The provision of a safe environment for work is a necessity in every organization. Safety relates to productivity, quality, and productivity and is thus a significant aspect for any company. Safety culture is a crucial to all firms and its development requires commitment and effort. In the automobile industry, often safety is considered as a separate entity from the company's manufacturing culture. Labor unions such as the United Autoworkers (UAW) engage workers from the automobile industry to ensure that the organizations are committed to safety (Minchin, 2019). The purpose of the UAW is to create a revolution through the integration of safety into the automobile cultural ethics. They ensure the safety of workers by joining the decision-making platform and provide strategies which incorporate employees in all processes of design, production, and quality assurance.
The United Auto Workers (UAW) is considered one of the largest industrial unions. However, its membership to the workforce has continued to decline, which is associated with the preference of companies to recruit non-union workers. (Hogler et al.,2015).The case study 'Driving away the UAW' focus on the Volkswagen motors, an automobile manufacturing company, and its union-management relations. The UAW efforts to seek for members from the company was frustrated even after adequate backing from the company's management. The secret ballot elections conducted to determine the decisions of the workers showed that the majority of the workers were unwilling to become members of the UAW (Minchin, 2019). The decision was embraced by the management as the majority choice and was respected as the final voice. However, the union membership has been declining as associated workers face threats of job loss and reduced benefits.
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Creating a safety culture in organizations require top leadership involvement and engagement in implementation. There is a need to champion for a positive safety culture as it boosts the trust of employees and their management as well as the relationship between unions and the company's management (Devinatz, 2015). Safety in the workplace should be an initiative of the top management to ensure that a culture of safety is established through the development of long-term sustainable change in safety performance (Hogler et al.,2015. However, many companies have failed in this regard prompting the UAW to engage in the struggle for safe and health working conditions for workers.
Building a culture of safety requires accountability and leadership. The automobile industry has successfully created a culture of safety through employee accountability and responsibility in safety measures. Apart from union involvement, a safe environment for work lies in individual performance which demonstrates their accountability. The approach evaluates the attitude of the worker towards the promotion of healthy and injury-free environment (Hogler et al.,2015). UAW, on the other hand promotes safety by offering workers numerous training programs to educate workers on health and safety hazards they experience in the workplace and how the workers can work together with employers to mitigate the hazards.
Safety in the automobile industry can also be achieved through a strict adherence policy. The policy should ensure that there is no compromise on individual well-being in the conduct of the company's business. Since organizational culture is linked to safety, it is essential to change the culture to achieve improvement and maintain safety performance. Organizational leadership focus on building a safety culture through changes in leadership behavior where leaders perceive themselves as leaders of safety (Devinatz, 2015). The process entails a persistent change in actions, attitudes, and assumptions on safety. For example, leaders are required to openly engage in security as well as influence others to keep the company safety culture evolving at all times.
Majority of automobile companies in their advancement of safety in the workplace have safety goals. They include beliefs and values such as all accidents are preventable and that safety should be the overriding priority in all of the company's activities (Hogler et al.,2015). Safety performance changes are also implemented through a top-down transition to ensure a full cycle were workers give their concerns, and the management responds accordingly.
Safety adherence policies in automobile industries are also strengthened by the unions. By joining the UAW, workers are assured of protection as the union committee members participate fully in the rulemaking process and ensure that the rights of workers are safeguarded. The role of unions in automobile industries is to improve standards that protect workers by lobbying decision makers and making use of strong bargaining language that workers cannot effectively use on their own to attain meaningful changes in safety standards.
The process of building a safety culture also incorporates union and employee participation. UAW has a critical role to lobby for full implementation of any approved programs and the provision of better safety practices (Devinatz, 2015). Therefore, in building a culture of safety, the union, and management work together to achieve a common goal of creating significant changes in safety (Minchin, 2019). Such activities include participation in training and workshops to transform the leadership towards safety culture change.
Different circumstances could have triggered the Volkswagen motor company worker's decision not to join the UAW. For example, the firm business hinted possibilities of moving the company to a less unionized area which might have forced workers to reject the union and accept lower pay. Other reasons include company claim that by workers joining unions, they threatened the firm’s ability to obtain state incentives. Works were afraid of losing their jobs and benefits such as car leasing at lower market prices. The union seeks to secure its members' interests by ensuring that they work in safe environments. Thus, by failing to join the union, the workers will miss a partner to lobby for their safety without direct confrontation with the management.
References
Devinatz, V. G. (2015). Right-to-Work Laws, the Southernization of US Labor Relations and the US Trade Union Movement’s Decline.
Hogler, R. L., Hunt, H. G., & Weiler, S. (2015). Killing unions with culture: institutions, inequality, and the effects of Labor’s decline in the United States. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 27(1), 63-79.
Minchin, T. J. (2019). Look at Detroit: The United Auto Workers and the Battle to Organize Volkswagen in Chattanooga. Labor History , 1-21.
