|
Taking the long view by Local 18 President Frank Miramontes When you’re in the middle of the fray, it’s sometimes hard to see the big picture. In our frustration we tend to forget how much we have accomplished. The All Labor/Management Committee Meeting on Nov. 30 was an occasion to step back and take the long view, and it was gratifying to see how far we have come by working together. Safety continues to be the number one labor/management concern, as it should be. It is inconceivable that a superior safety program could be developed and maintained without the active participation of the rank and file workers who are in the field doing the work. The L/M format insures their active participation in this and other vital areas. Priority staffing is another area of critical concern to labor and management. The DWP has hired only 187 new employees to fill the many key positions that were left vacant by the SRP. Reports at the meeting were heartening because they showed that real progress is being made in these important and frustrating areas. I ATTENDED A very interesting conference in New Orleans in November. “Partnership 99: Unions & Management Working Together,” staged by the Institute for International Research, brought labor leaders and managers together to share their experiences in what has become a new movement in labor relations. In example after example, from a broad spectrum of industries, the bottom line was the same: When labor and management work together to identify common goals and interests, they can transform the workplace to make it safer and more competitive. For me, the most striking example came from the steel industry. In the last decade, it has been faced with serious restructuring and international competition issues which have forced it to explore and adopt radical new strategies, much as the “deregulation” of electric utilities has done for us. At one plant, on-the-job fatalities have gone from 12 per year to one per year, thanks to the successes of the labor/management team. IT’S EASY TO get discouraged by the frustrations inherent in the complex tasks we face. But when we see how much we have accomplished, we can all take pride in what we have done and face the future with the reasonable hope that, working together, we will continue to progress. |