“Rock Talk: Past, Present and Future of Labor-Management Relationships” drew more than 50 participants and a stellar lineup of speakers Sept. 17 at Rockhurst University. The event also featured announcements regarding the Mid-Level Leadership Program, which begins this year’s sessions Sept. 29. Sponsors included the Builders’ Association and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City.
In addition to the 25--year old Mid-Level program, the LMC will offer an advanced version in 2011. The advanced version, noted LMC Executive Director Bob Jacobi, will be open to Mid-Level graduates and allow them to further develop their leadership skills. An advisory group is now being formed to help design and implement the new program.
A celebration of Rockhurst’s centennial and its unique role in labor-management relationships, the event also gave participants insights into Kansas City’s labor-management history. Local attorneys played critical roles in the development of labor relations in the trucking, movie theater and baseball industries. Presenters also outlined the critical challenges facing labor-management relationships today and unique (and not so unique) issues faced in arts and sports.
Rockhurst’s unique contribution to labor-management relationships began in the 1930s with the Institute for Social Order, founded by professors the Rev. John Friedl and Harry Kies. The institute offered programs for union members, business leaders and public officials to address the dramatic changes in labor-management relationships after passage of the National Labor Relations Act. That tradition continued as Rockhurst offered the nation’s first bachelor’s degree in industrial relations and professors such as the Rev. Frank Murphy, S.J., became respected teachers and arbitrators.
That history guided the founders of the Labor-Management Council to seek Rockhurst’s assistance in forming the organization. William H. Dunn, Sr., chairman of J.E. Dunn Construction Co., joined with then Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO President Bob Reeds to approach the college. Fr. Murphy and then Rockhurst President the Rev. Maurice Van Ackeren, S.J., helped put the LMC together and agreed to house it at Rockhurst. The LMC remains based at the university in its Helzberg School of Management. Helzberg Dean James Daley is a consultant to the LMC Board and teaches in its Mid-Level Leadership Program.
Dunn recalled the troubled labor-management atmosphere when the LMC was formed in 1979. Strikes, particularly in the construction industry, were frequent. An opportunity to build relationships came, Dunn noted, when both sides agreed on a key bill in Missouri that had fallen off the legislative radar. A joint lobbying effort resurrected the bill and got it passed. That victory ignited the LMC’s formation. Since then, Dunn added, the LMC has brought labor and management together on hundreds of local, state and federal issues. He pointed out the role the organization still plays in addressing key social and economic problems.
The former longtime LMC co-chair and past Rockhurst board chair praised the organization’s current efforts and urged participation.
Ray Beagle, past chair of Lathrop and Gage and a Rockhurst trustee, recounted the development of collective bargaining in the trucking industry. Beagle’s then two-person law firm evolved into the prime representative of the industry dealing with Jimmy Hoffa and the fast-growing Teamsters. The relationships led to national bargaining that helped the industry prosper. Beagle also chronicled the downfall of national bargaining, caused by the federal prosecution of Hoffa and deregulation of the trucking industry.
Kansas City and Beagle also played a crucial role in the movie theater industry. As then-attorney for AMC Theatres, Beagle explained Durwood’s revolutionary vision for multiplex movie theaters and the many obstacles, including labor contracts with the International Association of Theatrical and Stage Employees. Beagle helped implement Durwood’s vision around the world; ironically, the union worked well with the change virtually everywhere but in AMC’s hometown of Kansas City.
The evolution of labor relations in major league baseball also has close Kansas City ties. Steve Fehr, special counsel to the Major League Baseball Players Association and attorney with Jolly Walsh, Hurley, Raisher and Aubrey, noted that KC attorneys were brought in to respond to a lawsuit filed by baseball owners in an area federal court. The players’ association then engaged the local attorneys, including Fehr and his brother, and eventually Donald Fehr became the union’s executive director.
Critical current issues were addressed by Dick Cook, Cook Labor Relations Consulting and recently retired vice president of labor relations for Hostess Brands; Michael Kitchen, human resources manager, city of Kansas City, Mo., and Larry Rebman, director of the Missouri Dept. of Labor and Industrial Relations. Kitchen and Rebman are Mid-Level Leadership graduates.
Cook explained the journey of Hostess, formerly Interstate Brands, through bankruptcy. That process helped save thousands of union jobs and required flexibility by both workers and management. Cook emphasized that benefits present a real challenge for labor-management relationships. Pension benefits loom as the next health care as a source of difficult bargaining as many funds see the ratio of workers paying in compared to retirees shrink at the same time investment earnings have tanked. Cook urged labor and management to push Congress for changes to help relieve the burden on plans which have seen obligations fall on fewer companies. He also said that health care reform will generate changes and urged unions to organize more aggressively even without labor law reform, which appears unlikely to pass in the near future.
Kitchen highlighted the evolving relationship between the city and the three unions representing its workers: AFSCME Local 500, Fire Fighters Local 42 and Fire Fighters Local 3808. Those relationships have evolved from highly contentious to strong partnership, particularly with Local 42. Such partnerships are a huge benefit for both the city and the workers, he noted.
Rebman highlighted the vital role of unemployment compensation in the state’s economy, as the largest payroll in the state right now is the UI system’s benefits. But Missouri, like nearly every other state, is facing huge deficits that the federal government will not bail out, Rebman noted, and labor and management are needed to help make changes to keep the fund solvent without harming employers’ competitiveness. Workers’ compensation is seeing declining premiums but a decision must be made soon on the fiscally-challenged second injury fund’s future. On other fronts, the department is aggressively enforcing prevailing wage, health and safety laws and working with employers to ensure compliance.
Labor-management relationships are crucial in sports and the arts as well. Fehr explained the contentious history of relationships between major league baseball owners and players, with every expired contract resulting in a lockout or strike until 2003. Ironically, the issue of steroids forced the union and owners to work more effectively together and that has helped the relationship, Fehr pointed out. Recent contracts have included significant revenue sharing though not all of the lower-revenue clubs have used those funds for player salaries, he said.
The atmosphere, and the scale of money involved, is a bit different at the Kansas City Ballet noted ballet executive director Jeffrey Bentley. The ballet has long worked with union stagehands and unionized Kansas City Symphony players, but ballet dancers did not organize until recently.
Dancers joined the American Guild of Musical Artists, and are in the first contract between AGMA and the ballet. Ballet General Manager Kevin Amey said that the ballet’s precarious finances made negotiations challenging but that the relationship between the ballet and its dancers is strong and the ballet believes the unionization is a positive for the organization. Dancer Nadia Iozzo said a key issue has been whether dancers are required to attend, without pay, training before rehearsal sessions. The dancers won the right to do so but also understand the importance of such training to their health, she said. Dancers face low pay and relatively short careers and look to perform with companies that are unionized, she said, so the relationship helps attract quality performers to Kansas City.
Amey also urged participants to attend the ballet and support the artists.
For photos of “Rock Talk” check the LMC blog soon, http://labormanagementkc.com.
In addition to the 25--year old Mid-Level program, the LMC will offer an advanced version in 2011. The advanced version, noted LMC Executive Director Bob Jacobi, will be open to Mid-Level graduates and allow them to further develop their leadership skills. An advisory group is now being formed to help design and implement the new program.
A celebration of Rockhurst’s centennial and its unique role in labor-management relationships, the event also gave participants insights into Kansas City’s labor-management history. Local attorneys played critical roles in the development of labor relations in the trucking, movie theater and baseball industries. Presenters also outlined the critical challenges facing labor-management relationships today and unique (and not so unique) issues faced in arts and sports.
Rockhurst’s unique contribution to labor-management relationships began in the 1930s with the Institute for Social Order, founded by professors the Rev. John Friedl and Harry Kies. The institute offered programs for union members, business leaders and public officials to address the dramatic changes in labor-management relationships after passage of the National Labor Relations Act. That tradition continued as Rockhurst offered the nation’s first bachelor’s degree in industrial relations and professors such as the Rev. Frank Murphy, S.J., became respected teachers and arbitrators.
That history guided the founders of the Labor-Management Council to seek Rockhurst’s assistance in forming the organization. William H. Dunn, Sr., chairman of J.E. Dunn Construction Co., joined with then Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO President Bob Reeds to approach the college. Fr. Murphy and then Rockhurst President the Rev. Maurice Van Ackeren, S.J., helped put the LMC together and agreed to house it at Rockhurst. The LMC remains based at the university in its Helzberg School of Management. Helzberg Dean James Daley is a consultant to the LMC Board and teaches in its Mid-Level Leadership Program.
Dunn recalled the troubled labor-management atmosphere when the LMC was formed in 1979. Strikes, particularly in the construction industry, were frequent. An opportunity to build relationships came, Dunn noted, when both sides agreed on a key bill in Missouri that had fallen off the legislative radar. A joint lobbying effort resurrected the bill and got it passed. That victory ignited the LMC’s formation. Since then, Dunn added, the LMC has brought labor and management together on hundreds of local, state and federal issues. He pointed out the role the organization still plays in addressing key social and economic problems.
The former longtime LMC co-chair and past Rockhurst board chair praised the organization’s current efforts and urged participation.
Ray Beagle, past chair of Lathrop and Gage and a Rockhurst trustee, recounted the development of collective bargaining in the trucking industry. Beagle’s then two-person law firm evolved into the prime representative of the industry dealing with Jimmy Hoffa and the fast-growing Teamsters. The relationships led to national bargaining that helped the industry prosper. Beagle also chronicled the downfall of national bargaining, caused by the federal prosecution of Hoffa and deregulation of the trucking industry.
Kansas City and Beagle also played a crucial role in the movie theater industry. As then-attorney for AMC Theatres, Beagle explained Durwood’s revolutionary vision for multiplex movie theaters and the many obstacles, including labor contracts with the International Association of Theatrical and Stage Employees. Beagle helped implement Durwood’s vision around the world; ironically, the union worked well with the change virtually everywhere but in AMC’s hometown of Kansas City.
The evolution of labor relations in major league baseball also has close Kansas City ties. Steve Fehr, special counsel to the Major League Baseball Players Association and attorney with Jolly Walsh, Hurley, Raisher and Aubrey, noted that KC attorneys were brought in to respond to a lawsuit filed by baseball owners in an area federal court. The players’ association then engaged the local attorneys, including Fehr and his brother, and eventually Donald Fehr became the union’s executive director.
Critical current issues were addressed by Dick Cook, Cook Labor Relations Consulting and recently retired vice president of labor relations for Hostess Brands; Michael Kitchen, human resources manager, city of Kansas City, Mo., and Larry Rebman, director of the Missouri Dept. of Labor and Industrial Relations. Kitchen and Rebman are Mid-Level Leadership graduates.
Cook explained the journey of Hostess, formerly Interstate Brands, through bankruptcy. That process helped save thousands of union jobs and required flexibility by both workers and management. Cook emphasized that benefits present a real challenge for labor-management relationships. Pension benefits loom as the next health care as a source of difficult bargaining as many funds see the ratio of workers paying in compared to retirees shrink at the same time investment earnings have tanked. Cook urged labor and management to push Congress for changes to help relieve the burden on plans which have seen obligations fall on fewer companies. He also said that health care reform will generate changes and urged unions to organize more aggressively even without labor law reform, which appears unlikely to pass in the near future.
Kitchen highlighted the evolving relationship between the city and the three unions representing its workers: AFSCME Local 500, Fire Fighters Local 42 and Fire Fighters Local 3808. Those relationships have evolved from highly contentious to strong partnership, particularly with Local 42. Such partnerships are a huge benefit for both the city and the workers, he noted.
Rebman highlighted the vital role of unemployment compensation in the state’s economy, as the largest payroll in the state right now is the UI system’s benefits. But Missouri, like nearly every other state, is facing huge deficits that the federal government will not bail out, Rebman noted, and labor and management are needed to help make changes to keep the fund solvent without harming employers’ competitiveness. Workers’ compensation is seeing declining premiums but a decision must be made soon on the fiscally-challenged second injury fund’s future. On other fronts, the department is aggressively enforcing prevailing wage, health and safety laws and working with employers to ensure compliance.
Labor-management relationships are crucial in sports and the arts as well. Fehr explained the contentious history of relationships between major league baseball owners and players, with every expired contract resulting in a lockout or strike until 2003. Ironically, the issue of steroids forced the union and owners to work more effectively together and that has helped the relationship, Fehr pointed out. Recent contracts have included significant revenue sharing though not all of the lower-revenue clubs have used those funds for player salaries, he said.
The atmosphere, and the scale of money involved, is a bit different at the Kansas City Ballet noted ballet executive director Jeffrey Bentley. The ballet has long worked with union stagehands and unionized Kansas City Symphony players, but ballet dancers did not organize until recently.
Dancers joined the American Guild of Musical Artists, and are in the first contract between AGMA and the ballet. Ballet General Manager Kevin Amey said that the ballet’s precarious finances made negotiations challenging but that the relationship between the ballet and its dancers is strong and the ballet believes the unionization is a positive for the organization. Dancer Nadia Iozzo said a key issue has been whether dancers are required to attend, without pay, training before rehearsal sessions. The dancers won the right to do so but also understand the importance of such training to their health, she said. Dancers face low pay and relatively short careers and look to perform with companies that are unionized, she said, so the relationship helps attract quality performers to Kansas City.
Amey also urged participants to attend the ballet and support the artists.
For photos of “Rock Talk” check the LMC blog soon, http://labormanagementkc.com.