THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 5, 1996 TAG: 9601050017
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By NEAL HERRICK
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
A mega-event occurred during 1995 on the labor scene. On Oct. 26, John J. Sweeney was elected president of the AFL-CIO. This event may affect the economic and political welfare of all Americans well into the 21st century.
Mr. Sweeney's election was a watershed event both because of its timing and because of what Mr. Sweeney stands for. He comes to the presidency at a time when union membership has fallen from 37.5 percent in 1947 to about 15 percent today.
This means serious trouble for all of us. The gap between our rich and our working poor is widening - and contributing to the divisiveness which plagues our society. We need strong unions to prevent the gap from widening still more. We also need unions to help protect our democratic way of life. If we are to control our government, we must be able to meet, discuss and organize in institutions which are independent of it. Unions, churches and synagogues are such institutions.
The good news is that Mr. Sweeney stands for change. He comes to the top labor job intent on revitalizing unions and willing to try new approaches. It may be that he is the right man at the right time in the right job.
One approach Mr. Sweeney might take is to join with management in pursuing higher productivity. Labor needs higher productivity to protect American jobs and to increase the standard of living of working Americans. Management needs it to survive in the international marketplace.
Mr. Sweeney should integrate participation groups into the collective-bargaining process: by enforcing the right of employees to have them; by enforcing the work practices and working conditions that group members agree to.
When participation groups came on the scene in the 1970s, labor failed to realize their importance. It treated them as a frill. It failed to realize they were, in embryo form, a new, powerful and constructive form of collective bargaining.
This was a serious mistake, one that has tainted labor ever since. The development of these groups was a social invention of the first order. They are capable of increasing productivity and job satisfaction by solving both work-practices and working-conditions problems.
But - as they stand - they do have serious flaws. Sometimes meetings are canceled because of the press of business. Sometimes the solutions agreed to in the groups are not carried out by management: Money becomes short; crises occur; solutions are put on hold. Sometimes the solutions are adopted and productivity increases - but the employees do not share in the gains. So they get disillusioned and lose interest. The participation groups die on the vine.
But listen to this, Mr. Sweeney. These flaws are unnecessary! Unions could cure them by making the groups and their solutions enforceable under the labor contract.
This actually happened in the Shell (now Montell) Chemical Plant in Sarnia, Ontario. According to Energy and Chemical Workers (ECWU) Local 800 Chief Steward Judy McKibbon, ``We went to the brink of striking two times in 1988 to make our participation groups enforceable. Productivity went up. And the employees say that the union could get them something they really wanted! Then, in 1995, Shell sold the plant to Montell. We would have lost our participation groups for sure if they weren't part of the labor contract. We're in arbitration right now to keep them. But we'll win. No doubt.''
What a boost it would give union organizing if the Montell-ECWU Local 800 lessons were taken to heart by labor! Unions could offer employees a genuine greater say in their work practices and conditions. And a share in productivity gains as well. What an appeal this would have to blue- and white-collar workers alike.
But up until now the upper echelons of labor have ignored this opportunity. True, the experience of Montell and ECWU Local 800 is not enough on which to base a whole new collective-bargaining and organizing strategy. More experiments are needed - perhaps a well-researched series of experiments in a dozen matched pairs of experimental sites. Then, with the lessons learned, a new strategy could be developed and applied on a large scale.
How this all works out will depend, in large part, on whether John J. Sweeney is indeed the right man at the right time in the right job. MEMO: Mr. Herrick resides in Norfolk. His book, ``Joint Management and
Employee Participation: Labor and Management at the Crossroads,''
describes the ECWU-Montell experience. by CNB