Can Workers Accept Changes to Prevent Jobs From Disappearing?

¶ … Oconomo without changing the culture? Does the plant need a new set of workers and a new culture? The short answer here is: the plant doesn't need a new set of employees; it just needs the existing employee culture to adjust its attitude towards change. A change in attitude is in a round-about way also a change of culture.

Clearly there is a drastic need for change at the Oconomo plant, and the union must step up and convince its members that it is literally do or die; that is, if they don't accept a deal for lower compensation, the plan it going under -- or, it will move to Mexico.

When Jim Malesckowski was sent to Mexico to find out how this manufacturing plant could benefit the owners financially, he realized very quickly that moving the plant would mean that management would be "…ushering in a blizzard of pink slips," and those pink slips would be given to employees that "he had come to appreciate," so he did not look forward to such a grim task.

But on the other hand if the union won't budge, and other plants are producing apparel at a lower cost and the product competitors were producing was nearly the same quality at that produced at Oconomo, there seemed little alternative but to shut down the plant. In the textbook, Understanding Management, the authors (Chapter 8) assert that "…if organizations don't successfully change and innovate, they die" (Daft, et al., 2012).

The chapter goes on the state that organizations "…must be designed to respond to the environment" because businesses must adjust to the market, which is constantly being altered or changed in some way; Daft also says that "large culture change is not easy" (Daft). Companies must be "ambidextrous" and be willing to embrace "innovation" in order to "remain competitive" (Daft). Moreover, in terms of the need for a cultural adjustment -- the union accepting a lower form of compensation -- there are local economic situations to take into consideration.

To wit, the town has only 9,000 people and there are 520 employees who would not be earning any salary; hence, the community could become a kind of ghost town.

What is the major underlying cause of the union's resistance to change? If I were Jim Malesckowski, what tactics would I use to convince the union to change its position? In the first place, if the union continued to stubbornly resist the needed changes, it would be seen as greedy and they would be out in the street with no money to support their families. Is greed getting in the way of survival for the plant and the workers? It certainly looks that way.

Hence, Malesckowski needs to make that abundantly clear to the union -- stubbornness and greed will shut this plant down. "This is crunch time," he needs to emphasize. "I hate to put it to you this way but the truth is a powerful ingredient in this crisis. I am not negotiating with you and this is not a ruse," he needs to continue.

"We are on the edge of a financial cliff." In short, Malesckowski needs to sit down with union leadership and show them the basic economic facts of the situation. He needs to show than a chart with math clearly presented that shows the reality for the plant and the workers. Moving the plant to Mexico will save the.