I recently stumbled onto an book written by J. Pfeffer with an intriguing chapter called “Can you manage with Unions?”. Pfeffer began this chapter by identifying why it is essential for managers to understand how to work effectively with unions. The author goes on to identify the reasons for management and union reluctance to work collaboratively. This is followed by ample data to support the theory that organizations with unions are more successful! What? His overshadowing caveat (or exception) is that this success is based on union and management working collaboratively and cooperatively for their mutual success.

Is this even possible – collaborative relationships between unions and management?

Pfeffer believes that managers are reluctant to work with unions because they fundamentally believe that union effects on productivity are “presumed to be deleterious”. In other words, unions create impediments to management control in the workplace and hindrances to achieving competitive levels of costs, quality and productivity.

Unions are not without sin, themselves. Pfeffer found that unions traditionally have not pursued input in workplace governance and have been focused on simply bargaining issues, primarily over wages. Another reason for union resistance to joint union-management cooperation was a fear that their members might see them becoming too friendly with the ‘enemy’. 

Can the problems experienced by management and their organizations with organized labour be due to the failure to achieve a mutually beneficial relationship and accommodative working arrangements? Is the state of an organization’s labour relations rather than unionism and collective bargaining per se the element that determines productivity?

In his book, Pfeffer makes a clear argument that organizations with unions succeed more than organizations without unions – but – hear that big BUT – only when there is considerable willingness on both sides of the bargaining table to work collaboratively and cooperatively.

Does your management see unions as a good or bad?

J. Pfeffer, Can You Manage With Unions? A chapter in his 1998 book called The Human Equation: Building Profits By Putting People First (Harvard Business Press)