Labor-Management Partnership Program

The Power of Partnerships

There is power when workers and employers partner together to build and sustain labor-management partnerships. Watch to better understand how labor-management partnerships work and how they are beneficial for both workers and employers.

What is a Labor-Management Partnership?

Labor-Management Partnerships are intentional relationships and commitments that bring workers, unions and employers together to make decisions, to think through, discuss and resolve challenges and to work to enhance the workplace for all. Labor-management collaboration fits squarely inside the Department of Labor’s mission: “To foster, promote, and develop the welfare of wage earners, job seekers, and retirees of the United States; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and assume work-related benefits and rights.”

Why should labor and management partner together?

Labor and management should make it a priority to partner together using the Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM) concept. Labor-management partnerships allow the team (workers, unions and employers) to:

• Identify problems and propose solutions to organizational challenges, that are either too complicated for or can’t wait for the next round of contract negotiations,
• Participate in pre-decisional involvement on workplace matters,
• Provide an opportunity for worker voice and involvement, and
• Contribute to creating a collaborative workplace.