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Preventive Mediation
Amoco Oil Company and OCAW "Bury the Hatchet" in Texas City, TX The Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW) represent approximately 1200 employees at Amoco Oil Company’s Texas City, Texas refinery, Amoco’s largest refinery in the world. Over the past three and a half decades, the labor and management parties have had a traditional adversarial relationship. The parties agreed to participate in a Relationship By Objective (RBO) process at the suggestion of FMCS Commissioner Dale Johnson who was familiar with their history. FMCS’s Relationship By Objectives process is strong medicine, an intense, two to four-day program aimed at alleviating a history of workplace problems by helping participants analyze their relationship and begin to build a new one. It is not the cure for every labor-management problem. But, it is a good beginning for serious and committed workplace leaders who want to achieve a positive change. The Amoco-Texas City plant manager and the OCAW local chairman each led nine person teams in the RBO which was facilitated by a team of FMCS mediators led by Johnson. At the beginning of the process, there was very little mixing of the parties outside their assigned work groups. In addition to the work sessions, the parties also shared a continental breakfast and lunch each day. As the three day program progressed, so did the relationship between the parties, and by the end, they were facilitating their own work sessions. The parties’ efforts resulted in a joint initiative which has been publicly praised by both managers and union leaders.
Amoco and the OCAW jointly agreed to long-term goals and a near-term time line to implement their "RBO Partnership." FMCS joint training and regular guidance was included as part of the time line as the parties establish their new relationship. The FMCS case mediator has also led a team in training company and union leaders in interest-based problem solving, in an effort to seek solutions to the problems that have plagued the parties’ relationship for many years, and Interest-Based Bargaining. The parties have continued to meet monthly with the mediator to measure progress in completing the joint objectives, and to establish new ones. The early successes achieved were symbolized by a "bury the hatchet" ceremony and by raising and flying the OCAW flag next to the Amoco flag in front of the refinery. The parties recognize that they will face many challenges, especially in the early stages of this process, but they have expressed a desire to work through these together and overcome them. |
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