Labor, Management Experts Offer Views on Challenges Of the New Workplace

Labor issues have been and continue to remain a key factor in the nation's economy. Bargaining for more money and better working conditions for working people has become increasingly complicated as details such as on-the-job drug testing, workplace violence, health coverage, pay for overtime, stress, affirmative action and others have been added to the negotiating mix.

These are "the tip of the iceberg," according to Mario Bognanno, a professor of industrial relations the University of Minnesota and visiting professor of economics at the University of Arizona and director of the annual conference this year. The Eller College of Business and Public Administration economics department at the University of Arizona has hosted the Labor-Management Conference since 1966.

"The new century is also witness to the increasing use of the strike tactic, a growing difficulty in 'getting labor contracts ratified,' a labor movement whose primary strategic goal is to overcome its "organizing" challenges, and the increasing use and 'misuse' of e-technology and the Internet in negotiations. Moreover, to readily manage these challenges, labor and management are continuing to look to new strategies for resolving conflict and new formulas for settling the 'wage contract,'" Bognanno said.

Experts and key national figures in labor, management, government and higher education will speak at the conference, including: Andy Levin, assistant director of organizing and coordinator of "Voice at Work Campaign" for the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C.; John V. Harvey, a former AFL-CIO official and council for the Senate Labor and Education Committee and now vice president for labor relations at Raytheon; and Jon E. Pettibone and and Michael Keenan, prominent labor relations attorneys based in Phoenix..

Other notable speakers include Charles Huggins, secretary-treasurer for Arizona AFL-CIO; Mark L. Kahn, past president of the National Academy of Arbitrators and Thomas Hock, President of Professional Transit Management, Inc.

Some of the significant panel discussions will analyze the often rocky labor management relations in the entertainment industry, transit systems, supermarkets and food production.

A panel on labor relations in the supermarket industry, for example, features the top labor relations officials in the region: William McDonough, international vice president, and Paul Rubin, southern Arizona director of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, and labor relations directors Allan Richards (Fleming Companies), Douglas Finkelmeyer (Safeway, Inc.) and Jim Nygren (Frys Food & Drug Stores).

Workshops will cover "challenge" topics like anger and sexual harassment in the workplace, job stress, developing labor law under the Bush administration and labor relations at the Phoenix Transit System. Other workshops will cover skill building in arbitration, negotiation, psychology and communications, led by federal mediators and a host of other experts.

The conference is presented by the economics department at the University of Arizona Eller College of Business and Public Administration Co-sponsors for the conference include the Arizona chapter, Industrial Relations Research Association, Arizona Employers' Council, Inc., Arizona State AFL-CIO, and the United States Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and the U.S. National Labor Relations Board.