MHR001 Managing Workplace Relations

CASE STUDY: CONSTRUCTIVE RELATIONS AT TOP TRUCKING COMPANY

Top Trucking Company's Wollongong yard was rapidly getting a reputation within the company and
within the region as a high performance workplace; and oddly enough, George Psaros- a union
delegate- was playing a pretty important part in the transformation. The yard had long held a strong
position in the local product market, but it had been a tough place to work. The yard manager was
very autocratic, preferring to tell people what to do, or yelling at them if it had been a 'bad' day. The
family that owned the company had been reluctant to spend money on the trucks, which were older
than they should have been. There were some 'bad eggs' among the drivers and there had been a lot
of conflict, lots of accidents and lots of stoppages.

About 3 years ago, the family company was bought out by a big national transport group and the old
yard manager 'retired'. The new owners had capital that they were prepared to spend on rejuvenating
the fleet; they cleaned up the yard bought the drivers new uniforms. A new computer system was
installed in the warehouse. Even more importantly, they appointed a new yard manager who was 'a
breath of fresh air'. He began to talk to his drivers and their union representatives. When problems
arose, his approach was not to immediately blame the drivers, but to 'check things out' and explore
the issues rationally rather than have a knee-jerk reaction. He consciously worked on improving OHS.
As part of this, the drivers received more training, both technical and in customer service. This guy
was no pussy cat' - in the early days George had several major arguments with him and there had
been a couple of short strikes. But George had to admit that the manager always had a reasonable
point of view and some of George's members were out of line in those disputes. In fact, a couple of
the 'bad eggs', whom George had been forced to support, had left; which improved the atmosphere a
lot.

Things began to change. Most of the drivers started to see that they were no longer being treated like
children. They felt good about the new trucks and uniforms, and their backs started to straighten.
They did not like some of the changes in work practices, but once they were introduced, they could
see their benefits. They came to respect the new manager. George saw the same things. he could
deal with this manager. In fact, the manager went out of his way to consult with George - not 'crawl' to
him or patronise him, but talk with him almost as an equal in an effort to improve the image and
operation of the company. The manager also shared information about the yard's performance with
the drivers and the union - he was not afraid to open up about the pressures and successes they
experienced.

The result over the last couple of years had been impressive. Top Trucking had won a number of new
contracts. Wollongong topped the tables of key indicators that were used within the company to
benchmark the various yards. They started to get visitors from head office and from other yards
around the country to observe their operations. This attention reinforced the growing sense of
achievement within the yard. George was impressed and he just hoped that the manager was not
promoted to head office too soon.
Source: adapted from Kramar et al. 2014 (5e) originally from M. Bray, R. Cooper & P. Waring, 2009, Employment Relations: Theory and Practice, McGraw-Hill, Sydney

Questions:
1. How do the new workplace practices introduced by the new yard manager complement one
another?

2. What are the risks to sustaining these changes if George or the yard manager move on?

3. Do you think ‘tough’ blue-collar unions like the Transport Workers Union are more or less likely to
engage in workplace changes like these than public or service sector unions? Explain why.