Communication Lessons Are Helpful for More Than Married Couples

Relationships are always more complicated than they seem.  There is the history that the relationship contains.  There is the future that the relationship represents.  There is the individual goals of the two parties.  After seeing my parents this weekend, who are separated, and talking to my little brother, who recounted that their relationship is, well, rather stable, I couldn't help but think about other relationships that need to read points of stability.

A current relationship that is soon to be in the news is the relationship between the United Auto Workers Union and American auto makers.  If the companies go bankrupt, the theory is that many of their obligations to the union will be discharged. 

The UAW union and American auto makers like GMAC and Chrysler have had a rocky relationship with unions since the beginning. Perhaps it is all owed to Ford, that went on a limb to hire minorities and women in a bid to pay lower wages.  Perhaps part of the problems come from unions that have historically discriminated against women and minorities, and today seem to have a hard time integrating new Americans into their affinity.  Two problematic histories collide, and the problems grow. 

But both the union and the company serve important purposes for maintaining a viable workforce.  They should have a good relationship, one that preserves workers and keeps companies moving.  

In the sixth grade, the teachers in the Dayton City School System went on a strike for several weeks. At first, it was fun, because the substitutes that we had were very easy.  However, after going home and telling my mother that I watched the first half of the  safe sex special by Magic Johnson, she pulled us from the school, and I still don't know what happened at the end.   And I remember the caustic picket line and seeing my loving teachers act out of character, yelling and screaming at those who crossed the lines.  Years later, when discussing a picket at a local grocery store with a high school teacher who took part in the strike when I was in grade school, I was told that either you are a person who crosses pickets or you aren't. I don't think it is that easy, as picking sides in a relationship you need to survive.  

Recently, I came across a list of layoffs on vault.com.  While discussing the current environment for employees, co-workers and I opined that we would take a pay cut to keep our jobs.  In it's inception, a workers union existed to pass on the collective voice of the employee to the employer. Perhaps, before a major company like Cysco Systems laid off several thousand employees, they might have passed along a minor paycut to their workers, resulting in workers keeping their jobs, and still saving the company millions in the bottom line.  But without that collective intelligence, and some greater entity for bargaining, and perhaps justifiably so after decades of both entities failing, with far too narrow a vision, to meet their potential, companies will continue to send this economy spiraling downward.  Which is sad, because the infrastructure is there, and the potential is there, but the ideas of working hard, and pulling together, and general nostalgia that allegedly made this company great can be resurrected. Through employers listening to their employees and giving them a seat at the table where management decisions are made.  And through employees coming together and ignorning superficial differences like accents and skin color to develop a collective good for every employee.