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Toledo has a long history of supporting the peaceful coexistence of labor and management. As early as 1915-1916 a group known as the Toledo Industrial Peace Board was promoting the formation of in-plant labor-management committees. A more formalized Toledo Industrial Peace Board was formed in 1935 and funded by the City of Toledo to provide a local resource for the mediation of labor-management disputes. The board functioned until the National War Labor Board was formed after the beginning of World War II.
As the war was coming to a close, Toledo began to look ahead at what it needed to do to attract its share of an anticipated boom in the manufacturing industry. At the urging of City of Toledo Vice Mayor Michael V. DiSalle, City Council created a study committee to determine if a successor to the Toledo Industrial Peace Board should be formed.
As a result of the study, Toledo City Council created the Labor-Management-Citizens Committee in early 1946. The LMC became the first organization of its kind in the nation. LMC has served as a model for many other area labor-management-citizen committees that have subsequently been formed.
The basic structure of the LMC has remained unchanged since 1946. The Committee is composed of a labor member panel, a management member panel and a public (citizen) member panel. Today there are a total of 48 members of the LMC, equally divided among the three panels. LMC's 48 panel members serve as volunteers. The committee selects a public member to serve as its chairman.
The City of Toledo has provided continuous operating funds to the LMC since its inception. The LMC maintains an independent office at the Labor-management Center at the University of Toledo.
On September 15 & 16, 1946, The Washington Post concluded a 14-part series on labor-management problems nationwide with two articles on the Toledo Labor-Management-Citizens Committee, then not even a year old. Below are two quotes taken from those articles, which still ring true today.
"This city has taken the uncommon course of applying common sense to the problem of industrial relations. It works."
"Its success, it appears clear, comes from the fact that when the top figures in labor and management have learned to agree with each other, or to settle their own differences by peaceful means, they can spread that amity throughout the community in which they live."