(In spite of record profits,) More Lockouts as Companies Battle Unions - NYT frontpage

[Bozita]

January 22, 2012
More Lockouts as Companies Battle Unions
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE


America’s unionized workers, buffeted by layoffs and stagnating wages, face another phenomenon that is increasingly throwing them on the defensive: lockouts.

From the Cooper Tire factory in Findlay, Ohio, to a country club in Southern California and sugar beet processing plants in North Dakota, employers are turning to lockouts to press their unionized workers to grant concessions after contract negotiations deadlock. Even the New York City Opera locked out its orchestra and singers for more than a week before settling the dispute last Wednesday.

Many Americans know about the highly publicized lockouts in professional sports — like last year’s 130-day lockout by the National Football League and the 161-day lockout by the National Basketball Association — but lockouts, once a rarity, have been used in less visible industries as well.

“This is a sign of increased employer militancy,” said Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University. “Lockouts were once so rare they were almost unheard of. Now, not only are employers increasingly on the offensive and trying to call the shots in bargaining, but they’re backing that up with action — in the form of lockouts.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/business/lockouts-once-rare-put-workers-on-the-defensive.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

[hedgehog]

1. I wonder how much of this militancy comes from a macho model of management,

an "us vs. them" mentality. Managers might do well to consider the benefits of sharing the wealth a little. Can one imagine managers refusing to re-paint equipment or withholding lubricants in order to get the machines to work harder? Why then the refusal to see labor as an essential component for success?

[Populist_Prole]

2. Because to them negotiating with employees undermines their authority and ego

Your machines analogy is a good one. I've seen that behavior lots of times from authoritarian personality managers. Even day to day normal issues demonstrate this, and in leaner times of today, it's worse: Manager A knows he needs Employee B to go the extra mile just to get the job done ( let alone a boost from the norm ) and has to be concilliatory towards said employee, yet it burns his ass to have to be because "dammit, I'm the boss" is the way it should be. This type of person takes it as a personal insult if he has to make deals with his heirerchal inferior.

[hedgehog]

3. "he has to make deals with his heirerchal inferior"

That's an interesting concept. We expect machines to do what we want because, well, they're machines. The assumption of a hierarchy is that the person above has all the information needed to make a proper decision. Oftentimes in reality, it's the "inferior" who has the info. I've been caught on this see-saw more than once. The manager in the office leaves an order for the night crew to replace a wheel on a car. The millwright and I crawl under the car and he shows me that the problem is a broken axle. We could replace the perfectly fine wheel, but the car will still be out of service because of a broken axle. Do we follow orders to keep the manager happy, or replace the axle and put the car back into service?

That's a situation in which the hierarchial model, applied too rigidly, inhibits profits. An understanding that the people on the floor are a source for information would improve profits. But that understanding would require at least a modicum of respect!

[Populist_Prole]

4. The scenario you described is so true. Corporate culture CAN be THAT bad

We get in situations where the ( micro ) manager wants to solve a chronic problem by suggesting we take an action that would look good in the short term. He just wants to be able to tell his bosses what they want to hear...within the bounds of plausability. Now he knows he can't order us to take a specific action that is wrong, and he'll, on an intellectual level, know the techs just repaired a chronic problem in a less costly way, but you sense that he was deep-down undermined somehow. It's like he is well aware that the resourcefulness of his employees can and often saves the day ( and his ass ) but he's madder than hell he can't enforce that resourcefulness. The cognitive dissonance just rips apart his innards.

Now imagine that same dynamic applied higher and higher up the chain and even more far removed from reality and you can see how contempt can torpedo what can be an otherwise well-oiled machine.