Partnership Resource Centre
CONSULTATION, PARTICIPATION AND CO-OPERATION BETWEEN WINSTONE PULP INTERNATIONAL, THE NDU AND THE EPMU
Conclusions: Lessons and Reflections
Winstone Pulp International’s approach to the management of change could be described as a gentle hand on the tiller, steering the vessel when it was wandering off direction but largely leaving it to the crew to ensure they were progressing to the agreed destination.
At times, the change process has been signposted with clear explicit agreements around how change should be implemented. At other times, as in the design of the current shift roster guidelines, the process has been relaxed with the parties comfortable enough in their relationship to enable fresh thinking to emerge. The test is does it work? The answer the parties gave is yes, and the evidence bears this out.
This process requires a high degree of trust and confidence to exist between the parties, because it is about letting go of traditional management control and recognising that unions and their members can play a vital role in building the business.
Employers benefit from well-organised unions
Effective engagement with unions enables employers to harness the skills, talent and enthusiasm of their staff in ways which management sometimes are incapable of doing. This can provide another channel for a company to have a positive constructive relationship with its workforce.
“The company had always believed that the best way to manage was with a unionised workforce.”
WPI Management
As Paul Saunders, Pulp Mill Manager, said unions can be the vehicle to engage staff in an organised way. Not only are they essential for achieving buy-in from the workforce, but they can be also be the source of many initiatives required to achieve change. It is clear that without the input from Jim Jones, Wood Sector Division Secretary NDU, in particular, many of the changes would not have been initiated.
Unions co-operating together
A large degree of the benefit of having a well-organised and unionised workforce at WPI has been that the unions work together. The agreement by the EPMU and NDU to acknowledge each other’s areas of membership coverage and not to recruit beyond these parameters has provided a solid basis for co-operation. It has also provided a focus on the interests of the workforce, centred on the success of the business rather than a contest over market share at the other union’s expense.
Your issues are my issues
A relationship of mutual gain requires the union and employer parties to not only acknowledge each other’s issues and challenges, but take them on board as their own - to share in the challenges that they provide. They may not have the same level of concern for each other’s issues and challenges, but they have to be committed to supporting each other in dealing with them.
In the past, WPI identified that it had concerns with shift rosters, poor performance and high sick leave. The union response was to positively engage and work with the company to seek solutions to these problems. More recently, WPI has identified newer challenges: to improve people management, to improve the quality of processes, and to improve plant availability. Once again, the unions are committed to playing a part in how these issues are tackled and resolved.
From the unions’ point of view, they have had traditional and non-traditional union concerns. They were and are committed to, amongst other things, a fair objective pay system with increased wages and opportunities, access to training and career paths for the workforce and the opportunity to devolve decision-making through teams to the workforce. The company have risen to all these challenges and has significantly resourced solutions from which the current workforce benefits, including new shift rosters, salarisation, skill-based pay, self-managed teams and a focus on training.
Develop a framework that supports working together
Any change agenda needs an established process and framework which is an agreed way for parties to develop their relationship and confront their issues within the parameters they have set.
A radical change agenda requires staff to have a sense of security if you want them to participate. The redundancy agreement’s explicit commitment to maintaining staffing levels has helped to create this.
Collective agreements formalise understandings, but they are not the only vehicle to reach these changes. The essence of the relationship is what takes place between the negotiations of the collective agreements.
Continually examine your direction
WPI commented that, in retrospect, they lacked an integrated vision about the changes and didn’t fully capitalise on them. Sometimes, despite the best plans, you can’t foresee all the changes that will occur. It’s important to have staged opportunities for benchmarking and reflection on your shared agenda and to reset those goals as appropriate.
The issues that have arisen with the implementation of a change agenda need to be addressed. The greatly improved work/life balance that the workforce now enjoys has created an interesting challenge for the business.
Under a rapid change shift work roster, work was at the centre of a worker’s life, but this was not a healthy environment or particularly productive. Under the new roster, workers can be equally focused on pursuits outside the company, including leisure or other work. This can cause problems in terms of their availability, focus, and commitment to their primary role. As previously stated, these shift arrangements make effective communication difficult.
Some of these issues have arisen because of the rapid pace of change. However, there are structures and agreements in place that guide and support the parties’ work and relationship. These need to be reinvigorated. The parties need to re-establish a shared understanding about the aim and objectives for their structures and agreements, including defining the purpose, measuring outcomes, and determining the level of accountability. The key question to guide actions is “why”. The parties need to ask themselves again why they are doing this and where they are heading.
The parties need to consider a formal review of what they have achieved. The Site Consultative/Participative Committee could be a forum for this to occur.
Create depth of understanding about change
Effective communication is critical to developing strong and robust partnership relationships. Part of having effective communication is enabling the participants to acquire and/or develop the skills for communication and for participating in consultative arrangements. Without those, people can be left by the wayside, the consequences of which are that people don’t understand the need to change and feel alienated from it.
It is also important for everyone to understand why the business exists, the key drivers behind its operation, and the challenges it faces. This message needs to be continually updated and communicated to everyone affected by it.
“Productivity is the name of the game.”
NDU delegate
All WPI staff need to understand the challenges of the future:
“There are a lot of external factors; power prices, Kyoto protocols, the Resource Management Act. These will put a lot of pressure on production. The way forward is to produce cheaper pulp, at lower grades, requiring less electricity.”
EPMU member
At WPI, the future is about increasing productivity and it is critical that greater understanding of this imperative and the challenges in its way are understood and owned by staff.
Part of the success of the relationship thus far has been the devolvement of decision-making to the workforce, particularly in the areas of shift design, overtime, sick leave management, and in respect to recruitment and promotion. This has encouraged staff to be part of ensuring the success of the change programme and owning the outcomes.
There is evidence that some of the company’s systems are out of step with this business challenge. In particular, in respect of self-managed teams, there is currently no shared view between middle management, team leaders, and team members as to how the teams should function and what their role is in meeting work objectives.
Middle management, in particular, is required to play a vital role in supporting and facilitating a change agenda. There is evidence that this group has not grasped the required direction, that they lack the skills to implement it, passively resist it, or a combination of all three. The company needs a strategy for dealing with this.
Concluding comments
This case study focussed on Kariori Pulp Mill and the relationship between the employer, Winstone Pulp International (WPI), and the unions, the National Distribution Union (NDU) and the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU).
What the study shows is that partnership, mutual gain, or just how parties work together cannot be reduced to a template which employers and unions can implement. Rather, it describes a relationship which people have to resource at a financial level, but more importantly and at a personal level, they need to invest their honesty, trust, integrity, and good faith.
At WPI, the relationship that has emerged is very much a practical relationship based on what will help the business to prosper and, by so doing, deliver the greatest benefits for the workforce.
The relationship did not emerge from a groundswell of opinion from union members or middle management, rather it was led and influenced by key decision-makers among the employer and unions. A challenge moving forward is to ensure that, as these people move on, new individuals take up the responsibility to lead the relationship.
The parties have much to be proud of in terms of what they have achieved. Not only are these achievements worthy of highlighting to the broader wood sector industry, they also need to be highlighted amongst WPI’s own workforce. People, whether they are managers or workers, can become immune to appreciating the success that has been achieved and the relative value of those achievements when compared to the rest of the industry.
There is much work to be done because this company doesn’t operate in a static environment and is continually confronted with new challenges. However, with the support and involvement of its unionised workforce, the company is well-positioned to meet these challenges and continue to provide a source of quality jobs for the community and a quality product for its customers.
Appendix: Acknowledgements and List of Interviewees
Written material referred to or used in the development of this case study
Winstone Pulp International Limited Policy and Procedure Manual 1992
Kariori Mill Collective Employment Contract 1992 and 1997
Kariori Mill Collective Employment Contract Terms of Settlement dated June 14, 1999
Kariori Mill Collective Employment Agreement Terms of Settlement dated 16 March 2001
Kariori Mill Collective Employment Agreement and Terms of Settlement dated 2005
Industry Pamphlet – UNIONS adding value to WOOD
List of interviewees
WPI:
Ray Double, Maintenance Systems
Andy Chamley, Production Manager
Graeme Keith, Electrical Project Manager
Paul Bing, Area Engineer
Terry Ashurst, Mechanical Superintendent
Paul Saunders, Pulp Mill Manager
Kirstine Hulse, HR and Communications Manager
Don Robinson, Staff Training Manager
Jim Shanks, Maintenance Area Engineer
Graham Bullock, Maintenance Area Engineer
Darren Morris, Process Engineer
NDU:
Jim Jones, Wood Sector Division Secretary NDU
Gary Godfrey, Spare Operator, NDU delegate
Ray Rapana, former NDU delegate
Tom Hapi – (NDU delegate)
EPMU:
Steve Milne - Director of Organising
David Pickett – Leading Hand Electrician, (EPMU member)
Frank Tong – Leading Hand Fitter, (EPMU delegate)
Fred Laing – Leading Hand Fitter, (EPMU member)
Steve Dowman – Electrician, (former EPMU delegate)