Q & A Table of Contents
Communicating With Fragmentary Bargaining
Units in Labor Negotiations
From: Bill, American Airlines
Question: In 1993 American Airlines was struck by the union representing its flight attendants. Since that strike AA's management and union leaders have attended various programs to improve relations. One program was offered at Northwestern and centered on Conflict Resolution. AA's management and the union leaders have "adopted" interest based negotiations as they prepare for contract openers scheduled for September 1998. Since the strike, joint AA/union committees have been formed to deal with attendance problems and scheduling improvements. These committees are proving ineffective to date.
Does interest based negotiations work well when you are dealing with union employees who are scattered across the nation, are basically unsupervised and do not interact with managers or others in-the-know on a daily basis? That is, can employees who are not well informed of the industry in which they work and goals of management be expected to make rational interest based decisions in contract ratification votes?
It is my opinion that interest based negotiations are effective when dealing with work groups that interact with management on a daily basis. Employees are better informed as to the company's goals and understand the "business" of the company better when management is interacting with them. With American Airlines, you have an unsupervised work group that does not interact with management and is basically isolated from management by the nature of the work environment. The distrust that flight attendants (and pilots) have toward management is amazing. The union, its leaders chosen from this group, tends to also distrust management. Any proposal made by management is greeted with skepticism and this skepticism is related to the membership.
Management knows its employees are disgruntled and, as Mr. Crandall (American's chief executive) stated in "Air Transport World" in March, it does not know how to deal with it. I do not see interest based negotiations being effective - the right approach at the table - with a membership that is unattached to the core of the business.
Response: Thanks for your most thoughful and important question. You are right. Folks who espouse interest-based negotiation are thinking for the most part about situations where the most interested stakeholders are at the table. However that is not the whole answer. I teach participants in my programs that one must approach bargaining considering the interests of stakeholders who are not 'at the table' as well as those in attendance.
Interest-based negotiation may seem problematic in resolving the issues at American Airlines. I suggest that before you turn your nose up at the approach, you consider whether the 'wham, bam, thank you ma'am' approach to bargaining is any better or, in fact, nearly as good as the interest-based approach.
The real issue is how best to implement interest-based negotiation when it is impossible to get everyone to the table at the same time:
1. Can cabin crew members discuss issues during quiet times on flights, during layovers, coffee-breaks, etc.?
2. Is there a mechanism for survey research by management, the union leadership, or as a joint undertaking by the management and union representatives directly involved in the bargaining?
3. Is it feasible for rank and file to circularize opinions and suggestions that ultimately bubble up to the top? Think of the Committees of Correspondence during the American Revolution. Perhaps the union or management should set up a website offering stakeholders a chance to consider and comment on proposals. Perhaps you and colleagues should set up your own website(s) and invite other AA employees to brainstorm together.
It may be worth asking in whose interest it is to keep the communication process as it now is. If individuals are avoiding being representative of their constituents, should those individuals be replaced by democratic elections or other legitimate mechanisms?
Americans live in a representative democracy. Except for some small towns in New England, the town meeting is a thing of the past. And even in many New England towns, representatives are elected to the post of Town Meeting Member. Winston Churchill called democracy the worst system of government in the world, except for all the others.
If Robert Crandall is on record as feeling troubled by how to handle employee communications vis a vis labor contracts, you might send him a note with specific ideas of how to improve the situation. Interest-based negotiation works best when people exercise creativity; it sounds as if this is a case where that is true in spades.
In a more general sense, negotiation is easier when smaller groups are involved. Former Senator George Mitchell's changes in the number of people involved in the Northern Ireland peace process is an excellent example of that aproach. However, we can't always get the ideal. In the case of flight crews that operate so independently of each other, it may be that both Management and the Union have an obligation to work jointly to reach out to the membership to foster the kind of communication that can lead to a constructive and mutually-rewarding agreement.
Good luck and good negotiating, Steve.
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