Let’s start with this simple premise – businesses today talk about the importance of the customer, but in far too many cases make all their important decisions based on short term shareholder behavior.
Robert Hughes, on April 3, 2014
Let’s start with this simple premise – businesses today talk about the importance of the customer, but in far too many cases make all their important decisions based on short term shareholder behavior.
Cathy Wright, on March 18, 2014
Like most others in the labor relations arena, we watched with great interest the events and debates surrounding the recent vote by the workforce at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, TN, on whether or not to be represented by the United Auto Workers. Clearly enormous gaps exist between those who believe that unions are a thorn in the side of any organization and those who believe the UAW and VW had the opportunity to launch an alternative approach to traditional labor-management relations.
Vicki Kelsey, on February 17, 2014
Part 3 of 3 in an Interest-Based Leadership series
Cathy Wright, on November 29, 2013
We didn’t want to be right.
Vicki Kelsey, on November 11, 2013
Part 2 of 3 in an Interest-Based Leadership series
Vicki Kelsey, on October 21, 2013
Part 1 of 3 in an Interest-Based Leadership series
Robert Hughes, on September 17, 2013
Tuesday, September 10, Tennessee U.S. Senator Bob Corker told the Associated Press that he “was a little worried” Volkswagen could become “a laughingstock in many ways” if they continued their discussions with the United Auto Workers about creating a German-style works council at their Chattanooga plant. Likening the idea to “inflicting a wound,” Corker characterized management’s participation in the discussion as “naïve” and went on to single out the UAW as having created an “us versus them” mentality in plants.
Cathy Wright, on August 30, 2013
It has been 119 years since a federal holiday was established to celebrate the economic and social contributions of workers, and it is worthy of celebration, indeed. Without the American worker fueling the economic engine of our country, we would never have become the most productive, affluent nation in the world. But in today’s global economy, regaining that status– and recapturing U.S. jobs– will require more than the mighty muscle and ingenuity of American workers.
Cathy Wright, on August 6, 2013
As I put down my morning paper and pondered a labor-management divide so great that it merited intervention of the California Governor to stall a strike of the two largest unions at the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system, and turned my attention instead to the opening plenary session at the Florida Labor Management Conference, I was struck by the picture of stark contrasts.
Cathy Wright, on July 22, 2013
While the question raised in a recent article in TIME magazine’s on-line edition titled “Americans Are Warming Again to Unions. Will the Relationship Last?” is an interesting one, the more pressing question has not so much to do with how unionism fares in public opinion polls, but rather with how the relationship between labor leaders and their management counterparts at unionized companies can be leveraged for their mutual benefit and the good of the country. The future-critical question is: What can organized labor as an institution and their management counterparts do TODAY to restore our nation’s competitive capacity and preserve jobs that fuel our economic engine?
