Labor-Management Partnership - Deja Vu All Over Again
By David S. Orr
Thursday, January 29, 2009
My friend and colleague Robert Gilson recently wrote two excellent pieces for FedSmith (Bargaining Your Interests in the Obama Era and Ten Immutable Truths Impacting Federal Bargaining ), which addressed what may be the most significant sea change in federal labor relations since the 1992 Clinton Partnership Executive Order, if not the 1962 Kennedy Order that first established the LR Program.
The JFK Order, by the way, was entitled, Employee-Management COOPERATION in the Federal Service" (emphasis added). Having lived through not only partnership, but also the evolution of federal labor relations since 1970, I would like to add to, or supplement the excellent advice that Bob offered.
Some history. . .
For those too young (or too emotionally scarred) to remember, Bill Clinton rode in from Arkansas and, among other things, brought us Labor-Management Partnership. (Ironic, considering that Arkansas is a Right-to-Work state without a bargaining law for State employees. . .) As Bob noted, the 1992 Partnership Order was largely drafted by the unions (Late AFGE President John Sturdivant, for whom I had great respect and admiration, gets a lot of the credit). And so it will be for another one from the Obama Administration. Management and HR associations should not sit by the phone (or Blackberry) and wait for a request for input.
But that's OK - someone has to write it, and I would rather it be by people who know something about federal labor relations than a bunch of Cook County politicians. The problem is in the execution. And the problem with the execution is in the context.
Let me explain. . .
In 1992, after twelve years of Republican rule, federal employee unions would have welcomed any Democrat short of the Devil (not to imply that that Devil is a Democrat - most accounts indicate that he is a Libertarian). There were a lot of scores to settle, and Partnership, etc. was the vehicle to do it. After all, Reagan didn't exactly endear himself to organized labor by firing 10,000 air traffic controllers. But having said that, it wasn't all that bad - George Herbert Walker Bush (Bush I) was, by most accounts, a fair-minded administrator who, in part because of his past experience in government, understood and appreciated the work of civil servants. Maybe he didn't pay any union dues, but at least he wasn't trying to put them out of business. Which brings us to Bush II.
During the early part of the Bush II administration, when the rumblings of a new personnel system for DOD (and DHS) were starting, I was asked to participate in a panel discussion in Las Vegas. Since it was in Las Vegas, I immediately accepted. Coincidentally, I then learned that it was on a topic with which I was arguably familiar - labor-management relations. I was to offer my insights about the federal labor relations program. During the Q&A, I was asked by a crusty old Vegas union guy if the proposed changes to union rights in DOD weren't a thinly-veiled attempt to get rid of the federal unions. Testing the limits of my employee appeal rights, I answered that it wasn't thinly-veiled at all. With an incredible grasp of the obvious, it was my view then (and now) that the Bush folks were doing everything they could to emasculate the federal unions to the point that the Program became irrelevant and impotent.
They tried to do so by legislation; they tried to do so by packing (or leaving vacant) crucial appointments in the administrative agencies like the FLRA and FSIP. And they tried to do so by cloaking everything in national security - pushing the Customs Service to once argue in a brief that inspectors working outdoors in hot weather shouldn't be allowed to wear shorts because it might aid the Terrorists. (I would have thought it would work in our favor by distracting any terrorists lurking in the area by the sight of the hairy, if not shapely, legs of the typical Customs Inspector. . .)
The effort ultimately failed, but a lot of enmity was created and much blood spilled. And the unions want it back (or should I say, they want to spill some management blood). And more. Like a roll-back of the Bush HR/LR programs, some of which they can get through legislation (how about a new Statute - both Houses are now Democrat-controlled), and some through administrative action (such as a new Partnership Executive Order); the appointment of union-friendly folks to the FLRA/FSIP, if not the MSPB; full bargaining rights on Pay-for-Performance programs, etc., etc., not to mention all the issues festering at the local level. Oh, and you folks over at TSA, get ready for a union! So agency management better prepare. As Bette Davis said in All About Eve. . .
Fasten Your Seatbelts - Its going to be a Bumpy Night
One of the ironies of the situation is that it wasn't career, professional managers and labor relations staff who created this situation, but they will have to bear the brunt of the onslaught. Will they be ready? I hesitate to jump to NO as the answer, but I am very concerned that in many agencies, neither line management nor the LR folks are as savvy and well-trained as they should be. I could probably say the same about many union reps, at least at the local level, who have management in their sights. Why is this a problem? I think because of
- the sheer enormity of the task. (There is going to be A LOT of time spent in meetings and bargaining sessions);
- the skills needed. (Heretofore, management needed only the ability to say No. But the rules of the game are going to change - take bargaining for example - with a union-friendly FSIP, it will test the ability of agency negotiators to settle their issues internally rather than risk them to the whims of the Panel or an interest arbitrator.); and
- the training needed to develop those skills. (I venture to guess that labor-relations training was not a big expense item over the past eight years.)
But Won't Partnership Solve Everything?
Yeah, right. . . As Bob pointed out, back in the Clinton era, we were forced into becoming partners, an oxymoron akin to Army intelligence, or the proverbial General ordering the troops to have good morale, immediately. I recall with disdain the joint training sessions we had to endure where those facilitators with no real LR experience waxed eloquent about the ethereal beauty of being able to consider each others interests. (My experiences led me to the belief that a facilitator can't actually DO anything, but is entrusted with the task of getting other people to do something. My apologies to facilitators everywhere - now that I am retired, maybe I'll become one.)
Actually, if we go back to the JFK Executive Order's use of the term, cooperation, a lesson can be learned. It's not another formal system of forced Partnership that is going to improve the lot of federal unions (and the hard-working civil servants they represent). Been there, done that.
It is the ability to step back and see the other party's issues, why they are important (at least to them), and be willing to explore ways to settle those issues. I learned it long ago from, of all people, a National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) Regional Counsel, Joseph Kaplan. (Joe now has a successful private practice primarily representing federal employees.)
My agency and NTEU had fallen into the typical cycle of going to the bargaining table religiously every three years, whether we needed to or not. The agency spent thousands of dollars on official time, not to mention the time and salaries of the management negotiators; while the union enjoyed official time, NTEU nonetheless was paying their national reps salary while we rehashed every Article in the Contract. Finally, I get a call from Joe, who suggested that we get together and identify and discuss just the important stuff - what is causing us problems, and how can we solve them - not every real and perceived slight that we may have committed over the past three years, but the real issues.
To make a long story short - it worked. We settled one contract in a couple of hours over lunch at the Capital Hilton (I forget who paid.) Did it work because we had joint, facilitated Partnership training? Nope - it worked because we trusted each other and were willing to listen to each other and try to solve the real, big picture workplace problems.
But what I fear is that fired-up union reps, anxious to make up for eight years of getting screwed are going to throw the basic concept of IBB, that being strategic thinking, to the wayside in order to try to regain tactical advantages. And that ill-trained management reps, tired of being yelled-at, will fall back to No, except when their political superiors have ordered them to say Yes, often with dire consequences. (Incoming pro-union politicos sometimes learn the hard way that they have now become MANAGERS responsible for costs, personnel and efficiency. Its not the campaign anymore. . .)
Instead of proposing ways to involve the union more in the deliberative process leading up to management decisions (strategic), the union will demand more parking spaces, a 1000 sq. ft. office with a wide-screen, hi-def TV and a hot tub for the exclusive use of union officers (tactical, but intriguing nonetheless). In other words, I fear that in the past eight years, we have actually regressed more than the seventeen since Clinton introduced Partnership.. . .
A Voice from the Past. . .
Late Speaker of the House Tip ONeill is credited with the line, Politics is local. A corollary could be, Labor-management relations is personal. A good, mutually productive LR environment is one where both parties are represented by people who are:
- trustworthy,
- knowledgeable of the law and the local environment,
- flexible,
- strategic thinkers and most important,
- trustworthy (did I already say that one?).
You can call it Partnership; you can call it IBB; you can call it Cooperative LR. It doesn't make any difference what you call it - its whether you DO it. And what is the probability of finding an agency-union relationship where both parties are represented by professionals with those traits?
Recalling Las Vegas, that is a bet with really long odds. . .
And, as Bob so eloquently states at the conclusion of his works, the opinions expressed above are solely my own.
© 2009 David S. Orr. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced without express written consent from David S. Orr.
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