of the greatest consequence. Because of inflation and the pandemic, workers feel less secure in their jobs and uncertain about whether they can afford a decent life—trends that have been mounting for decades. At the same time, they want more from their jobs: In addition to higher pay and dignified working conditions, they expect their employers to reflect their values. Thanks to social media, employees are able to communicate their expectations, experiences, and grievances in new ways.
Business leaders can choose a different path: They can start working to reinvent corporate America’s relationship with labor so that more people can share in the rewards and companies can compete and grow in new ways. Choosing that path will require leaders to learn how to work with, rather than against, labor.
Ironically, the labor organizations likely to be most valuable to business will be the strongest ones. Good partnerships require partners with balanced power. Strong unions cultivate deep relationships with workers and are their legitimate, democratically elected representatives.
Consider Kaiser Permanente, which, when it started building a labor-management partnership 25 years ago, teamed up with union leaders and invested in training managers, supervisors, union representatives, and all new hires in how to collaborate successfully with one another. That investment paid off—for example, in avoiding job loss when the company transitioned to electronic medical records.
Whether or not you hire an outside negotiator, you’ll need an internal negotiating team staffed with managers from a variety of departments who understand your approach and share your goals. Your toughest discussions may not be with the union team across the table but within your own team, so do everything you can to find and empower internal allies. Even if your company had a hostile posture toward unions in the past, you will find people eager to turn over a new leaf and collaborate.
Bargaining is emotional, and flare-ups, walkouts, and showboating on both sides of the table are common. Expect this. Tolerate some of it. But call out personal attacks or actions that violate the norms and rules of the game that you agreed to at the outset.Labor law mandates only a few topics for bargaining—notably, wages, hours, and working conditions.
These practices will help you get off on the right foot, but deadlocks or strikes are always possible, even in well-structured, good-faith negotiations. That’s why you need to do more than just negotiate a contract.As in any constructive business relationship, you should follow a no-surprises principle to engender trust. Engage your labor-leader counterparts in an ongoing dialogue and keep them informed about business developments.