Research Paper on:
Chemco Case Study

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employees employed at the different plants, all of whom belong to one union or another. New management streamlined but also brought in a philosophy of employee participation, put into practice  through teams that run each plant. Management levels were reduced from seven to three. The compensation system changed to team-based with criteria in seven different areas. There were mixed reactions  from employees. What evolved, however, was a suspicion among employees that union representatives were acting in complicity with management.[110 words] The Union As the changes were made from directive  management to team-based collaborative management, union officials began working more closely with management. Their motive was to save jobs by becoming directly involved in strategic planning and organizational design. However,  union officials began questioning whether or not the new management team really knew what they were doing. One of the key problems was a different definition and interpretation of the  concept of empowerment. The purpose of empowerment was to shift responsibilities from middle level supervisors, who became advisors instead of supervisors, which reduced operating costs. Employees had to take on  more work but there were some who refused to do so. Union officials needed to clarify the meaning of empowerment. What degree of autonomy and decision making power would  be given to each team? Was their an identified leader for each team or was the team supposed to determine that? Union officials also needed to negotiate a better  team incentive and one that was based on the teams productivity rather than on seven other variables. Huszczo and Hoffman comment that the meaning of teams differs between organizations  as does the motive for using teams (1999). As we read, the interpretation and even the implementation of the teams differed at each plant. The motive was not necessarily one