“What I Have Learned”

by Jim Barham, L/M Committee Administrator

Our membership and the DWP have come a long way since the strike of 1993. I had real doubts about a management and a city government that was willing to force us on the picket line when the electrical industry was about to be deregulated.

I am convinced that if it wasn’t for IBEW Local 18’s Business Manager Brian D’Arcy, the Department would have continued to make all the wrong moves that would have eventually put this company out of business.

Brian convinced management to use Mutual Gains Bargaining in the 1996 negotiations, which enabled us for the first time in the history of negotiations to finish ahead of schedule, and with a good contract.

Brian’s vision also started us on the course of using Labor Management Committees to help steer the Department through deregulation, as well as the many other problems the membership of IBEW Local 18 and the Department were, and still are, facing. A direct result of the Labor/Management Committee process was the Department’s decision to keep In-Basin Generation, which has allowed this Department to keep the City of Los Angeles as an island of light, when the rest of the state has been having rolling blackouts. I worked as an operator at Haynes Generating Station through all of this, and I was directly involved in the In-Basin Generation Cost of Production Committee that was formed to critique the Department’s contention that the DWP’s response to deregulation should be to get out of generation. While there are many in the Department and in city government who would like to take credit for keeping In-Basin Generation, it was really Local 18, under the leadership of Brian D’Arcy and armed with the findings of the committee, who stopped management from dismantling this important resource.

The Labor Management Committee process is not easy, but it has been very effective. A conference I recently attended on “Rewards, Compensation, and Incentives in a Union Environment” further convinced me of this. At this conference, I learned 47% of all industries surveyed are using some sort of partnership through the labor/management committee process, to do better business.

In addition, I learned that 33% of all electrical companies surveyed were also using the labor/management process to go forward. These L/M committee partnerships started by sharing their intentions openly and honestly, and sharing information ahead of time. They explored win/win alternatives, shared objectives and teamwork, and gained respect and mutual trust for one another, among other things. There were a number of speakers from the electrical industry who agreed that the L/M committee process was the first step toward a true partnership. But in order to have a successful committee process, management needs to get all of their managers on board; they need to learn to listen to the committees. We’ve made great progress so far, but there is still a long way to go before we reap the full benefits of a true Labor/Management partnership.