CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

12. UNION-MANAGEMENT CONFLICT: HISTORICAL TRENDS AND NEW DIRECTIONS 365
form, such as when cooperative agreements establishing labor–management
partnerships at Inland, Bethlehem, and National Steel, in effect, “set
the pattern for the industry, including U.S. Steel” (p. 20).
Existing research helps us understand how and why labor negotiations
happen the way they do, but studies also suggest problems with the traditional
approach to negotiation. First, while we can understand the rituals
of labor negotiations, we also see that such rituals can be counterproductive
if interest-based bargaining is a goal. It becomes harder to focus on
interests when the parties first engage in rituals that attempt to draw attention
to publicly high levels of conflict between them. The scope for integrative
bargaining is limited in the traditional labor–management processes,
because it must be accomplished away from the public eye, during periods
of high time pressure, and without the broad support of the affected parties’
constituents. Second, where one or both parties pursue centralized
rather than local bargaining, perhaps as a source of leverage, conflicts may
be resolved in ways that fail to address the local needs of labor and management.
Centrally created rules, bargained across multiple sites, provide
little of the flexibility that would enable the parties to address the specific
needs of particular local facilities. Thus, conflict resolution in the collective
bargaining process often misses the core interests of both sides.
Mediation, often supported by the government through the Federal
Mediation and Conciliation Service, is also a well-established aspect of
U.S. labor relations. Mediators can help both sides reach settlement (Kolb,
1983), but it is not clear that mediated settlements address the parties’
underlying interests. Labor mediation too often focuses on avoiding an
impasse, not necessarily addressing interests (Simkin, 1971).
The law requires the parties to bargain in good faith with one another,
but beyond this requirement, the rights of the parties matter less than the
balance of power between them. Unions’ weapons include the strike and
the corporate campaign (previously detailed); management may threaten
to lock employees out of work or to move production away from unionized
facilities to nonunion workplaces. Settlements reflect the power of
the parties—which party needs the other more and which party can make
more credible its threat of hurting the other side (and itself; Schelling,
1980). Over the past two decades, the share of labor negotiations that have
actually resulted in strikes or lockouts has shrunk substantially. It is not
clear to what extent this lack of observable strife reflects the parties’ ability
to resolve genuinely competing interests. It is also possible to see this
relative labor peace as a product of an overwhelming shift in the balance
of power toward the management side.
In sum, contemporary labor negotiations continue to feature a considerable
amount of contentious, two-party distributive bargaining. New
approaches, however, also characterize contemporary American labor
relations, and these have a common theme: an increased emphasis on integrative,
problem-solving approaches to labor–management disputes. In
what follows, we review some of the more popular recent initiatives. We