Workforce practice for plants that never close

I build trades succession from a named roster rather than a headcount forecast. For each maintenance technician, electrician and die-cutting setup specialist, the plant HR manager and maintenance supervisor record retirement eligibility, the equipment that person knows best and who could learn it. At Corrinwood that review showed folder-gluer controls at Erie to be our most exposed skill. We respond with registered apprenticeships run with Tobermane Community College, paid working time for classroom days and mentors drawn from technicians in their final working year. Where an agreement covers selection, I negotiate the rules with the union, usually seniority among applicants who pass the college's entry assessment. Hiring experienced technicians still has a place for urgent gaps. I do not let sign-on bonuses become the plan, because they move a regional shortage between neighbouring employers without reducing it.

Most plants inherit their shift pattern and bidding rules. I examine both as choices with measurable effects. I compare turnover, recordable injuries, overtime and supervisor coverage by shift rather than by plant, and I read first-year leaver interviews from nights separately. Where new employees cluster on third shift, I look at premiums, voluntary senior assignments, supervisor placement and maintenance coverage before proposing rotation, because rotating schedules impose real costs on sleep, childcare and second jobs. In our represented plants, hours and premiums are mandatory subjects of bargaining under the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, so any change goes to the table. At Lima I try to offer equivalent terms without waiting to be asked. Twelve-hour patterns need particular care: some crews prefer them and others find them punishing, so I ask before assuming.

Three of our four plants have union-represented employees under separate agreements with different expiry dates. I lead bargaining with the plant managers and outside counsel, and I meet each local's officers between negotiations rather than only when a contract is ending. My practice is to table few proposals and explain each, to show the chief executive the full cost of every economic item before it is offered, and to settle grievances early when we are wrong. At Lima, where employees are not represented, I apply the same standards of notice, explanation and appeal, partly because people deserve them and partly because federal law protects concerted activity in non-union workplaces as well. I never present one plant's terms to another plant's employees as a threat or a reward. Comparing plants is legitimate in bargaining; implied consequences are not.

Our recordable injury rate has fallen, but the figures I watch more closely are near-miss reports per hundred employees and the share of supervisors who have completed our safety leadership module. Folder-gluers, die-cutters and platen presses can injure a hand in seconds, and most of our serious incidents have involved clearing a jam without full lockout. OSHA's lockout/tagout standard sets the minimum; whether operators follow it at four in the morning depends on whether their supervisor stops the line without complaint. Our environmental, health and safety director reports to the chief operating officer. I own supervisor selection, training and coaching, which determine whether the procedures hold. New supervisors at Corrinwood now complete six months of structured development before running a shift alone, including a week on nights beside an experienced colleague.

When we buy a plant, its employees did not choose us. I begin with the documents they rely on: pay rates, attendance rules, shift patterns, benefit plans and any undertakings the seller gave. At Bowling Green the workforce was paid about fourteen percent below our Lima rates and worked a rotating twelve-hour schedule. We announced a two-step wage increase at closing and brought the plant into our safety and supervisor programmes within ninety days. Benefit plans changed at the next plan year, after employees received the differences in writing. I now add a scheduling review in the first month. Integration budgets often fund systems and signage but not the people decisions that determine whether experienced operators stay, so I put those costs into the acquisition model before the board approves a price.