Labor Management Relationship Building

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Labor ManagementRelationship Building
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Overview

• Rights Based Approach
• Cooperative Approach
• Roles of Labor and Management
• Goals and Interests of Labor and Management
• An Effective Labor-Management Relationship

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Primary Approaches to Labor Relations

• Rights Based (Compliance)
• and
• Cooperative (Collaboration)

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Labor Law and Labor Relations

• Labor law creates rights and obligations to be
  enforced and obeyed
• Labor relations concerns how people deal with
  people in an organized union environment

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What is a Rights Based Approach?

• Enforcing statutory and contractual rights
• Doing what statute and contract require -nothing
  more and nothing less
• One side wins and one side loses

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Some Advantages of Rights Based Approach

• Approach is known to the parties
• Clearly defined winners and losers
• No need to trust the other party
• May be quicker (or not)

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Some Disadvantages of a Rights Based Approach

• Litigation can be costly
• Adversarial relations can lead to continued
  escalation of warfare between parties
• To be successful party must have high degree of
  skill at advocating its position
• Compliance does not improve relationship of
  parties

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Enforcing Statutory and Contractual Obligations

• Negotiability Appeals
• Unfair Labor Practice Process
• Binding Arbitration
• Binding Impasse Resolution Process

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What is a Cooperative Approach?

• Relationship based on problem solving approach
• Union participates pre-decisionally in management
  decisions -management ultimate decision maker
• Both parties seek solutions where they both are
  winners

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Some Advantages of Cooperation

• Uses interest based problem solving
• attack the problem and not the people
• Cooperative decision-making
• improves the quality of the solution
• reduces problems arising during implementation
• Cooperation increases trust between the parties
• leads to better communication
• leads to better understanding of each sides
  concerns and better resolution of disputes

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Some Disadvantages of Cooperation

• May be perceived negatively by respective
  constituencies of labor and management
• Can take longer and cost more to come to decision
  (or may only seem longer)
• Requires new skills which are different than
  those required in compliance environment

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Key Question.

• To what extent is there a commitment to this
  approach from both labor and management,
• or
• Is cooperation simply doing compliance in an
  atmosphere where both sides speak to each other
  more politely or more often?

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Roles of Union and Management

• Management - manages
• Union represents employees

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Managements Goal

• Accomplish the mission of the agency.
• Manage its physical, financial and human
  resources effectively
• Comply with legal, regulatory policy mandates

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Unions Goal

• Accomplish the mission of the agency
• Represent the interests of the bargaining unit
  employees
• Help them obtain safe and effective working
  conditions.

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Elements of Effective Relationships

• Top Management Union commitment
• Commitment requires understanding
• Communication trust
• Belief that cooperation will lead to a more
  effective organization

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Characteristics of Success

• Open candid sharing of information
• Problems identified solved jointly to better
  serve the agencys mission
• An environment that respects values all
  employees
• Agreement reached through consensus

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Characteristics of Success

• Cooperation even though some may disagree on
  specific issues
• Patience for commitment to a cooperative LMR
  for the long haul
• Shared responsibility accountability for
  results
• Employee involvement in problem-solving

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Summary

• Rights Based Approach
• Cooperative Approach
• Roles of Labor and Management
• Goals and Interests of Labor and Management
• An Effective Labor-Management Relationship

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Questions?