Navigating the Workplace: What School Executives Should Know About Labor Relations

The chapters in this text are designed to provide administrators and leaders with background and strategy to help assist them in designing their own “play” calls when dealing with employees, unions, and labor leadership. Each chapter herein contains “Coaches Corner” and “You Make the Call” case study sections to help review the educational leadership message that was set forth in the pages of the chapter and provide a real-life inbox scenario for leaders and aspiring school executives who can discuss different play calls to utilize in specific circumstances. Sharing these discussions among students and leadership teams allows for growth and a sharing of ideas among individuals in the field.

Table of Contents:
Preface Acknowledgments Introduction 1Education, Personnel, and the Labor Movement 2Organizational Hierarchy 3History of Unions and Organized Labor 4Politics in the Workplace 5The Importance of the Labor/Management Relationship 6Labor Laws 7Labor Defined Among Industries 8Leading Together 9Power 10Negotiating to Win 11Contracts, Agreements, “Handshakes,” and Past Practice 12It’s Not What You’re Selling, It’s How You’re Selling it 13When to “Go to the Mattresses” 14Communication is Key 15Trust 16Strong leadership on Both Sides 17The Willingness to make Concessions 18The Art of Negotiation 19Response to Actions 20Antiunion Animus 21Pyrrhic Victories and Strategies of Labor Unions 22Avoiding Work Actions 23To Be or Not to Be: When Something Truly Is or Isn't the Appropriate Decision 24The Goldilocks Approach: Not Too Hot and Not Too Cold 25Impact of Important Labor Court Cases, Legal Considerations, and Precedents

About the Author :
Richard D. Tomko PhD, has been in leadership roles in non-profit, government, and private business organizations for the past 21 years. His expertise and research lies in the areas of leadership, management, policy, and business administration. Since 2003, he has successfully opened and managed several firms to assist clients with confidential strategic consulting, marketing, and the professional development of managers and leaders.

Review :
Navigating the gauntlet of leader responsibilities can be a daunting task for new and experienced leaders alike. Dr. Tomko provides a detailed map for navigating labor issues while also employing strong relationship-building and communication skills. This is difficult work and is often compartmentalized, narrowing the vision for robust decision making. Dr. Tomko's publication creates a clearly articulated path for how to blend the leadership spaces of the manager and the team builder to assist in building a healthy organization. Tomko has squarely hit the mark in Navigating the Workplace: What School Executives Should Know About Labor Relations and comes at a time when unprecedented challenges in public and private education, at all levels, require leaders to possess, or quickly acquire, skills that set the tone in establishing an organizational culture that leads to institutional success or failure. This book is an outstanding tool for both seasoned and new educational leaders searching for ways to positively address evolving dynamics between themselves and their teams. I am also impressed by the way Tomko presents to the reader a balance between theory, while also offering a “real world” perspective based on his extensive experience as a school superintendent and educational researcher and provides the reader with a best practices approach towards confronting labor relations issues as an educational executive in our nation’s schools, colleges and universities.