As published in the January 1, 2008 Toledo Business Journal
Sandra Simon
Northwest Ohio Center for
Labor-Management Cooperation
Labor-Management cooperation attracts investment
Toledo Business Journal recently interviewed Sandra Simon, executive director of the Northwest Ohio Center for Labor-Management Cooperation at The University of Toledo. She shared the following thoughts.
Toledo Business Journal: Can you discuss the mission of the Northwest Ohio Center for Labor-Management Cooperation?
Sandra Simon: The mission of the Northwest Ohio Center for Labor-Management Cooperation is to assist unionized facilities in their joint efforts to maintain and grow their competitiveness in the worldwide marketplace. As a community-based, not-for-profit service provider, the Center plays a significant role in fostering northwest Ohio’s prosperity by assessing, designing, facilitating, and implementing innovative processes for realistic cooperative change and core workforce development.
When Labor and Management invite us into their facility, we bring a neutral approach to help them develop customized joint initiatives that encourage innovation and flexibility to meet the demands of continuous change, improvement, and global competition. Meeting the distinct challenges of labor-management partnerships promotes commitment and cultivates best practices critical to organizational success.
One of the great labor-management partnerships is the Working Council for Employee Involvement (WCEI), which was formed by the Center in 1987 and has become a strong partner with the Center. This council currently consists of eight unionized organizations from which both Labor and Management leaders attend monthly meetings. The council’s mission is, “Working together to create positive harmony and cooperation, with the goal of enhancing the growth of area businesses and promoting community development.”
TBJ: There are a number of area manufacturing plants that fly an EI flag. Can you explain?
SS: GM and Local 14 were one of the first recipients of the EI flag that is awarded to facilities that qualify. The EI flag is awarded to organizations that have an affiliation with WCEI involving and supporting joint labor-management processes in their own facility. The EI flag award was created to recognize organizations that choose to have a labor-management partnership and support it and grow it inside their facility.
TBJ: How many facilities have received the EI designation? Can you share a list of these organizations?
SS: Twenty organizations have been recognized with this award: Chrysler Jeep and UAW Local 12; Chrysler Toledo Machining and UAW Local 1435; Ford Maumee Stamping and UAW Local 1892; General Motors Powertrain and UAW Local 14; Honeywell and UAW Local 533; National Electrical Carbon and IUE 749; Stowe Woodward and UAW 393; New Metal Metals and UAW Local 12; Harris Semiconductor and IBEW; Inshield Die & Stamping and UAW Local 4444; Johnson Controls Battery and UAW Local 12; Toledo Stamping and UAW Local 12; Cooper Tire & Rubber Company and USWA 207; ITT Automotive and IAM 956; Toth Industries and UAW Local 12; Crescent Manufacturing and UAW Local 959; Toledo Mold & Die, Carey and UAW Local 2021; TKA Atlas and UAW Local 336; Libbey-Owens-Ford and ABG; and Toledo Public Schools and TFT, AFSCME, TAAP.
TBJ: While domestic automobile manufacturers are closing facilities and reducing employees, General Motors recently announced a major investment in its Toledo Powertrain facility. What role do you think labor-management joint efforts at the facility played in the GM investment decision?
SS: Many of the most competitive businesses in northwest Ohio are members of, or have been assisted by, the Working Council for Employee Involvement and the Center. In particular, General Motors Powertrain Toledo and United Auto Workers Local 14 are founding members of WCEI. Their long-time labor-management partnership began in 1983 and continues today. Their strong reputation for solving problems achieving goals together toward the overall success, longevity, and workplace environment of that facility is greatly deserved.
In fact, the GM executives and UAW leaders gave credit to the local labor-management partnership as a primary reason the Toledo facility was awarded the new product line. The partnership is what makes everything possible since it impacts all areas of the facility from productivity and quality to highly-skilled employees and a better working environment where people are proud of their contribution.
TBJ: Can you discuss the role of volunteers in the organization and provide examples of the work that they perform?
SS: The WCEI and the Center are committed to assisting unionized organizations in northwest Ohio in working cooperatively. Labor-management cooperation is certainly easier said than done; however, the successes speak for themselves. Internal Labor and Management leaders of the member WCEI facilities often accompany the Center when visiting another facility. An HR director or plant manager and a union president or chairman may be part of a visit while another visit may consist of Labor and Managment facilitators. On these visits, the volunteers talk about the benefits of cooperation, the hurdles to be negotiated, and the trust that is at the crux of cooperation. Each organization takes on cooperation in its own unique way. Still, there are lessons to be gained, [from] what works well and what doesn’t.
One of the services of the Center and WCEI is to provide facilitator training for Labor and Management change agents in organizations embarking on or growing its labor-management cooperation in-house resources. This is a weeklong training off-site. To assist the participants in understanding their new role in their home facilities, WCEI volunteers participate in a question-and-answer panel as well as sessions for specific expertise at the training. This same kind of Q&A / expertise sessions occur during Joint Leadership Steering Committee Development as well, which is typically a three-day off-site.
TBJ: How does the Center help organizations?
SS: Through the off-sites we mentioned earlier. Here’s the nuts and bolts of it – the Center does not know how to run a hospital, or a factory, or a public agency. What we do know about is how people work together, or not, what structures have been successful, or not, and most importantly, that their future success is in the knowledge, the drive, and the power of the joint leadership of that facility and its employees.
We bring a process they develop and use together, to solve problems, set goals, and achieve their mission. Every group is different and every session is customized directly to their needs. The L-M volunteers from WCEI attest to the success of developing processes.
The foundation of successful joint processes is built on five basic principles:
- The process must be jointly led by the top management and top union leaders at the site.
- The contract must be honored.
- No employment will be lost due to the process.
- The joint process will not be held hostage by either side for any reason.
- The focus must be quality and all that quality entails.
These guiding principles are not a guarantee of success but certainly are harbingers. One of the first things a joint leadership group needs to do, and we help them with, is to clearly define and understand these principles together for themselves and their organization.
TBJ: In negotiations between Management and Labor, the issue of a "fair profit" may be addressed. Can you discuss this subject as it impacts key issues from both Management and Labor?
SS: Fair profit is a concept that gets attention in the media. At the Center, we have to be able to help Labor and Management address profit from the standpoint of two views that each generally perceive of the other – specifically, the tipping point between profit and greed. These perceptions can be some of the causes for people being in one camp or another rather than working together. However, if we solely focus on profit versus greed, groups generally dig in their heels about their positions.
However, if we work with the group about the issues Management cares about and the issues the union cares about, we find that they know each other fairly well. When asked, Management can tell us that the union cares about good wages, seniority, longevity, and fair work practices. Further the Union can tell us that Management cares about profit, productivity, market share, and cost reduction (Clearly, they all care about more than what’s on these short lists I’m using to make a point in an article).
Whatever lists a joint team comes up with, and is then viewed together by the whole group, it becomes a discussion for them that one list is not mutually exclusive to the other. In other words, if Group A wants its list fulfilled, it needs the other list to be fulfilled as well – each list feeds the other. Once that discussion occurs, they can move forward with how best to get the work done together. Profit is not a dirty word – it’s all about how it’s handled. Nobody wants its facility to fail. The unemployment line knows no designations of Labor or Management.