Friday, June 7, 2002
Thursday's speakers argued that labor-management partnerships could save some dying companies.
By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Harold Scott knew there was something different about the Harley-Davidson Motor Co. when his interviews for a top management job included a screening by union leaders.
Then he asked for an organizational chart. There wasn't one.
"Harley-Davidson is extremely unique. We operate without things that delineate barriers," said Scott, vice president of human resources for the Milwaukee-based motorcycle builder.
"At Harley-Davidson, we are all equal. The lines between labor and management are blurred."
The result, he said, can be measured in dollars and cents. Harley-Davidson has had 16 consecutive years of record profits, and in 2001 alone, shareholders enjoyed a 36.9 percent return.
"If we hadn't recognized the need to work together, the story would be clearly different," he said.
Scott, featured Thursday at the Williamson Symposium Speaker Series at Youngstown State University, shared the podium with a labor union counterpart, Donald Kennedy, who helped forge the labor-management partnership at Harley-Davidson.
Kennedy, who started his career in the labor movement in 1974, is director of a program based at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union headquarters, which works to develop union-management partnerships all over the United States and Canada.
"Think about Youngstown 20 or 25 years ago. Think about the epidemic of workplace closings," he said.
"We couldn't have saved them all, but we could have saved some if management and labor had worked together. We could have created some American success stories."
Labor-management partnerships
Kennedy said the program he oversees, the High Performance Work Organization Partnerships Department, has 50 active labor-management partnerships across the United States and Canada, most in small and medium-sized manufacturing companies.
Scott and Kennedy also took their labor management partnership message to the Mahoning Valley Labor Management Council's annual Spring Leadership Banquet at the Holiday Inn MetroPlex on Thursday evening.
Robert Faulkner, council executive director, said he spotlighted the Harley-Davidson story in the hope that it might "ignite" the same kind of cooperative relationships in the Mahoning Valley.
Two long-time leaders in the local plumbing and heating industry were presented with the council's 2002 Labor-Management Leader of the Year Award.
The honorees were Joseph Mansky, business manager of Plumbers & amp; Pipefitters Local 396, who joined the union in 1961 and worked his way to local president by 1981; and Ron Schulz, executive director of the Plumbers & amp; Heating Contractor Association, who has had a 44-year career in plumbing and heating.
vinarsky@vindy.com