Area labor-management committees (ALMCs) have been established in over 40 American communities. These committees have the potential, not always realized, to improve dramatically the legitimacy and power accorded to unions at the community level. While separate from the collective bargaining process, ALMCs do contribute to improved communications and other changes at the bargaining table. They also can serve as a unique forum to assist local employers and unions interested in establishing work-site labor-management committees and in exploring the quality of work-life. Finally, these local labor management organizations stand as a microcosm and as a potentially important element in a national industrial policy.
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References
1.
1. Joel E. Gershenfeld and Charlene Gorda Costanzo, A Decade of Change: The Ten-year Report of the Jamestown Area Labor-Management Committee (Jamestown, NY: Jamestown ALMC, 1982), p. 11.
2.
2. James Martin, “Creative Funding Mechanisms” (Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the National Association of Area Labor-Management Committees, South Bend, IN, 14 Nov. 1983).
3.
and Gershenfeld and Costanzo, p. 16.
4.
4. Richard D. Leone, Michael F. Eleey, David Watkins, and Joel E. Gershenfeld, The Operation of Area Labor-Management Committees (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor, 1982), pp. 89, 104, 241.
5.
5. Ibid., p. 243.
6.
6. “In view of the fact that labor-management committees are composed of members who hold full-time jobs and who serve on the committee voluntarily, a professional staff is considered to be vital to a committee's success.”Establishing a Community-wide Labor-Management Committee (Washington, DC: National Center for Productivity and the Quality of Work Life, Spring 1978), p. 14.
7.
7. Leoneet al., Operation of Area Labor-Management Committees, p. 193; and statements by the following mediators: George C. Hupp, George O'Keefe, Samuel Sackman, and George Vogal, 1982-83.
8.
8. Telephone conservation with James McDonald, Nov. 1983.
9.
9. Telephone conservation with John Popular, Nov. 1983.
10.
10. Conversation with Stan Zorick, South Bend, IN, 14 Nov. 1983.
11.
11. Telephone conservation with John Popular, Nov. 1983.
12.
12. ALMC staff and members consistently report that such a ground rule is critical. Nonetheless, they also report that a limited number of occasions do arise where a particular employer and union will look to ALMC staff or leadership for assistance in resolving a collective bargaining dispute. It is important to note that in some of these cases ALMCs have chosen to assist the parties. This assistance has often been in conjunction with mediators of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and has consistently met with success. Such cases are, of course, still the exception.
13.
13. Statements by the following federal mediators: George C. Hupp, George O'Keefe, Samuel Sackman, and George Vogal, 1982-83.
14.
14. Thomas A. Kochan, Collective Bargaining —From Theory to Policy to Practice (Homewood, IL: Richard P. Irwin, 1980), p. 415.
15.
15. Nathan P. Feinsinger, “Law and the Public Interest in Labor-Management Relations,” in Labor, Management, and Social Policy, ed. Gerald G. Somers (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1963), p. 118.
16.
16. Ronald E. Walton and Robert B. McKersie, A Behavioral Theory of Negotiations (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965).
17.
17. Glenn E. Watts, “QWL and the Union: An Opportunity or a Threat?”Work Life Review, p 1, (Nov. 1982).
18.
18. Joel E. Cutcher-Gershenfeld, “QWL: A Historical Perspective,”Work Life Review, p. 23, (Sept. 1983).
19.
19. “The New Industrial Relations,”Business Week, 11 May 1981, p. 85.
20.
20. Seymour Zucker, Claudia H. Deutsch, John Hoerr, Norman Jonas, John E. Pearson, and James C. Cooper, The Reindustrialization of America (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982), p. 64.
21.
21. Leoneet al., Operation of Area Labor-Management Committees, p. 26; this study noted that 25 of the 28 ALMCs in existence in 1982 were in the Northeast and Midwest—regions experiencing significant economic decline. Moreover, all eight of the communities selected for in-depth study proved to have a degree of unionization substantially above national averages.
22.
22. Christopher Meek and William Foote Whyte, “The Jamestown Model of Cooperative Problem Solving” (Ithaca, NY: School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, 1981).
