Joint Labor-Management Programs in the Auto Industry and the Shaping of Human Services

Abstract

The joint labor-management model of providing human services to American automobile workers has supplied, and continues to offer, approaches that address shared interests. Human service programs negotiated by the United Auto Workers and the “Big Three” American automakers created precedents for other industries and developed patterns for services in the workplace that linked employee benefits with broader labor-management goals. The shared responsibilities of management and union in these “joint” programs set patterns for cooperative efforts in industrial relations. Joint programs provide a template for developing increased competitiveness in many fields.

KEYWORDS:

• automobile industry
• employee assistance
• employee benefits
• human services
• industrial relations
• joint labor-management programs
• tuition assistance
• union-management cooperation
• work–family programs
• worker education

Notes

^a Joint United Auto Workers-Ford (labor-management) program.

Although the term Big Three traditionally describes the three major U.S. automakers, the growth of foreign companies has resulted in alternative characterizations. For example, Ford's media briefing book for the 2007 negotiations refers to the “Big Six” in the American market, adding Toyota, Honda, and Nissan to the original Big Three (Ford Motor Company, 2007).

From an economic point of view, the characterization of the company paying the full costs ignores the idea that workers are sharing the costs in the sense that they are foregoing some increase in wages when the company takes on greater benefit costs. This analysis, however, may not reflect the perceptions of workers and how those perceptions influence their political support—or lack of support—for public program improvements.

The LEA program was started in 1985 at the University of Michigan by Jeanne Prial Gordus. It became part of the School of Social Work in 1987, with Professor Lawrence Root as co-director. In 1990, Root left that role to start a similar program for the UAW-GM joint education and training program. At its peak, the two programs employed almost 100 full-time counselors in auto plants around the country.

For example, the term counseling is a controlled term under Michigan law; only individuals with designated professional certifications are permitted to provide “counseling.”

The in-plant auto industry EAPs tended not to be members of the Employee Assistance Society of North America (EASNA), the other principal EAP organization. EASNA was—and continues to be—more exclusively oriented to those with higher education backgrounds and professional credentials.

There have also been impacts for workplace programming in other countries. For example, Ford in the United Kingdom started a program modeled on UAW-Ford's EDTP. The Employee Development and Assistance Programme (EDAP) was negotiated in 1987 with blue-collar and white-collar unions and implemented in 1989 (Beattie, 1997). It was a company program—rather than jointly administered—and it integrated hourly and salaried participants in its programs.