Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 27, 1993                   TAG: 9307270136
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post and Newsday
DATELINE: CHICAGO                                LENGTH: Medium

FOCUS ON PERFORMANCE

Zicaro, a machine-operator at Web Converting, a Massachusetts-based manufacturer of video and audio cassette tapes, was one of hundreds of line workers, corporate chief executives and union leaders who attended a presidential conference here Monday on employee participation and innovation in the workplace.

Hosted by Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, the conference was an attempt by the administration to begin defining "high performance" jobs, guideposts for industry and labor as they scramble to survive in global competition.

"In an age in which change is the only constant, competitive success now requires constant, sustained innovation," Brown told the conference. "That means for governments and businesses and workers, we must constantly be reinterpreting and reinventing how we work."

Or, as Reich put it, the United States risks becoming a low-wage employer for a majority of its workers unless it can change the nature of its work force.

President Clinton, who spoke to the conference at lunch, then chaired one of the afternoon panels, said it was the government's job to persuade industry and labor to cooperate to help boost productivity and create jobs. Paraphrasing President Truman, Clinton said, "My job is to try and talk people into doing things they ought to be doing without my even asking."

In an effort to focus the conference, Reich outlined four "defining attributes" of a high-performance job: Unusual reliance on workers in problem-solving; a heavy emphasis on training to continuously upgrade skills; cooperation between labor and management; and the integration of technology into the production process so that machines serve the worker and not the other way around.

After a day of testimonials to the glories of cooperation at companies such as Corning Inc., Levi Strauss & Co., Magma International and Xerox Corp., the conference appeared no closer to defining what was involved in a high-performance job than it was before the session started.

The conference dealt only with cooperative programs that worked. There was little mention of those programs such as that of RJR Nabisco Inc., which for 10 years was held up as a model for the nation with its shop-floor cooperation and worker voice in the production operations. The program recently was abandoned when falling tobacco revenue forced a new round of cost cutting.

Similar programs have failed in the tire industry, and even Caterpillar Inc., which is involved in a bitter struggle with the United Auto Workers union, had been a model of labor-management cooperation during much of the 1980s.

Jack Sheinkman, president of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, which is involved in the Xerox program, chided the conference Monday for dealing only with companies that had chosen to take the "high road" with their employees.

"Sadly, we're still talking about a very small minority of American business," he said.

Some union leaders are opposed to the new wave of labor-management cooperation trends. But Lynn Williams, president of United Steelworkers of America, said the conference was an opportunity for big labor to present a side that is at odds with the public perception of unions as obstructionists.