I have long advocated that labor and management must bury the hatchet and eliminate their old adversarial relationship. This is even more important now than before. Corporate America is facing huge challenges from the rapid economic growth of China and India. If we are to be competitive, if we are to succeed, we must pull together as a team.
One way to improve the situation for labor is to defuse its own internal politics.
If organized labor is to have a realistic and productive relationship with management, it must stop promoting and breeding adversarial relationships within its own ranks, between local unions, and between industry-wide unions seeking to encroach upon each other. Internal strife prompts a militant stance toward management and results in unrealistic demands on business.
Other changes should also be considered by organized labor:
1. Rank-and-file should be told of the true situation about the ability of employers to meet new wage demands and whether union concessions will be necessary.
2). Politics within the local union should not determine demands, but should ensure that leadership, policy, enforcement, bargaining, solicitation, and general procedures represent the viewpoint of the majority.
3). The voices of younger workers and minority union members should be considered.
If the situation does not change, Corporate America along with its workers will face hard times in a world economy increasingly dominated by China, India, and various small Asian countries. The time for a new agenda is now!
