Twenty-first Century Partnership: Part III

In recognition of 75 years of the successful labormanagement initiatives between SMACNA and SMART, Partners in Progress has been mapping out key developments in the partnership journey between the two organizations. April’s issue focused on the landmark Mutual Gains Bargaining (MGB) program—the first-ever labor-management cooperative training program in the sheet metal industry. This month, we explore how and why SMACNA and SMART kicked off the 21st century with a flurry of partnership efforts and programs.

Michael J. Sullivan, former SMART General President who advocated for joint labor-management bargaining training and the first Partnership Conference.

Training for industry bargainers was a great start for the national associations, but as Michael J. Sullivan, former SMART general president, noted, “There are a lot of common issues that come up between contract negotiations that are best handled by labor and management working together. Programs that helped them communicate and develop a good working relationship were well worth the time and resource investments from SMACNA and SMART at the national level.”

SMACNA fully agreed with Sullivan’s assessment, and the planning began for the first SMACNA-SMART Partnership Conference in Orlando, Florida, in 2000.

Partnership Conferences

Once again, the program was led by Bernie Flaherty, but this time there was no training on collective bargaining, and this was intentional. Flaherty described the goal of the program: “It’s not just negotiating a new contract every three years, but constantly working together to solve real issues. Such a partnership develops strong, ongoing, primary relationships that will better serve our industry with a better quality of work life and, as a result, expanded market share.”

Again, the representatives who wanted to attend the program exceeded all expectations. Plans were made to accommodate 150 attendees, but over 400 people registered. Topics included humanpower, organizing, and emerging markets, and featured an eye-opening discussion with construction owners on the factors that influence their decisions in selecting the right contractor and workforce for their projects.

The success of that first partnership conference led to SMACNA and SMART holding the conference every two years. In 2006, the conference was renamed the Partners in Progress Conference. Over the years, the parties experimented with various schedules and tried backing it up to other partnership endeavors, including the National Apprenticeship Conference, Multi-Employer Benefit Fund Training for Local Trustees, and Industry Week. The Partners in Progress Conference continues to this day, and the next one is slated for March 2022.

Best Practices Market Expansion Task Force

“The Task Force was started in 2000 based on a simple premise: that SMART and SMACNA could be more successful cooperating and working together,” says Clark Ellis, principal and co-founder of the Continuum Advisory Group. Ellis has worked with the Task Force for several years following its formation, and it retained him several years ago to facilitate its future plans.

“This premise was validated with research that found chapters and Locals who met regularly, worked on market expansion together, recruited new workers together, and cooperated on other initiatives performed better in the market than those who didn’t,” Ellis says. “And the more things they did together, the better their performance.”

The early days of the Task Force were spent collecting specific examples of best practices—things like joint marketing campaigns, labor-management cooperation committees, and how to improve strained labor-management relationships. The Task Force described the practices, documented the “how tos”, and shared the results. Then union and contractor pairs who were members of the Task Force traveled to different areas and presented details of industry best practices.

The task force put in many hours between planning meetings, traveling the country spreading the best practices news, and capturing and documenting new best practices.

“One thing that was always present with the group was fun,” Ellis says. “When a group that is experienced and committed to industry advancement gets together, they will get lots of meaningful work accomplished, and they will have a blast. It was inspiring to be with such a team as they enjoyed working together to make their industry better. They got the Task Force off to a great start. “

Clark Ellis from the Continuum Advisory group speaks at a Partners in Progress Conference. Ellis worked with the Best Practices Market Expansion Task Force at its inception in 2000 and is helping the current task force plan for future programs.

Now that the Task Force is heading into its 20th year, its accomplishments are vast and word of its success is spreading. Some of its most impactful initiatives include the Expertise branding and websites, online resources based on best practices that all SMART and SMACNA members can use, Partners in Progress magazine, the Partners in Progress Conference, and many Chapter-Local partnerships that have progressed because they used jointly funded initiatives to improve their relationship and collaborative performance.

“As the Task Force moves into the future, I’m grateful to be involved and excited to see how new leaders will take it forward, continuing to build value for the union sheet metal industry,” Ellis says. “And it’s great to know that the task force still enjoys working together and looks forward to being together as we emerge from the pandemic.”

Advanced MGB Training

As the majority of industry bargainers were trained in MGB, requests came in to SMART and SMACNA for advanced training in collaborative bargaining. The advanced training programs went by various names, depending largely on which consultant taught the program. The national associations launched Advanced MGB in 2005 and Interest-Based Bargaining in 2007.

Former Cornell professor and labor-management consultant Michael Gaffney facilitated SMACNA’s Advanced Mutual Gains Bargaining Seminars and is a frequent presenter at Partners in Progress Conferences.

Regardless of the name, all advanced programs had the common theme of problem-solving, rather than not winning or losing, and bargaining in a manner that respects the value of the labor-management relationship.

The SMACNA-SMART Spring Training Program for rookie or veteran bargainers was first offered in 2015. While previous MGB and advanced programs focused on simulated bargaining exercises, the Spring Training Program facilitated by Michael Gaffney, a peer of Flaherty’s at Cornell, offered parties the opportunity to bring actual negotiating issues to jump start their bargaining during the final day of the program.

SMACNA’s Executive Director of Labor Relations Jason Watson noted the participants found this approach to the training was highly effective because “the training was immediately reinforced and made concrete by hands-on application.”

The Task Force and the Partners in Progress team hope the history and developments that drove SMART and SMACNA to collaborate at the national and local levels will inspire you to improve your local partnership and local market standing. Next month, the final chapter of this series will provide you with the latest programs and tools to accomplish your goals. ▪

2002: A Significant Year in the Partnership

2002 accomplishments included:

• SMACNA and SMART established and funded the first National Labor Management Cooperation Committee (LMCC) to advance the interests and prosperity of the union, its members, signatory employers and associations, and customers and users of union services in the sheet metal industry. The LMCC is funded by equal grants from SMACNA National and SMART International and provides the funding for the programs recommended by the Joint Best Practices Market Expansion Task Force (BPMETF).

• The first partnership website, sheetmetalpartners.org, was launched to provide a portal where industry people could come to access information on what the industry’s contractors and unions are doing together to improve their markets. The website has been updated to pinp.org and contains information from past Partners in Progress Conferences, back issues of Partners in Progress magazine, sample marketing ads, industry photos, and many other resources to assist local partnership efforts.

• The first issue of Partners in Progress magazine launched in August 2002. In 2017, the BPMETF modified Partners in Progress to a monthly format to provide more timely information on labor-management partnership initiatives.

• “The genesis of the BPMETF was a recognition that neither SMACNA nor SMART could afford to avoid the reality that the market was growing but the market share of union construction was decreasing,” remarked Dennis Bradshaw, former SMACNA executive director of member services, who was staff liaison for the Task Force at its inception. “One of the first efforts was to understand how awarding entities, such as general contractors and owners, made their decisions.”

The signatory portion of the industry had the perception that there was a bias in favor of non-union contractors. In 2002, the Task Force hired a professional firm and sponsored focus group sessions in four areas to find out what was important when hiring sheet metal contractors. While the task force sat behind mirrored windows, they heard frank and candid conversations among general contractors and owners about what was important. It became clear that there was no bias against signatory contractors. Competitive prices, quality construction, on time performance and expertise were the major takeaways. These focus group findings led to the development of the HVAC, Architectural, and Industrial Expertise branding efforts and websites.