Author Description

In Creating Labor-Management Partnerships Warner P. Woodworth and Christopher B. Meek successfully demonstrate the shift from confrontational union-management relationships toward more effective and positive systems of collaboration. Although the field of organization development (OD) has been well established for many years, little has been written describing how to succeed with OD in unionized settings. The book targets human resource management and industrial relations managers and staff, union officials, professional arbitrators and mediators, government officials, and professors and students involved in the study of organization development. The book begins with a call for changing the social and political barriers existing in unionized work settings and emphasizes the critical need for union-management cooperation in the present context of international competition. The authors discuss the deterioration of U.S. industry in such fields as automobiles, heavy equipment, steel, and air transportation and illustrate how internal cooperative relations may ultimately fail because of overemphasis on communication problems, the reactive nature of the OD process, and the inability to achieve a true partnership. While explaining the practical process for establishing a genuine cooperative partnership, the book lays down the basic philosophy, values, goals, objectives, and guidelines for the new system. It also shows how to create a parallel union-management organization that will ensure a successful partnership. The authors' main objective throughout the text is to help the reader understand the recommendations they have made concerning labor-management partnerships and the critical stepsinvolved in starting and maintaining a successful partnership. (From the English Language Edition).