From The Rank and File Catholic: Confessions of a (former) union hater

Thanks to Todd Johnson, Rank and File Catholic editor, for sending this column from the September issue.

By KENNY BARKLEY

Holy Name Parish, Henderson

Allow me to make a confession up front so we can start square: I once disliked unions and everything they stood for. The key word is “once.”

About 15 years ago I was given the opportunity to reroute my chosen occupation as a communications professional to accepting a role as a labor relations coordinator within the same company. I didn’t want to give up communications, so the deal was I’d spend an equal amount of time in both positions.

When I took on labor relations, I started with a generic belief that a company labor relations representative’s primary goal was to keep unions at arm’s length – maintain respect but to stand firm against infiltration of costly recommendations that favored only unions. In essence, I needed to be on constant alert for gameplaying.

To better prepare me for this new path, I attended labor relations classes, certifications and conferences. On top of that I was introduced and began learning company-friendly techniques from an out-of-town labor relations genius – the same guy that one union organization dubbed as being one of their top three most hated people in the United States. And, to top it off, I was backed by one of the nation’s best labor relations lawyers – a guy who I admired greatly for his knowledge and skill.

Using my training and on-call mentors, I learned to fight union guys really well. I especially enjoyed luring an old-school union rep into an argument, watching him turn red with anger, throwing vulgar language and hand gestures my way as I incorporated learned ideas. For some stupid reason I drew strength from irritating him and other union guys.

But while I got better at the game, they did too, which caused my 40-50 hour work week to swell to 60-70 hours a week. For 10 years my life was full of contempt, all in the name of winning – hollow victories shrouded by the belief that I was doing a great job. Without me realizing it, I was burning bridges instead of building them.

Then I changed – literally overnight.

In the latter part of 2015 I accepted a new position, reporting to a new general manager who was 10 years my junior. On top of that there was a new union president who was 20 years younger than me. Suddenly, I was that “old school” rep. 

Neither of those guys preferred to fight – they were smarter than me. They wanted a respectful, workable labor/management relationship and explained this to me rather eloquently. Besides, I was mentally worn out and sick of drowning myself in the win/lose game.

From that point forward, until I retired in May 2018, the three of us, along with other union and management leaders, established a brilliant relationship. We solved so many problems by giving and taking and listening to each other instead of fighting. There were no more, “my way or the highway” attitudes. I went home happy every night.

The number of grievances and arbitrations both dropped drastically, and so did my work hours. It’s hard to believe I once viewed them as badges of honor.

From the management perspective, if we made a mistake and the union pointed it out to us, then we would investigate. If we were wrong, we owned it and corrected it without argument. Why be stubborn and go through the grievance procedure? More importantly, union leaders did the same on their end.

No, not everything was perfect – we had our differences – even getting cantankerous with each other when we interpreted contract language differently. But what we did was maintain respect for one another and kept an eye on the bigger picture. We didn’t want to revert to a win/lose scenario.

So how did we get there? We collectively made a choice to be respectful to each other and to keep open lines of communication. Maybe it was the perfect storm; I don’t know. But everything just clicked!

If I started my labor relations career over again with what I know now, instead of seeking out and destroying the “enemy” like I did 15 years ago, I would pull the main players together and look at the relationship’s foundation and how we could be successful together. Get back to the fundamentals!

As I said early on, I was “once” a union-hater… but not anymore. It’s all about individuals and how we treat each other – not titles or names of organizations.