“HARTFORD SYMPHONY’S SEASON OPENER A SMASHING SUCCESS...
...Christopher
houlihan
is an intense player who unleashed an extraordinary technical arsenal, including a cadenza for pedalboard played at lightening speed only with his feet. Houlihan showed that an organist can have the charisma and energy of a major soloist...a promising soloist with strong international potential.” (The Hartford Courant) “Dazzling performances displaying a virtuoso’s technical prowess, an architect’s grasp of structure and a torch singer’s ability to convey emotions.” (The Wall Street Journal)
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plants that voted on the agreement voted it down. I said, “I better get out here on the road and explain this myself because I don’t think people are explaining it correctly.” We got almost 70 percent approval once we explained what we were doing. MULLOY: In negotiations, everyone thinks about the company and the union and the bargaining table. But there are two other negotiations taking place, and I’ll let Jimmy talk about union within the union. The toughest part of my job sometimes is negotiating within management. Because when I sit down with the union I’ve got to get everybody on board—the CEO of the company, Alan Mulally, the chief financial officer, the operations manager, all the vice presidents of product development, purchasing, manufacturing. Everybody needs to be a part of the team. At Ford Motor Company we consider negotiations a team sport and we all have to be prepared. Jimmy and I talk frequently, and Jimmy talks to the senior leadership of the company, so there are no surprises. You don’t prepare for negotiations the week before. There should be no surprises to the union or the company what the key issues are. It’s an ongoing process and it requires continual dialogue. SETTLES: It’s the same thing on my side. The number-one motivator is always money. If you ask any of our members “What would you like to see in the agreement?” Number one, it’s money. And to change that mindset, because money is important, we had to do a lot. So I personally went to every building under the Ford banner and had an open conversation with the leadership and the membership and tried to convince them that one, we need job security. At the UAW our membership used to be 1.5 million. Up to 20 years ago it was 1.2 million. Right now we have less than 500,000. So that means almost a million families that used to have good employment no longer have that employment. We had to do something to make certain that we had employment for not only for ourselves but hopefully for people in the future. MULLOY: The enemy of collaboration
is arrogance. It’s the worst of all diseases. The opposite is humility—the ability to accept the fact that your view of the world is incomplete. I have been around Ford Motor Company. I’ve seen great plant managers, I’ve seen bad plant managers. Guys that run product development, women who have been in finance—the great ones are humble. They listen to their people, they participate, and they collaborate to get things done. The worst are the people who think they’re the Marlboro man, walking down that plant floor, kicking ass and taking names. That’s how we used to run the operation, and that’s why we used to not succeed. Now we’re looking for people with some humility to be able to listen to others, including the union. SETTLES: Ditto to that. I didn’t know when we got here what value we can give you orchestra people, but I hope we have done that, because this is a recipe of success. I’ve been around 44 years, I’ve seen it both ways, survived both ways. I liked it when it was the other way, but when I had a plant close in 1982 and I watched some of my brothers and sisters commit suicide because they no longer had a job, when I watched how kids could not go to school because they had no longer had jobs, I said to myself that we had to change. I am really proud of the last agreement because if nothing else we’re preserving jobs and we’re making America better. I live in the city of Detroit. And I’ve seen the good times and the bad times. It’s really bad times now— looks like a third-world country. But just like everybody else I have hope. We engaged in getting employment in Detroit. We’re doing all kind of things together. We understand that we have more interests in common than we have disagreements. To learn more, watch the video How Labor and Management Came Together at the Ford Motor Company, online at SymphonyNOW. Visit symphonynow.org and search for “Ford Motor Company.” Then let us know what you think in the comments section. symphony
FALL 2012