Friendly Foes -- Management, Union Learn To Replace Hostility With Trust

WORKING together instead of against each other? It's an idea that most companies and unions find difficult to embrace. Former Seattle labor leader Rhonda Hilyer promotes the concept in the name of higher productivity, worker empowerment and better morale.

Call it the blind leaning on the mute.

It was late 1991 and contract talks between Metro and Local 587 of the Amalgamated Transit Union had hit an impasse. The atmosphere was tense. The union had struck for half a day. Workplace morale was at an all-time low.

Both sides tried using mediation, then arbitration, to reconcile their differences.

Then, they tried the "trust walk."

Rhonda Hilyer, a former Seattle labor leader who has developed a way to turn adversaries into partners, assembled 40 union leaders, shop stewards and Metro managers.

She put the names of the union representatives in a hat. Each management counterpart selected one.

Gloria Overgaard, manager of transit operations, drew Dan Linville, union president. She donned a blindfold; he was instructed not to speak.

Together, they left their Executive Inn seminar room at Taylor Avenue North and John Street, and walked about six blocks to the Seattle Center, Linville relying on Overgaard to do the talking and Overgaard depending on Linville to guide her through the city.

They got to the Seattle Center, walked to a flower bed, and Overgaard, following Linville's hand motions, knelt and plucked a purple pansy.

"I had to totally trust Dan not to mislead me," Overgaard says. "Once I was able to do that, I knew that in whatever situation we might encounter at the bargaining table he'd always be straight with me."

Nine months later, Metro and Local 587 emerged with a contract overwhelmingly approved by the 3,200 bus drivers, customer-service operators, mechanics and other employees.

In many ways, the trust walk was the first step Metro and Local 587 took toward a new style of collaborative bargaining that is slowly winning converts.

This approach throws out the old rules.

Unions don't ask for more than they want; companies don't propose giving less than they're willing to give. The goal is to discuss the intent of certain provisions, and look for an agreement that satisfies everyone.

Traditional posturing is gone. The two sides do not exchange contract proposals. They sit side by side, rather than on opposing sides, at the bargaining table. They often meet in each other's offices, rather than at an expensive, so-called neutral site.

In the end, Hilyer says, both sides get what they want.

"Both the union and company want to be a force for positive change," she says. "But they never seem to find a way to respect each other enough to create that change. The system, the old way, is what's at fault."

Hilyer, former president of Local 8 of the Hotel & Restaurant Employees Union, knows traditional bargaining well.

She negotiated contract after contract the old way, spouting rhetoric, arguing and insulting her management counterparts whenever she saw fit.

"Eventually, we'd get a contract - sometimes, a good contract; sometimes, a not-so-good contract. The thing that frustrated me was that I never felt I was doing anything that made a real difference to my members."

She began to advocate more collaboration between workers and managers. These views put her at odds with other labor leaders, who saw cooperating with the enemy as a cave-in, and with employers, who wondered what she was up to.

Hilyer left her union position in 1990 and formed a business, Agreement Dynamics. She now works with unions and managers at several Seattle-area public agencies and at hospitals including Group Health and Highline, and with the Port of Seattle.

Though she recently concluded a project with an East Coast shipyard and its union, acceptance in the private sector remains slow.

Most unions and companies acknowledge that bitter labor-management confrontations hurt worker morale and ultimately productivity.

But what Hilyer and a handful of other consultants nationwide espouse is radical. They're asking companies to share power with unions - something companies often find hard, especially if they believe they'd be better off without a union anyway. Unions, for their part, often suspect companies' motives.

Such suspicions ran rampant when Metro and Local 587 first met with Hilyer.

The two sides once got along so well that new labor contracts were signed in a bar after work. Over the years, as both grew bigger, each side got good at painting the other as evil. Metro brought lawyers and labor-relations experts to the bargaining table. Local 587's leaders grew more demanding and brash.

By the time negotiations for a new three-year contract opened in 1990, each side wanted to argue 1,000 issues.

The union, convinced Metro was unwilling to compromise, printed thousands of buttons depicting a green "Mr. Yuck" as the epitome of "Metro morale." Union president Linville lashed out at management in a regular newsletter. Some drivers complained they'd be fired if they stopped to use the restroom en route. Linville made sure these complaints were well-circulated.

Metro dug in its heels and vowed to fight.

The two sides hobbled toward an impasse.

During this time, Hilyer began working with another division of Metro and Local 6 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents Metro's 170 water-quality-control employees.

The two sides, years of hostility between them, walked into her collaborative training skeptically and emerged as converts. This, coupled with an independent arbitrator's urging, prompted Metro and Local 587 to give the approach a try.

Hilyer's approach to collaborative bargaining starts with a two-day training session aimed at helping negotiators develop a sense of mutual trust and respect.

In order to learn to trust your former adversary, Hilyer believes "you need to know who the other side is, what's important to them before you start bargaining."

This means opening up, analyzing each other's personalities and sharing values.

Linville, figuring he was "in for a lot of warm and fuzzy psychobabble," planned to sit in long enough to please the arbitrator before going back to beating out a new contract.

Rick Walsh, deputy director of Metro's transit operations, admits he was nervous about opening up.

"What do you mean, lay it all on the line? You want me to tell them who I am and what I think?" he recalls thinking. "I was afraid they'd exploit me."

His anxiety eased when Hilyer began assigning each participant colors based on communication styles.

Walsh ended up being "green," because he was methodical, organized, a good planner. This proved to be interesting when he was assigned a role-playing game with Linville, who turned out to be "blue" (sensitive and caring) with a streak of "red" (adventurous).

In the exercise, Linville owned two big dogs, which Walsh, his neighbor, didn't like because they kept him awake. Hilyer told Walsh to work out a solution.

Walsh approached Linville, who had retreated to his car. He tapped on the window. Linville rolled it down. Walsh realized he could not get Linville's attention because the radio was blaring out a Husky football game.

Walsh hesitated. Finally, he said, "You know, I really like your dogs."

That opened up Linville. "When he said that, I melted. I could see that he didn't just want me to get out of his life."

Such exercises gave the negotiating group a chance to see each other as people rather than union or management. And when the two sides ended the training session and got down to the business of negotiating, they found they shared information more freely.

Hilyer recommends negotiators set ground rules. Metro and Local 587 agreed that whatever was said in bargaining would not leave the room. This let negotiators on both sides question and often criticize policies of the past.

When the discussion turned to seniority, an older worker pointed out that employees work through salary scales quickly and have little chance to advance beyond that. Seniority perks - picking schedules, priority on vacations, first options for overtime work - gave them pride in their longevity.

As he spoke, the managers began to realize seniority privileges weren't just something the union pushed for out of habit; they were important to workers.

When sick leave came up, the union took notice. Before, employees could take as many sick days as they wanted. Metro wanted restrictions. After Metro shared financial reports showing how much unpredictable sick days were hurting the agency, the union realized Metro didn't want to punish employees.

From time to time, the two sides did slip into traditional roles. Hilyer would be called in for checks. At these times, she rarely talked issues. She simply threw out questions, such as "What are you after?" and "What do you really want?"

Eventually, negotiators brought cookies or candy for everyone to share, a subtle sign that they'd opened up.

Hilyer charges $2,000 to $3,000 plus extra for instructional materials for the two-day training. Additional checkups and follow-up work run about $125 an hour. A typical negotiation costs about $10,000. Metro paid Hilyer's fee, and the union covered the wages for members of its negotiating team.

Though expensive, the process means spending less on attorney fees, unfair-labor-practice charges and grievances. Collaboration often empowers workers, raising morale and productivity.

At Metro, collaboration continues. About 400 Local 587 shop stewards and line managers have gone through Hilyer's training. Both sides try to apply teamwork principles to day-to-day work. When Metro needed to cut $4.5 million from its budget, managers and union representatives discussed the cuts together.

The current contract expires in 1995. Both sides hope to negotiate collaboratively again. But each wonders whether the good feelings will last.

A union election next year could put Linville out of office. Metro's merger with King County could change the management structure within the transit division altogether.

The true test of a lasting relationship is time.