Ohio Department of Development

Labor Management Cooperation Program

 January 2002

 

Area Labor Management Committees

The Area Labor Management Cooperative Council of East Central Ohio (ALMCC), located in Zanesville, providing training, facilitation and consultation to businesses and organizations in 14 counties of Appalachian Ohio; (names of counties including Athens, Belmont, Coshocton, Guernsey, Harrison, Hocking, Jefferson, Knox, Monroe, Morgan, Muskingum, Noble, Perry and Washington).  The focus is to provide the following services: implement employee involvement programs in the region’s industrial, public and service sectors (programs such as teambuilding, employee involvement, facilitator training, problem solving, process improvements, effective safety programs, conflict resolution, ISO9000, leadership for Total Quality, and much more.); provide a forum for area labor and management leaders to identify and jointly address community economic development issues; sponsor conferences, forums and seminars on labor management issues; and publicize case studies and activities of the ALMCC.

The ALMCC also provides services in support of education.  Endeavors which successfully built educator and employer partnerships.  The Council has partnered with American Electric Power, the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, International Brotherhood of Electric Workers, Coshocton’s BEST, Muskingum Valley Educational Service Center and many other organizations to promote collaboration.  The ALMCC has been awarded the National STW Best Practice by U.S. Departments of Education and Labor; the 1999 National Labor Management Award for Collaboration, and the 1999 and 2000 Work In America Search for Excellence Award.

The Columbus Area Labor Management Committee (CALMC), established in 1986, has provided services to enhance labor management cooperation and economic development in Central Ohio as part of the Central/Southwest region. During the past year, CALMC has worked with more than 50 of the region’s business organizations and unions, reaching more than 10,000 employees.  The Committee’s services include training in developing high-performance work systems, team effectiveness, workplace safety, interest-based problem solving, collective bargaining, contract interpretation, leadership in a cooperative environment and many other programs specifically designed to meet clients’ individual needs.  About 20 different public programs are designed and offered each year educating more than 200 attendees from approximately 20 organizations.  CALMC also provides neutral facilitation to teams dealing with worker adjustment and other labor management concerns and conducts workplace assessments.  To date, the Committee has completed assessments for a total of 10 organizations covering 5,000 employees.

The Employee Participation Council of North Central Ohio, based in Mansfield,  has provided training to more than 80 organizations over the last 15 years.  Established in 1987, the Council has provided training and process development assistance in labor management cooperation, gainsharing, interest-based problem solving, strategic planning, supervisory training and problem solving in joint process, team processes, facilitator training, joint safety awareness, preventing violence in the workplace and leadership training.  Some of the organizations assisted are: Norwalk Furniture, Ideal Electric, National Lime & Stone, Shawnee State University, Carlisle Engineered Products, Mansfield City Workers, Hydromatic Pump, and Ohio Department of Transportation.  The Council board membership consists of the key corporate and union leadership found within the Council’s service area who are dedicated to the concept of improving labor/management relations through cooperative programs.

The Great Lakes Organized Labor Management Council (GLOLMC – formerly the Lorain County Organized Labor Management Council) was established at Lorain County Community College in 1990. The Council promotes positive labor management relations and provides a forum to initiate educational activities to enhance constructive working relationships.  GLOLMC conducts five annual workshops in which over 80 organizations have sent more than 400 participants.  The GLOLMC serves both public and private sector organizations.  The Council offers outreach programs such as Total Quality People, Safety Always, Labor/Management Committee training and facilitation, Joint Strategic Planning, Built-Rite Construction Management Process and Customer Service Training.  The GLOLMC has expanded its service area to include: Lorain, Cuyahoga, Summit, Medina, Lake, Erie, and Huron Counties.

The GLOLMC provides staff support to the Union Construction Industry Partnership (UCIP).  UCIP represents over 10,000 journeypersons and apprentices and 1,200 contractors.  This unique partnership serves the Northeast Ohio area to promote union construction, provide good employment opportunities through apprenticeship programs and develop a drug-free workplace system in the construction industry.  UCIP is the largest labor/management cooperative in the State of Ohio.  The City of Vermilion Team & Trust Builders, another GLOLMC client, presented their accomplishments of cooperation at the 2,000 Buckeye Labor Management Conference

The GLOLMC works closely with other Area Labor Management Committees.  Currently, the Employee Participation Council of North Central Ohio (EPCNCO) and the GLOLMC are delivering labor management partnership training to the employees of Ohio Department of Transportation District 3.  Over 400 union and management employees are being trained with skills to develop a positive labor or management relationship in an effort to focus their best effort in serving Ohio residents.  The GLOLMC has also a member of the team that has been approved to deliver Labor Management Committee training to any State agency with the desire to improving their relationships.  Other members of the team include OLMCP grantees: Work in Northeast Ohio Council, Labor Management Resource Network, EPCNCO, and the Columbus Area Labor Management Council (the lead organization).

The GLOLMC has collaborated with several community improvement economic development organizations including: Lorain County 2020, the Lorain County Chamber of Commerce, Hard Hatted Women of Cleveland, Lorain County Workforce Institute, the Lorain County Labor Agency, the United Labor Agency in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County Youth Build, Cleveland Job Corp and the Workplace Relations Institute.

The Labor Management Resource Network (LMRN) formerly the Greater Hamilton Labor-Management Council, has undergone a renewal with a new name, expanded Board and community presence via a membership organization. LMRN has assisted more than 80 organizations and unions in 5 Southwest Ohio counties surrounding Cincinnati. The LMRN focuses on creating high-performance workplaces through joint labor-management participation. This organization also provides customized training and neutral facilitation services that foster long-term partnerships between labor and management. Specialty areas include organizational change training, organizational assessments, labor management cooperative effort in the pubic sector and workplace assessments. The market value of LMRN services to Southwestern Ohio communities exceeds $400,000 per year.

The Mahoning Valley Labor Management Council formed in 1974, continues to provide specialized labor management training primarily in a three-county area: Mahoning, Trumbull, and Columbiana.  It is considered part of the northeast region.  Companies assisted include both public sector entities (City of Youngstown and Mahoning County) and manufacturers (WCI, Thomas Steel, and LTV Steel,), as well as health care organizations (the newly merged Forum Health,  Trumbull Memorial Hospital and Hillside Rehab).  The MVLMC also hosts a series of timely workshops catering to a diverse audience.  The Council’s partnership with the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber has enhanced the organization’s ability to raise labor management awareness and promote economic stability throughout the Mahoning Valley.  It provides services such as training in Team Building, Workplace Safety, and Process Improvements.

The Ross County Area Labor Management Committee covers Ross, Pickaway and Pike Counties. RCALMC was established in 1987 at Ohio University-Chillicothe by the Chillicothe-Ross Chamber of Commerce to bring harmony and to enhance labor management cooperation. RCALMC provides cost-effective training and has partnerships with other committees and centers to help implement the training programs. RCALMC receives strong support from local businesses, unions, government, and educational community. Some of RCALMC’s recent projects include: “Civility in the Workplace,” “FISH!;” “Violence in the Workplace,” and “Who Moved My Cheese?”  They have recently awarded their fifth Labor/Management Golf Scholarship.

The Southwestern Ohio Working Network in Dayton, Ohio has been working to improve the performance of organizations in the Miami Valley and surrounding counties since 1989.  The program was established to encourage the development of labor management partnerships through providing training and support services to business and industry in the area.

 The Network has trained over 5000 people from public and private sector organizations, representing upper and middle management to front line supervision and production workers in union and nonunion companies.

The Network offers consulting and facilitation services with customized training programs for a variety of topic areas, including:, labor-management cooperative processes, designing and implementing self-directed work teams, Innovative Leadership Certificate Programs, and establishing effective labor- management and safety committees. Some additional programs include:  Dealing with Difficult People, Mediation, Workplace Violence, Intergeneration Communication and Motivation, Myers Briggs Personality Assessment, Teambuilding, Customer Service, Communication Excellence, Diversity, Sexual Harassment, Senior Leadership Development and Strategic Planning.

 The Network focuses on assessing an organizations current situation and future goals, custom designing an appropriate program or process, implementing the program/process, evaluation, and on going follow- up and support.

The Stark and Tuscarawas County Labor/Management Councils, (SCLMC and TCLMC) were established in the late 80’s to serve the labor relations needs for unionized organizations throughout Stark and Tuscarawas Counties.  Today the SCLMC is located at the Advanced Technology Center (ATC) of Stark State College, and the TCLMC is located at the Verizon Building in New  Philadelphia.  Both Councils are located in the northeast region.

The SCLMC and TCLMC utilize a comprehensive proactive approach as they meet the expanding needs of private and public sector organizations.  Specialized training programs available emphasize a cooperative joint effort by labor and management to solve work place related issues.  (i.e. quality, productivity, customer service).  A detailed organizational review or assessment is provided to each organization as a benchmark to measure future success.  This is followed by a joint process steering committee training.  Monthly meetings are then monitored or facilitated by SCLMC and TCLMC staff insuring a greater level of success.  Additional training is available to employees at all levels and can include any or all of the following: systematic problem solving, basic and advanced team facilitation, work place violence prevention and strategic planning.  The SCLMC and TCLMC are partially subsidized by Ohio Department of Development grants, and receive local funding from municipalities, counties and membership fees.  The SCLMC and TCLMC staff has over 26 years of combined experience in training, facilitation and organizational assessments.  Since 1998 they have combined to serve 48 organizations impacting over 4,900 employees.  The success rate of their cooperative joint processes is over 94 percent.  The key to a cooperative process is commitment, change, cooperation and communication.

 

Centers for Labor Management Cooperation

The Northeast Ohio Center for Labor Management Cooperation, formed in 1986, is a program of the Work In Northeast Ohio Council.  This Center provides on-site consulting and training services in the areas of labor management cooperation, leadership development, strategic planning, lean business systems and quality improvements. The Center focuses its reach to organizations in a 17-county Northeast Ohio area, with specific emphasis on the
Greater Cleveland and Akron areas.  It also works through other Centers and area committee throughout Ohio.

The Center delivers its services through public education, specific workshops and conferences, and providing on-site advisory services.  Each year the Center reaches over 500 attendees at its public programs and over 5,000 workers at over 50 sites.  Public programs such as Exploring Labor Management Cooperation, Labor and Lean Systems, Team Leader and Facilitator Training, and Supervisor Training are offered.

While the Center specializes in helping manufacturing companies, it also works with government, education, and healthcare organizations.  The Center has assisted approximately six school systems and their unions better understand Ohio Award for Excellence (OAE) Baldrige quality systems.  It has provided assistance to several government agencies such as the Ohio Department of Transportation and the Ohio Department of Mental Health and their AFSME unions.  And it is working with local colleges to help the Healthcare v industry.

A special project to assist Ohio steel companies stay competitive is underway in collaboration with the United SteelWorkers of America unions.

The host organization, Work in Northeast Ohio Council (WINOC) recently celebrated its 20th anniversary and has received numerous recogitions from local and national sources.  The state investment in the Center is leveraged about ten-fold throughout Ohio.

The Northwest Ohio Center for Labor Management Cooperation (NOCLMC) at The University of Toledo has been in existence since 1986 serving 26 counties in northwest Ohio.  Many organizations that contact this statewide Center for assistance have been on the threshold of closing or leaving northwest Ohio.  The Center’s first client was the Jeep plant in 1986.  Overall, every organization the Center has worked with has increased production, number of employees, capital improvements and worldwide competitiveness.

Each year the Center works intensively with management and labor establishing customized cooperative processes.  The Center’s staff members are qualified change agents, trainers, and facilitators recruited from the labor-management community’s private sector.  The Center has a strong commitment to labor-management cooperation, which has fostered strong ties in northwest Ohio including the Working Council for Employee Involvement (WCEI).  WCEI provides up to 25 experienced, hand-on trainers to the Center every year to assist in conducting assessments, steering committee off-site development, workshops, presentations, and individual expertise providing more than 800 volunteer hours each year.

This strong volunteer base is a primary factor that allows the Center to provide services on an expenses-only basis.  The Center’s Advisory Board believes this to be very integral to the neutrality and success of the Center and sends a clear message that the Center’s mission is to provide quality service.  This allows the Center to decline to participate if any inappropriate agenda it perceives.  Each organization that receives assistance is asked to become a volunteer for the Center and assist launching other organizations on the path to cooperation.  Through the auspices of the Center, plant managers, union presidents, quality liaisons, trainers and facilitators from the various facilities mentor others as well as speak at functions.  The Center’s network and volunteer support allows organizations to shorten the learning curve and become increasingly more competitive in a shorter period of time.  The statistics tell the story.  Since its inception the Center has provided: 10,229 units of service, 560 organizations attended workshops, 189 organization’s attend conferences, 65 organizations attended networking meetings, 61 organizations have received recognition awards from the Center for their volunteerism, 92 organizations had 471 process facilitators trained through the Center, 118 organizations have received assessments, and 101 steering committees have been developed.

The Southwest Ohio Center for Labor Management Cooperation, affiliated with Wright State University in Dayton since 1987, is a statewide Center. In the past 14 years, the Center has become a leader in developing innovative processes for positive organizational change.  The Center has worked with over 500 companies.  The chosen focus is building partnerships which design and implement solutions to the critical challenges unique to each entity, while expanding the ultimate potential for improved working environments and renewed profitability.  The Center thrives on delivering the highest quality services that integrate theory, innovative best practices, 14 years of experience, and expertise to engage the total workforce, establish or maintain cooperative foundations, and improve overall individual and organizational performance excellence.

The Center serves as a statewide resource to assist in minor or major change and focus on discovering, developing and delivering customized organizational interventions.  The proven techniques, skills, and approaches include services: consulting, cultural and needs assessments., coaching, targeted interventions, and personalized training either directly in-plant, in statewide public seminars, or in cooperation with regional labor-management committees.  Their partnerships embrace all areas of workplace need: cooperative processes, labor-management groups; positive work relations; effective and innovative leadership; cooperative supervisory skill building; interpersonal relations; co-worker and gender to generation communication; constructive de-escalation of conflict; and team development from natural workgroups to high performance work teams.

The Center works with all levels of the workforce, leadership, and union representation and has served over 500 organizations, with over 10,000 hours of free or low cost consultation or coaching, conducted nearly 100 plant assessments or analysis, and developed over 350 plant-specific training/education programs.  Some of the highly specialized topics include: labor-management relations; committee and team development and maintenance; workplace conflicts and violence prevention; diversity and harassment issues; time or stress management solutions; joint safety team growth; whole system approach to continual improvement; collaborative quality, ISO and lean programs; defined strategic planning and SMART goal setting; and the creation of cooperative, inclusive, high-performance environments.

In 1997 the Center added the Partnership Resource Institute (PRI) to address the state of Ohio’s constantly changing need for continual support, coaching, and education of the professional development for individuals in the field of cooperation, labor-management relations, and conflict resolution.  The institute maintains a multi-year training/education curriculum to provide subject matter experts and services for these professionals.  The PRI sustains a flexible schedule of integrated, relevant courses to provide “road show” classes, workshops, seminars, and special events to augment new and established LMC committee/councils’ professional or financial standing or client needs

The Ohio Employee Ownership Center (OEOC) at Kent State University is a statewide Center that provides information and technical assistance to owners seeking to sell to their employees and employees and managers seeking to buy their plants and companies throughout the state of Ohio. OEOC provides specialized ownership training and organizational development services to existing employee-owned firms, and it runs monthly seminars of one to three days each for a network of 60 employee-owned companies. It also has an active research and publications program. The OEOC has an advisory board of 20, including labor, management and community representatives, reflecting the constituency, which it serves. In the typical year, the OEOC works with about 20-40 companies employing 3,000-8,000 whose owners are seeking to sell to their employees or whose employees are seeking to buy the plant or company. On the average, 4-8 employee buyouts in firms employing 300-1,000 are completed annually. In addition, the OEOC provides training and organizational development services to 4-6 companies annually, and about 450 employee owners attend one or more of the Network programs staffed by the OEOC. In recent years, in collaboration with the Greater Cleveland Growth Association’s Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE) and CAMP, the OEOC has provided 10 succession planning seminars annually in the Cleveland area, reaching 60-80 owners of businesses employing 4,000-6,000; the program has proven an effective means to retain jobs that would otherwise be lost from failure to plan for succession.

Since its establishment in 1987, the OEOC has assisted about 400 employee and management groups and/or companies that were considering employee ownership as a strategy to secure prosperous businesses in Ohio; these firms employed about 80,000. As of January 1, 2001, 57 of these firms employing 11,500 had adopted employee stock ownership plans. In 1990, the OEOC established Ohio’s Employee-Owned Network, a consortium of 55 employee-owned firms that participate in monthly workshops for ESOP companies.  It is estimated that more than 3,000 employee owners have participated in one or more of the Network programs over the past years. The OEOC has conducted company specific training in employee ownership issues in about 30 Ohio companies; more than 9,000 employee owners have been though the OEOC’s various in-company-training programs. In addition, 350 owners of 300 Cleveland-area closely held businesses have attended one or more of the OEOC’s business succession planning seminars; these firms employ 29,000. OEOC staff members have written or edited nine books, two dozen articles and book chapters, ten training manuals dealing with various aspects of employee ownership and speak regularly on the subject at conferences; the OEOC’s annual conference has grown to involve more than 350 participants and has become the largest regional employee ownership meeting in the country.

The OEOC’s program has received national recognition through support of national foundations including the Ford and MacArthur foundations, and contracts with Federal agencies. It has received international recognition for its project to help Russian State enterprises privatize through employee ownership, and it has also held contracts for employee ownership work in Belarus, Egypt, Hungary, and Sweden.

If the OEOC’s total state grant since 1987 is divided by the 11,500 jobs it has helped to save or stabilize through employee ownership, the cost per job is about $160, making it among the most cost-effective Ohio economic development programs. The secret? Helping people help themselves. 

The Workplace Relations Institute at Lorain County Community College is a Center providing education, training, technical assistance and applied research to support public sector workplace collaboration throughout Ohio. In the past few years, Institute staff at this statewide Center, has worked with over 30 school systems, 18 municipalities, and 10 county agencies to promote labor/management and employee/employer collaboration. The areas of work with these groups include workplace safety, violence prevention, communication, problem solving, quality service, ‘win-win’ negotiations and alternatives to privatization. The Institute is also home to the Ohio Safety Center, responsible for administering “Safety Always”, the statewide joint safety management process of the Ohio Labor Management Cooperation Program that reduces accidents, injuries lost time, and safety-related costs for Ohio’s public and private sector employers and employees. Development and administration of LCCC’s Associate of Technical Studies in Workplace Relations degree is another Institute responsibility, as is provision of organizational and safety assessment services and workshop curriculum to OLMCP members.