Joint training in mutual gains: Implementation of a strategy for encouraging labor-management cooperation in three sites

Industrial relations scholars have reported on an emerging consensus among labor management practitioners that the process of collective bargaining must be more cooperative if unions (and the industries they dominate) are to survive. Training programs are often seen as a useful vehicle for exploring new approaches to industrial relations.; Developed by a faculty team at the Harvard Program on Negotiation and sponsored by the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Relations and Cooperative Programs, the Joint Training in Negotiation Project featured training in the principles and techniques of mutual gains bargaining as a lever for encouraging a shift from adversarial to cooperative relations. In this study, I evaluated the project activities with a view toward offering prescriptive advice for improving this particular training model. In addition, an aim of my analysis was to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the efforts at each site and assess barriers to internalizing and/or institutionalizing cooperative bargaining principles in these environments.; My research findings suggest that adoption of the mutual gains approach by training participants is dependent on a variety of organizational factors: commitment to change within the organization; top-level labor and management support; dynamics of the labor management relationship; and, the availability of time for training. This study further suggests that a mutual gains training program is most effective when it includes the following: multiple training sessions well-spaced over a period of several weeks; separate union and management sessions aimed at getting approval for using the mutual gains approach and for learning about and experimenting with the approach itself; training for the constituents of the bargaining teams; customized training exercises; and, sessions which are designed to progress from theory to practice.