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The Toledo Blade
By TED FACKLER, BLADE BUSINESS WRITER
Article published May 9, 2008
Success through partnership was the message yesterday from representatives of the United Auto Workers and representatives from
Chrysler LLC at the University of Toledo to celebrate the 22nd Annual Conference on Labor-Management Cooperation.
"The U.S. economy increasingly resembles that of an undeveloped nation, with the gap between rich and poor, the have and have-nots, widening," General Holiefield, UAW vice president and director of the Chrysler department, said at the event presented by the Northwest Ohio Center for Labor-Management Cooperation. He accused politicians and poor trade policies of fostering a "third world America."
He cited jobs lost to overseas firms, low wages of U.S. workers, and tax-cut practices that benefit rich corporations as responsible for industry problems.
The solution, he said, is offering good wages and affordable health care and making "trade policies to reverse the flow of jobs out of this country."
Alphons Iacobelli, vice president of labor relations for Chrysler, said, "We're facing a crisis like never before."
The automaker has lost market share amid an influx of foreign cars and is struggling to meet rising costs health care and car parts.
The auto industry situation is eerily similar to what the airline and steel industries have dealt with in the past, he added. All have been affected by overcapacity, job elimination, bankruptcy, and reductions in wages, health benefits, and pension programs.
"It's no longer us against them, union versus [company]," he explained. "We have to share in each other's interests in finding common ground if we're going to go ahead harmoniously."
The national UAW agreements reached last year with Chrysler, General Motors Corp., and Ford Motor Co. were successes, especially the spinoffs of retiree health care coverage into funds separated from the companies, he said. Other area companies, such as Dana Holding Corp., also have such retiree health care funds.
Also presented were awards honoring excellence in organizational and employment relationships. They were the Joseph Tomasi Spirit Award given to GM Toledo Powertrain Plant and UAW Local 14 and the El Flag Award given to TRW Automotive Fayette and UAW Local 1181.
Contact Ted Fackler at: tfackler@theblade.com or 419-724-6199.
As published in the January 1, 2008 Toledo Business Journal (http://www.toledobiz.com/)
Toledo Business Journal recently interviewed Sandra Simon, executive director of the Northwest Ohio Center for Labor-Management Cooperation at The University of Toledo. She shared the following thoughts.
Toledo Business Journal: Can you discuss the mission of the Northwest Ohio Center for Labor-Management Cooperation?
Sandra Simon: The mission of the Northwest Ohio Center for Labor-Management Cooperation is to assist unionized facilities in their joint efforts to maintain and grow their competitiveness in the worldwide marketplace. As a community-based, not-for-profit service provider, the Center plays a significant role in fostering northwest Ohio’s prosperity by assessing, designing, facilitating, and implementing innovative processes for realistic cooperative change and core workforce development.
When Labor and Management invite us into their facility, we bring a neutral approach to help them develop customized joint initiatives that encourage innovation and flexibility to meet the demands of continuous change, improvement, and global competition. Meeting the distinct challenges of labor-management partnerships promotes commitment and cultivates best practices critical to organizational success.
One of the great labor-management partnerships is the Working Council for Employee Involvement (WCEI), which was formed by the Center in 1987 and has become a strong partner with the Center. This council currently consists of eight unionized organizations from which both Labor and Management leaders attend monthly meetings. The council’s mission is, “Working together to create positive harmony and cooperation, with the goal of enhancing the growth of area businesses and promoting community development.”
TBJ: There are a number of area manufacturing plants that fly an EI flag. Can you explain?
SS: GM and Local 14 were one of the first recipients of the EI flag that is awarded to facilities that qualify. The EI flag is awarded to organizations that have an affiliation with WCEI involving and supporting joint labor-management processes in their own facility. The EI flag award was created to recognize organizations that choose to have a labor-management partnership and support it and grow it inside their facility.
TBJ: How many facilities have received the EI designation? Can you share a list of these organizations?
SS: Twenty organizations have been recognized with this award: Chrysler Jeep and UAW Local 12; Chrysler Toledo Machining and UAW Local 1435; Ford Maumee Stamping and UAW Local 1892; General Motors Powertrain and UAW Local 14; Honeywell and UAW Local 533; National Electrical Carbon and IUE 749; Stowe Woodward and UAW 393; New Metal Metals and UAW Local 12; Harris Semiconductor and IBEW; Inshield Die & Stamping and UAW Local 4444; Johnson Controls Battery and UAW Local 12; Toledo Stamping and UAW Local 12; Cooper Tire & Rubber Company and USWA 207; ITT Automotive and IAM 956; Toth Industries and UAW Local 12; Crescent Manufacturing and UAW Local 959; Toledo Mold & Die, Carey and UAW Local 2021; TKA Atlas and UAW Local 336; Libbey-Owens-Ford and ABG; and Toledo Public Schools and TFT, AFSCME, TAAP.
TBJ: While domestic automobile manufacturers are closing facilities and reducing employees, General Motors recently announced a major investment in its Toledo Powertrain facility. What role do you think labor-management joint efforts at the facility played in the GM investment decision?
SS: Many of the most competitive businesses in northwest Ohio are members of, or have been assisted by, the Working Council for Employee Involvement and the Center. In particular, General Motors Powertrain Toledo and United Auto Workers Local 14 are founding members of WCEI. Their long-time labor-management partnership began in 1983 and continues today. Their strong reputation for solving problems achieving goals together toward the overall success, longevity, and workplace environment of that facility is greatly deserved.
In fact, the GM executives and UAW leaders gave credit to the local labor-management partnership as a primary reason the Toledo facility was awarded the new product line. The partnership is what makes everything possible since it impacts all areas of the facility from productivity and quality to highly-skilled employees and a better working environment where people are proud of their contribution.
TBJ: Can you discuss the role of volunteers in the organization and provide examples of the work that they perform?
SS: The WCEI and the Center are committed to assisting unionized organizations in northwest Ohio in working cooperatively. Labor-management cooperation is certainly easier said than done; however, the successes speak for themselves. Internal Labor and Management leaders of the member WCEI facilities often accompany the Center when visiting another facility. An HR director or plant manager and a union president or chairman may be part of a visit while another visit may consist of Labor and Managment facilitators. On these visits, the volunteers talk about the benefits of cooperation, the hurdles to be negotiated, and the trust that is at the crux of cooperation. Each organization takes on cooperation in its own unique way. Still, there are lessons to be gained, [from] what works well and what doesn’t.
One of the services of the Center and WCEI is to provide facilitator training for Labor and Management change agents in organizations embarking on or growing its labor-management cooperation in-house resources. This is a weeklong training off-site. To assist the participants in understanding their new role in their home facilities, WCEI volunteers participate in a question-and-answer panel as well as sessions for specific expertise at the training. This same kind of Q&A / expertise sessions occur during Joint Leadership Steering Committee Development as well, which is typically a three-day off-site.
TBJ: How does the Center help organizations?
SS: Through the off-sites we mentioned earlier. Here’s the nuts and bolts of it – the Center does not know how to run a hospital, or a factory, or a public agency. What we do know about is how people work together, or not, what structures have been successful, or not, and most importantly, that their future success is in the knowledge, the drive, and the power of the joint leadership of that facility and its employees.
We bring a process they develop and use together, to solve problems, set goals, and achieve their mission. Every group is different and every session is customized directly to their needs. The L-M volunteers from WCEI attest to the success of developing processes.
The foundation of successful joint processes is built on five basic principles:
These guiding principles are not a guarantee of success but certainly are harbingers. One of the first things a joint leadership group needs to do, and we help them with, is to clearly define and understand these principles together for themselves and their organization.
TBJ: In negotiations between Management and Labor, the issue of a "fair profit" may be addressed. Can you discuss this subject as it impacts key issues from both Management and Labor?
SS: Fair profit is a concept that gets attention in the media. At the Center, we have to be able to help Labor and Management address profit from the standpoint of two views that each generally perceive of the other – specifically, the tipping point between profit and greed. These perceptions can be some of the causes for people being in one camp or another rather than working together. However, if we solely focus on profit versus greed, groups generally dig in their heels about their positions.
However, if we work with the group about the issues Management cares about and the issues the union cares about, we find that they know each other fairly well. When asked, Management can tell us that the union cares about good wages, seniority, longevity, and fair work practices. Further the Union can tell us that Management cares about profit, productivity, market share, and cost reduction (Clearly, they all care about more than what’s on these short lists I’m using to make a point in an article).
Whatever lists a joint team comes up with, and is then viewed together by the whole group, it becomes a discussion for them that one list is not mutually exclusive to the other. In other words, if Group A wants its list fulfilled, it needs the other list to be fulfilled as well – each list feeds the other. Once that discussion occurs, they can move forward with how best to get the work done together. Profit is not a dirty word – it’s all about how it’s handled. Nobody wants its facility to fail. The unemployment line knows no designations of Labor or Management.
by Scott McKimmy
A number of Toledo area automotive-related manufacturing plants are gaining recognition and winning honors from the industry and their customers in an unforgiving arena they call global competition. Constant improvement efforts in all areas of production that affect cost and quality are driving the automotive industry - both regionally and nationally - toward a close contest with the Japanese. Since the early 70s, Japanese auto manufacturers have rated predominantly higher in efficiency. Today, these foreign competitors also set the standard for quality.
The Toledo Jeep Plant, GM Powertrain Division, Johnson Controls Battery Division, Maumee Ford Stamping Plant, and New Mather Metals Inc. represent a cross-section of the industry, and reflect a measure of the strides Toledo area plants have made in pursuit of their Far Eastern competitors. All five have adapted to higher quality standards and cost controls imposed by vehicle manufacturers in the 1980s and 1990s, which triggered a shakedown in operations from the largest to the smallest component supplier.
These five area manufacturing plants are part of global production operations of some of the largest corporations in the world. It is not a coincidence that each of these facilities has risen to become among their top performers. Why have union operated plants in the Toledo area surpassed other similar production facilities in North America in terms of quality and productivity?
Through greater cooperation between labor and management, Toledo area plants have raised productivity, improved quality, reduced waste, improved safety, lowered absenteeism, and saved millions of dollars in aftermarket warranty repairs. Sandy Simon, executive director, Northwest Ohio Center for Labor Management Cooperation shared her insights. "A number of these area plants were facing the threat of closure and lost jobs. Many of the labor and management leaders at these plants were risk takers. They were unique forward thinking leaders whose cooperative efforts turned these operations around."
The scales are starting to tip back to the Americans, but slowly and without a lot of fanfare, especially in northwest Ohio, according to Bruce Baumhower, president of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 12. Jeep's labor-management relationship has evolved to become a whole new institution, where workers cross-train, rotate jobs, and exert more control in operations, sometimes with the authority to stop production to correct a quality issue. The protocol in years past would have the same workers dedicated to individual tasks, concentrating on output of the product rather than input into better operations.
Yet, emerging from the shadow of its former self has not been easy for the union work force, Baumhower added. Though the new Jeep Plant has had its share of attention, the general public's perception of unions has remained more or less fixed on the image of old-style organized labor. The radical change in union philosophy and the capabilities of an empowered union worker, however, came into focus for Chrysler Corp. at a pivotal time in its history.
"The Jeep Plant has gotten a lot of recognition locally and even nationally, especially when we announced that we were building in Toledo," Baumhower recounted. "Chrysler publicly came out and said, 'That's our best workforce.'"
Thus far Jeep workers seem to have earned the accolades. The Toledo facility rates first in productivity in the truck and SUV class among all of the Chrysler Division's North American plants. Its worker compensation costs and absentee rates remain the lowest throughout the Chrysler Division, have been made totaling $10 million in scrap reduction and $100 million over seven years in reduced warranty costs, according to the company.
The efforts behind the Jeep Plant's achievements benefit other automotive companies as well through the Working Council for Employee Involvement (WCEI), a consortium of union shops where labor leaders exchange ideas on solving productivity issues.
Through the Northwest Ohio Center for Labor Management Cooperation at the University of Toledo, WCEI also provides volunteer training and consulting.
"We share our successes," continued Baumhower. "I think that's an unusual thing. I don't know of any other community where competitors sit down and share successes and say, 'Here's what we did to improve productivity.'"
WCEI has grown to include more than 300 companies since its inception in 1987. One such plant, the GM Powertrain Division, has been recognized by the Harbour Report, which studies industry productivity worldwide, as well as J.D. Powers, which measures quality worldwide.
GM Powertrain's Toledo plant - the second largest full-time employer in the area with about 4,300 workers - ranked number one in productivity of all North American transmission plants over the past four years. The plant also completed a perfect corporate safety audit, passed the Quality QS 9000 and Environmental ISO 14001 audits, received the Chairman's honors for its quick-response assembly team, and its truck transmissions earned a higher J.D. Power rating than Toyota for the first time ever, according to the company.
UAW Local 14 president Oscar Bunch attributed the success in part to programs like the WCEI and emphasized the importance of striving toward higher goals in productivity and quality.
"We meet once a month and benchmark what we are doing," he said. "We recognize that we're going to have to join our forces to beat the Japanese. They've got so many advantages. That's the reason companies are so fussy over the quality, because if a vehicle has to go back to the dealer, that's a point against them."
In some cases, saving a plant or company from extinction can be an honor in itself. Johnson Controls Battery rebounded after losing the Sears DieHard battery contract to a different supplier and nearly losing Ford Motor Co., according to Brian Draper, UAW Local 12 unit chair. He explained that the DieHard contract shifted to the lowest bidder, but later returned to Johnson Controls Battery because of its higher quality output. And Ford recognized the value of fundamental ergonomic changes in the battery division's operations.
"When we started to change - and it didn't happen overnight - we were close to losing one of our biggest customers, which was Ford," Draper said. "We turned it around, and the very next year we won the Ql Award from Ford. They said the quality made that big of a change."
Since the turnaround, Johnson Controls Battery's Toledo plant has won the Plant of the Year Award from its parent company 7 out of the last 11 years. Ford honored the company for its World Excellence in 1999, GM named it Corporation of the Year out of 30,000 suppliers, and Industry Week Magazine placed Johnson Controls Battery among the 100 Best Managed Companies in the World.
As the president of UAW Union Local 1892 representing the workforce at one of the smallest stamping plants in the industry, Roger Commager also realized the need for a turnaround in the mid 1980s. The catalyst for "a paradigm shift" arrived in the form of a CBS 60 Minutes episode titled, "If They Can, Why Can't We?" The show covered quality control and statistical processing used by the Japanese. At the time, Maumee Stamping's market share was threatened, with Big Three automakers and other auto suppliers considering new sources for body panels and other stamped products.
"The answer was quantifying problems and getting them on the table so that both labor and management could talk about it, and then resolving problems," Commager explained. "We had to get together to do something together, and we knew it. It had to be management and it had to be the people on the floor together. If we weren't going to work together, we were going to lose together."
With an eye on quality, the smaller-sized plant began compiling certifications and receiving awards. Maumee Stamping achieved Ql status in 1988, then won the Preventive Maintenance Award in 1990. Later it earned QS-9000 and ISO-14001, which covers international regulations for selling worldwide. Commager credited part of his plant's success to its size. In 2002, the Maumee plant won the President's Award for Best Quality among Ford Motor stamping plants.
"We go up against some behemoths that employ 4,000 or 5,000 people," he said. "These are big boys. They cover a lot of square footage and certainly have bigger budgets. However, one of the things about being small is that we're very versatile."
Versatility also has been key for one of the oldest automotive suppliers in Toledo, New Mather Metals Inc. The company was established as Mather Metals Inc. in 1911 to build bumpers and leaf springs. However, since 1987, when NHK Spring Co. Ltd., a large Japanese firm, purchased Mather Metals and added "New" to the name, growth began to accelerate, according to Carl Waniewski, UAW Local 12 unit chair. NHK has constructed new facilities three timethroughout the Chrysler Division,s and expanded existing facilities six times since purchasing the business. Over $34 million has been invested in the Toledo plant through this series of upgrades and expansions since 1987.
Waniewski described the process of manufacturing a new tubular stabilizer bar formed by cold bending, which began in 1991. Three years later, New Mather Metals Inc. added a salt-quenching form line, allowing it to increase solid bar production by 30 percent. Expansion continued in 1997, when the company added a fifth solid bar processing line and upgraded automation to its manual tubular bar processing line. This increased total stabilizer bar production by 25 percent or 1.2 million units.
The efforts were rewarded financially and in industry recognition. Sales rose from about $7 million in 1986 to $25 million in 1992, and now total approximately $74 million. The same period saw New Mather Metals' Toledo plant receive the Regional Growth Partnership Award twice as well as the Honda Supplier Award 2003. Most important to the Toledo area workforce, perhaps, is the increase in jobs at the plant. Employment went from about 60 in the late 1980s to its current level of 258. Waniewski cited worker dedication and extensive cooperation with management as an essential element of the company's expansions.
"Employee involvement has a direct impact in quality manufacturing, efficiency, and work environment," he said. "Voluntary teams identify problems in manufacturing, human relations, ergonomics, and safety. The team is then challenged to gather data and develop solutions," explained Waniewski.
Employee involvement and labor-management cooperation appear to be the common elements responsible for raising the performance of these area plants above others in North America. In the 1970s and 1980s, a number of these plants were candidates for closure due to their poor performance. Faced with losing thousands of jobs in the Toledo area, a cooperative effort involving labor and management at these plants has transformed their operations. Today, these Toledo area facilities are positioned to compete and excel against global competition.
Sponsors: Ohio Labor/Management Cooperation Program of the Ohio Department of Development, Lucas County Commissioners, Working Council for Employee Involvement, Regional Growth Partnership, Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, Toledo Labor-Management-Citizens Committee, Northwest Ohio Center for Labor-Management Cooperation.