Nobody has a monopoly on

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The prospect of negotiating new shift HowJaguar Land Rovers Des patterns was, JLR's HR director Des Thurlby "a nice problem to have". It was to prove Thurlby brought 24-hour working to says, a shining example of the way unions and major manufacturers are shedding their traditional Merseyside - with the union's blessing distrust and collaborating effectively. ifteen years ago, a visit to the Halewood car manufacturing plant on Merseyside wouldn't have been for the faint-hearted. The Ford-owned facility was at the epicentre of the industrial unrest that had long dogged the industry, and leaked plans fot its closure had seen hundreds of workers march on the company's headquarters in London, with rumouts of a nationwide strike. Disaster was averted - with both Ford and the Unite union claiming victory as production of the Jaguar X-Type was moved to the site - and today, Halewood makes a much happier hunting ground. In fact, the work there never stops, after current owner Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) announced plans this summer to move to round-the-clock production.
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"Both sides wanted it to work because it meant more jobs, more success for the company and more job security for everybody," says Thurlby. "But we needed to identify what the roadblocks were and how could we joindy work together to knock those ovet." The main sticking point was a proposed Friday night shift brought about by the tound-the-clock operations. JLR was seeking a balanced threeshift pattern from Monday to Friday, to ensure the right number of Land Rover Freelanders and Range Rover Evoques rolled off the production line. But the prospect of finishing the working week at 6am on a Saturday morning proved unpopular with Unite union members, who make up 98 per cent of the workforce at the factory. "There were also issues around more mundane - but important - things such as ^^ car parking and canteens, but the biggest

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ideas. You also need to be honest: the union came up with suggestions that just wouldn't work from a manufacturing process or quality point of view, and the union pointed out when our suggestions wouldn't work from a popularity point of view." Industrial relations have undoubtedly changed since the days of visible discontent and unseemly stand-offs at the factory gates. GM-owned Vauxhall agreed a wide-ranging new contract covering shift patterns and wages when it agreed in May to produce the Astra at Ellcsmere Port until at least 2020. In the US, Detroit's major car makers have radically renegotiated working practices after a tumultuous slump, though tensions still run high. JLR says its spirit of compromise helped it recruit an extra 1,000 employees earlier this year to staff the third shift at Halewood (it received 30,000 applications), bolstering the site's workforce to a 20-year high of 4,500 and providing an influx of young workers which has rejuvenated "the buzz" on the shopfloor.The factory's just-in-time parts suppliers also had to hire extra people to synchronise with Halewood's round-the-clock working - a boost which Thurlby believes has created hundreds ofjobs in the region. Having spent his entire career in the car industry - he joined the personnel graduate trainee scheme at Ford's Dagenham plant in the 1980s - Thurlby is no stranger to the mixed fortunes the sector has faced over the years, having run a redundancy programme at Halewood as recently as 2008. He describes the transition as "almost famine to feast", though Unite continues to seek assurances that the company (now owned by India's Tata Motors) will retain production in the UK in the longer term. Smith, who has worked at the Liverpool plant for 38 years, acknowledges it was a "strange phenomenon" for the union to be negotiating challenges brought about by business success. "Twenty-four hour production was something we never thought we'd see here," he says. "We were used to managing failure, and almost found it diflicult to manage success." But with a recruitment drive planned in 2013 for a new JLR engine plant in Wolverhampton, and the business plotting a course for its expansion into China, Thurlby hopes they will get plenty of practice. M

Start talks in good time

"Speaking to unions early enough usually means a deal can be reached," says Smith. Be flexible "Reccgnise that both sides will have good suggestions," Thurlby says - but be honest about when a proposal won't work from a business perspective. Be ready to compromise "One side rarely gets all that it wants - prepare tomeet halfway in negotiations," Smith says. Communicate openly "It's about having a dialogue that is continuous and not just every now and again," concludes Thurlby.

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of all was: 'Do I have to work Friday night when I would normally be with my friends an<i famuy ?'" says Thurlby. "So we had a long negotiation around how we could avoid the Friday night shift. I spent a couple of days in the plant with the stewards to hammer out the solution. It wasn't adversarial or aggressive - both sides went back and forth with a number of alternatives," he says. Kenny Smith, Unite's full-time convenor at Halewood, agrees that when negotiations with local management looked like they might be stalling, Thurlby's presence at Halewood proved pivotal to breaking the impasse: "Des can see a middle way through most things. After a couple of visits, we ended up with an agreement." A compromise proposal was put to Unite's members, who backed it by 70 per cent in a ballot. Staff now rotate on early, late and night shifts on a weekly basis. The working week starts at 5am on Monday and finishes at 12.30am on Saturday morning, with some shorter break times over the five days to accommodate a 37.5-hour week. Thurlby says: "It's important to recognise that not just one side has a monopoly on brilliant

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