ORG Blog

Early NQWC experiments succeed in bringing labor and management together at major U.S. employers

A Structure for Working Together – The National Quality of Work Center is Conceived

This is the first installment of a six-part blog series from Overland Resource Group, exploring the past, the current state, and the future of union-management collaboration and employee engagement. 

Of all the management rights, budgetary responsibility is perhaps the one most tightly held. At the same time, some of the loudest laments we hear from management leaders are that employees do not understand the business, or the budgetary realities and financial constraints under which they must operate. Therein lies the root of a vicious cycle: in the spirit of protecting a coveted management right, leaders may inadvertently perpetuate an informational vacuum, which gets filled with misinformation, rumor and hearsay.

November 22, 2014 will be the 21st anniversary of the end of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) strike at American Airlines. This is significant to me for several reasons– one is because I was there, in the middle, and I remember it like it was yesterday. The second is because recent history reminds me of the power of external influences on the labor- management process in the United States.

Once in a while a story comes along that cuts through the chatter, clutter and cynicism that seem to permeate our collective conversation. These are the stories that keep alive a picture of what we can be when we're at our best together.

As I took to the podium for a panel discussion at the 66^th Annual Meeting of the Labor and Employment Relations Association earlier this month, it was with a delightful trifecta of emotion:

I wrote a blog for Plant Services, an online magazine, titled “Lean Manufacturing: Can Employee Resistance be Transformed to Buy-In?”

My response to the question was an emphatic “yes!” and the exploration of that topic got me thinking about my experiences with implementing Lean processes in union environments. So, to the obvious follow-up question, “Can lean manufacturing be implemented in a union environment?” my equally emphatic answer is “Yes, of course!”

In organizations that are shifting toward higher levels of labor-management collaboration, “joint” communication that includes both management and union perspectives can demonstrate that organizational change is taking place in immediate and very visible ways. When employees see communication processes begin to reflect diverse perspectives– rather than strictly the company line or union messaging– it signals movement to a more open and honest environment and the development of collaborative relationships. Joint work and joint communication go hand and hand, each supporting and strengthening the other.