ABSTRACT
Thomas had left the room when Daniel started the module on workstation assessment. He had to attend the meeting with the labor union. Here, as in many European countries, he knew that if he were to succeed, he would need to make sure that, ideally, the union was on board, or at least not opposed to his actions. He had decided to go for a transparent and plain talk with the labor union. This was an unusual approach for a plant manager. His predecessors had mostly been all but candid. By any account, previous plant managers and the labor union had been playing a zero-sum game: If you win, I lose; if you lose, I win. Promises had been made but not kept on both sides. It was simply part of the business. Unfortunately, this led to a long history of mistrust and lost opportunities. Those selfinflicted injuries had long eroded the plant’s integrity and contributed to the plant’s current dire conditions. The EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) Manufacturing vice president would concede spontaneously: “We have made big mistakes of our own; we need to have a radically different approach toward labor unions.”
