There are many chief executives that unions love to hate. Think of Jeffrey C. Barbakow of the hospital chain Tenet Healthcare, who cashed in $111 million in stock options this year but whose unionized workers complained of short staffing and jobs lost to outside contractors. Or Jack Welch, the retired boss of General Electric, whose penchant for sending jobs overseas led him to say, ÿIdeally, you'd have every plant you own on a barge.ÿþþEspecially in this wobbly economy, animosity between labor and management seems the natural order. Yet a handful of chiefs have somehow won over the rank and file; unions actually like them. And corny as it may sound, their secret seems to be treating unions as part of the team and caring about the members.þþConsider Jeffrey L. Bleustein, the chief executive of Harley-Davidson in Milwaukee. In 1995, when he was president, the company established a pioneering arrangement that gave a large say in how it does its business to members of its two unions, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International. The two sides have only nice things to say about each other today.þþÿThe partnership agreement says we're in this together instead of having the quasi-adversarial relationshipÿ that is typical between companies and unions, Mr. Bleustein said.þþWhen he joined the company as a vice president in 1975, he said, he tried to work with unionized employees in a way that is formalized now. ÿI asked people in the union what they thought about things,ÿ he said. ÿI didn't pick up a manual every time I wanted to do something.ÿþþThe arrangement, he said, took almost 20 years to evolve.þþÿInstead of selecting someone as the head of the local union because he's the meanest son of a gun in town, they have to pick someone who can adequately represent the unionÿ concerning the company's strategy and performance, he said. ÿIt's the same with management. It's a whole new way of working if you're used to a command-and-control environment where you give orders and everyone comes to attention.ÿþþSo collaborative have the two sides become that a couple of years ago, Mr. Bleustein invited the international presidents of both unions to speak at Harley-Davidson's shareholder meeting. In turn, the chief executive spoke at the machinists' convention. Sometimes, he can barely believe the chumminess. ÿI pinch myself and say, `Think of what's happening here,' ÿ he said.þþR. Thomas Buffenbarger, now international president of the machinists union, remembers the bad old days before a group that included Mr. Bleustein bought out Harley from the former owner, AMF Inc.þþÿAMF wanted to take out of the company; they didn't want to put anything into it,ÿ he said. Today, he said, chief executives at other companies could learn a lot from Mr. Bleustein's willingness to communicate with the factory floor.þþÿA lot of executives who come to run major corporations have no idea what a union is about,ÿ he said. ÿThings break down pretty quickly.ÿþþOf course, as the recent history of United Airlines shows, any serious collaboration between labor and management can become fractious if the interests of the two sides diverge. UAL, the parent company, is 55 percent owned by its employees, and the two union representatives on the 12-member board helped block the appointment of one chief executive and force out another.þþ þThat said, a long history of dealing with union workers may help explain an executive's popularity with them, said Elliot J. Mandel, a partner and labor specialist at the New York law firm Epstein Becker & Green, who advises companies on how to stay union-free. Similarly, says Paula B. Voos, a labor economist and professor at Rutgers, coming from a union background fosters a natural bond.þþDavid Freedman, the chairman of the New Brunswick Scientific Company, a maker of biotechnology research equipment in Edison, N.J., is a case in point. Before he started the company with his brother in 1946, he was a toolmaker who belonged to unions, including the machinists. ÿI was very pro-union,ÿ he said.þþAs a result, Mr. Freedman made no effort to fend off the union when it came to his company, in contrast to the usual corporate strategy of fighting unionization at every turn.þþUnions like him for other reasons, too. ÿSometimes, when people are dismissed, we go back to David because he has the biggest heart and he reinstates them,ÿ said Ray Koczan, the machinist union's business representative covering New Brunswick Scientific.þþIt wasn't just memories of growing up in a union family that made George C. Halvorson, the chief executive of Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif., a friend of labor.þþÿI heard quite a few stories at the dinner table about labor issues on the iron range from the perspective of a shop steward,ÿ he said.þþBut Mr. Halvorson, previously chief executive of HealthPartners in Minneapolis, says the main point in getting advice from workers is that they know the job best.þþÿIf we were building a new clinic in Minnesota, we would put out blueprints and floor plans for all the employees who would be affected to look at,ÿ he said. ÿInvariably we'd get 30 or 40 suggestions for improvement that would be very useful.ÿþþHis appointment to his current job this year was hailed by union leaders like John J. Sweeney, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. president. Mr. Halvorson has since conducted retreats with labor leaders on company strategy.þþOf course, a chief executive is a chief executive, not a union member. Mr. Bleustein of Harley-Davidson acknowledged that if he were to start a company today, he might not welcome a union with open arms. But that's hypothetical. In the real world, it makes good business sense to keep union members happy.þþThat is why, when the company opened a plant in Kansas City in 1997, it not only invited in the unions but asked them to help choose the site. ÿFor us to try to open a nonunion plant was not viable with the culture we were working on,ÿ he said.þþIn fact, in that factory, the local union president and the plant manager share office space. þþþþ
Source: NY Times
