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3/9/1997
The Washington Post
By David Osborne
Most people who want to improve government's performance in this country
think unions are part of the problem, not part of the solution. But an increasing
number of leaders--managers, elected officials and union officials--are
showing there is another way.
Consider Ohio's Gov. George Voinovich and the Ohio
Civil Service Employees Association. Back in 1990, when Voinovich ran for
governor, OCSEA opposed him. A Republican and former mayor of Cleveland,
Voinovich had fought a state law to allow collective bargaining in government.
He began his first contract negotiations as governor by handing OCSEA a
long list of "take away" demands.
Union director Paul Goldberg went toe to toe with
the administration over the new contract. But in the six years since, Voinovich
and Goldberg have put together a labor-management partnership that has unleashed
tens of thousands of state employees. Using "total quality management"
methods pioneered by business, they are creating a tidal wave of small but
significant changes.
Nearly 50,000 workers have attended three-day training
sessions to learn quality improvement methods. And more than 1,000 teams
of employees have undertaken specific improvements--many with nice payoffs:
- A "Bureaucracy Busters" team in the
workers' compensation office cut telephone busy signals from 50,000 a month
to zero and the average "on hold" wait from 10 minutes to a minute
and a half
- A team in the transportation department saved
$200,000 by reducing the amount of time snow plow trucks had to travel
to get salt to spread on icy roads
- A mental health team saved $1.5 million in the
treatment of schizophrenia patients, while improving the treatment's success
rate
- Another team streamlined the process for preparing
and approving travel expense reports -- saving $510,000 annually.
A National Trend
Ohio is one of the best examples of labor-management
partnership in government, but it is hardly the only one. While union ranks
in the private sector have thinned for years, union membership has grown
to 38 percent of the local, state and federal government work force. More
and more public managers realize they can't improve performance without
union cooperation.
Last year a task force commissioned by the U.S.
Department of Labor documented 50 different examples of workplace partnerships
in state and local government -- from Phoenix and Seattle to Indianapolis
and Portland, Maine.
The shift to cooperation is even more pronounced
in the federal government. A labor-management partnership begun in the mid-1980s
at the Ogden, Utah, Internal Revenue Service center reduced payment error
rates, shortened turnaround times and saved $11 million over a five-year
period.
Inspired by this and other examples, Vice President Gore's National Performance
Review recommended in 1993 that every federal agency establish a labor-management
partnership council--and President Clinton issued an executive order requiring
it. One positive impact, according to Federal Labor Relations Authority
Chair Phyllis Segal, was a two-year drop of 28 percent in unfair labor practice
filings.
In The Same Boat
In Ohio, Goldberg and Voinovich began their odd-couple
partnership because they realized they needed each other. They were in the
same boat, and it was sinking.
Goldberg, who wanted to protect his members' jobs,
was worried that Voinovich would contract work out to private companies.
So he pushed for a chance to prove his people could do better.
Meanwhile, Voinovich was looking for answers to
the state's fiscal squeeze. He wanted to increase efficiency and improve
services without raising taxes. So he borrowed a quality management initiative
that Xerox had used to turn itself around.
To kick things off, Voinovich invited Goldberg
and leaders of the four other state employee unions to collaborate with
his management team. The labor leaders told the governor they would work
with him, but only if they had a real say in every step of the process.
Voinovich agreed. But when quality management training for top managers
began, most union officials were left out. This fueled their suspicion that
Voinovich's managers didn't really want to give up control.
The managers didn't "understand what we meant
by partnership," says Goldberg. "They thought, `We'll let the
union know what we're going to do, so they can get their members lined up.'"
At a special training session at Xerox's Rochester,
N.Y. facility, Goldberg complained about the way the unions were being treated.
"Most of the cabinet folks started snickering," he says. "You
know, there goes Goldberg again." But Xerox officials emphasized how
valuable their union had been in implementing quality management. That caught
Voinovich's attention.
"The governor raised his hand," says
Goldberg. And when he was called on, he said, "I think we've been going
about this all wrong." Soon after, Voinovich created a steering committee
with five union leaders and five agency directors. Nothing could happen
unless both sides agreed.
This helped convince Goldberg that the governor
understood what it took to be a partner. "He gets it," the union
leader says.
Still, there was one more hurdle. The unions feared
that once employees boosted their organizations' efficiency, they would
be laid off. "Our people had to be assured that this was not just a
device to use their intellects and then discard them like old typewriters,"
says Goldberg. Voinovich promised that improvements would not lead to work
force reductions--and he wrote the pledge into the OCSEA contract.
Bumps In The Road
Even after it began to rack up success stories,
the partnership had its rough spots. When Voinovich ran for re-election
in 1994, the union opposed him again. But the governor won easily and the
partnership survived.
Then a department director announced a plan to
downsize his department, outsourcing or eliminating some functions. Goldberg
fumed that the plan violated the no-layoff agreement; he was tempted to
tell Voinovich to "take your partnership and shove it." The director
insisted his plan was not part of the partnership initiative and so was
not subject to the guarantee.
Goldberg relented. The union helped managers design
the downsizing plan, and in the end, there were fewer layoffs than the union
had feared.
During contract negotiations this January, both
sides went back to their traditional adversarial behavior. This is inevitable
for unions, Goldberg says, because they need some clout when the pie is
being cut up. "It isn't all done with fairness and equity. You don't
give up all your weapons."
Bargaining time is the "crazy season,"
adds Steve Wall, the governor's point man on the quality initiative. "But
as soon as the contract is negotiated, we'll be back to business as usual."
As the partnership survives these bumps, the bonds
of collaboration grow stronger. Every year, for instance, the governor and
his cabinet join union leaders for a retreat to assess how the partnership
can be improved. The partners also go hand in hand to the legislature to
lobby for funds to train workers in quality management.
Several months ago, they held a celebration for
the employee improvement teams. More than 2,000 workers and managers crammed
into a convention center with exhibits prepared by 130 teams.
"Employees working together to improve customer
service is no longer the exception to the rule in Ohio state government,"
Voinovich announced. "It is the way we do business."
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