Not surprisingly, we found that successful labor-management partnerships are often the result of a strong personal relationship between management and union officials. While personal relationships can provide an early foundation of trust and respect, problems can arise when key people leave the organization. If the trust and respect that marked the relationship has not filtered down to other management and union leaders, the partnership may get off track. A good example of an agency facing significant turnover of key people is the Department of Defense. Partnership takes time to develop and is dependant on the players involved.
Attitudes play a major role in the success or failure in the partnership.
Both management and union respondents indicated it was difficult to establish a successful partnership when the members left due to military rotation, union elections, employee turnover, a base realignment, a base closure or a reduction in force. This problem can be addressed by careful succession planning and appropriate training for parties new to the partnership. Bringing new members to partnership council meetings as early and as often as possible exposes them to an effective labor-management relationship and gives them a chance to see how it works. Providing new members with training in consensual forms of dispute resolution and decision-making gives them tools to be productive members of the council early in their tenure. By finding ways to institutionalize partnership, both the agency and the union can increase the chances that it will flourish in spite of changing membership.