Task force looks at labor relations; cooperation is key to increased productivity and job satisfaction

After Ohioans complained-profusely about-case backlogs and unanswered calls at the state workers’ compensation board, Gov. George Voinovich set up a labor-management task force to address the situation.

The task force recommended instituting a new work week consisting of four 10-hour days. The Ohio Governor’s Office of Quality claims that after four months abandoned calls dropped by 60 percent, the on-hold wait fell from 10 minutes to 1.5 minutes, and busy signals dropped to zero. Subsequent surveys show dramatic increases in customer satisfaction.

“We’re learning about tremendous improvements in publis service brought about by labor-management cooperation,” says Jon Brock, executive director of the Department of Labor Task Force on Excellence in State and Local Government.

The task force, established last November as part of the Clinton administration’s Reinventing Government initiative, and scheduled to report back to Secretary of Labor Robert Reich in December, is part of a plan to try to improve the nature of labor-management relations in state and local government.

To accomplish that task, Reich asked the working group to:

* encourage new methods to enhance the quality, productivity and cost effectiveness of public sector services;

* examine collective bargaining and civil service laws;

* increase the extent to which workplace disputes are resolved by the parties and not the courts;

* encourage and reward risk-taking and innovation in the public sector; and

* examine previous models and detail why some labor-management teams are successful and some are not.

“This will not just be a document,” says Reich. “This will be a discussion that we have not had in this country that we desperately need.”

“We expect our study to be heavily used by elected officials, appointed managers and union leaders,” Brock says.

Brock insists that cooperation between labor and management is the key to increased productivity and job satisfaction. Evidence of that, he says, can be found in American manufacturing, most notably in the automobile industry.

Neverthelesss, tension between labor and management remains deeply ingrained, and there is considerable disagreement between the two as to how to improve service provision.

Roger Dahl, executive director of the National Public Employer Labor Relations Association in Washington, D.C., says that laws affecting collective bargaining and compulsory arbitration need to be revamped to give management more flexibility. “It’s a rare day when we see union proposals that would help us manage more efficiently or reduce costs,” he says.

Dahl proposes limiting the scope of bargaining and dispensing with compulsory arbitration requirements.

Not surprisingly, John Sweeney, international president of the Services Employees International Union in Washington, disgrees vehemently. He says that collective bargaining laws must apply to all public workers and that such rights must be strengthened to ensure that workers get decent wages and benefits. “Unions need to be able to negotiate with management over such high-level issues as the mission of the agency, changes in technology and budget decisions,” he says.

Transcending that traditional hostility between labor and management will not be easy, one reason government will not be “reinvented” overnight. However, citizens can, according to Brock, expect incremental changes that will produce better and more efficient government.