorial here.

For publicly traded companies, check out Yahoo Finance for some basic information about the organization’s growth rate.

For non-profits, check out Propublica’s nonprofit explorer.

For organizations that are not publicly traded, consider whether the organization has increased its staffing, opened new locations, or acquired other companies/organizations.

For publicly traded companies, check out Yahoo Finance for some basic information about the organization’s growth rate.

For non-profits, check out Propublica’s nonprofit explorer.

For non-publicly traded companies, this question can be difficult to answer. Consider purchasing a D&B report to assess the company’s basic credit report.

Make sure you have a complete picture of the workplaces across your employer’s operations.

Can you get a complete list of locations/ worksites? If you don’t have immediate access to this, you may be able to find a list of locations on the employer’s annual report and website. One way to identify locations is based on job postings that list city, state, or even address. 

Can you get a count of total employees? If you don’t have immediate access to this, you can again attempt to find employee numbers based on employer annual reports, websites, news coverage, and other creative searching. Try to gather this data for the past several years so you can evaluate change over time.

Google News is an excellent place to start the search for news about a company. However, a few other news searches will yield more and possibly better results.

Press Releases – Companies and organizations will release statements to the press to cover important developments that they want to showcase. These will likely not mention anything that is harmful to the company’s image, unless it is forced to address an unpleasant issue already in the media. The company/organization’s website will have links to the press releases.

Local News – Google may bury the articles that were written in local publications if they do not have enough attention from users. However, these articles may be written by journalists that pay the closest attention to the company. Search local news sites for communities near large company worksites or where the headquarters is located.

Industry Publications – Industry specific publications follow events affecting a single industry. These are typically niche publications, but offer a deeper dive into industry and issues that affect the company.

Workers likely know who the top executive of the employer is and can create a map of decision-makers. This is critical in order to communicate with the people who can give you what you want. 

An organization may post information about its executive leadership on its website, identify them in press stories, or disclose them on incorporation documents and other public filings.

Check out Good Jobs First Violation Tracker for information about Health and Safety and Environmental violations.

You can find basic information about court filings on Justia.

Check out Open Secrets for information about political donations and lobbying.

Need help using Open Secrets? Check out our tutorial here.

Workers are the best source of information about suppliers and transportation.

Publicly traded companies might also make this information available on the company’s annual report, which can be found on the SEC’s EDGAR Database.

Import Genius allows users to track containers and third party shippers for a fee.

To understand your employer, it is important to understand the larger industry context and how they compare to similar employers. The following questions and sources can help you conduct a landscape analysis of your field. 

To find federal lobbying information for your industry, visit https://www.opensecrets.org/industries 

Who are the employers’ direct competitors/peers?

What other units do unions represent in this industry (especially in your geography)?

What are the trends in this industry? (i.e. new, fast growing vs. mature and stable)

Review industry and financial press, as described in Section 8

What levels of wages and benefits are common in your industry?

Find wages for your occupation or industry from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics: https://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm 

What are the significant regulatory or legislative issues facing the industry?

When your employer begins engaging in substantive bargaining with you, they will be looking at the wages and terms for similarly situated groups to gauge appropriate compensation levels and contract protections while also pushing back against proposals they will contend put them at a competitive disadvantage.

You can anticipate the employer’s pushback and strengthen your argument by gathering any existing collective bargaining agreements at the employer’s direct peers/competitors, other organizations that employ similar occupations, or other first contracts in your geographic area.

Reaching out to workers or local unions at these other organizations for copies of their CBAs can also be a first step to establishing relationships with important potential allies.

Executives typically craft an optimistic narrative about the employer and its ability to grow its profits or in the case of nonprofit organizations, advance their mission or grow donations. 

Publicly traded companies will give quarterly presentations via webinar to discuss the company’s performance and upcoming issues. These can be found on the company’s Investor Relations website. Top executives answer questions from investment analysts for a portion of the call. Occasionally, companies will give much longer presentations called Investor or Analyst Day Presentations. These presentations describe the company’s strategy.

Similarly, nonprofit organizations’ executives will issue annual reports to donors that describe how the organization met or will meet its mission’s goals. These reports will often be available on their website, but the organization may also give more detailed presentations about their strategies to donors. Additionally, if the nonprofit receives government funding, there may be a statement of work or grant application that includes a work plan on how the organization will achieve its goals.

It is important to bear in mind that an executive’s perspective will be an optimistic view of the organization’s strategy since it is their role to create and implement the strategic operation of the company or organization. But you should also take what the employer says seriously as it is your best clue to the employer’s imperatives – what actions or strategies do they need to carry out in order to be successful?

When you investigate the ownership of your employer, make sure to look for confirmation of whether it is: 

1. a top-level organization owned/controlled by individuals and/or institutions, or 
2. a subsidiary organization that is part of a larger parent entity. 

This will tell you if the “CEO” of your unit is actually the boss, or if they answer to someone(s) higher up.