How did your relationship with your employees hold up through these changes?

The union leadership was a full partner in last year’s efforts.

By centralizing and redesigning many work functions, we are operating effectively with fewer employees. By January 2008, we had approximately 10 percent fewer positions than we had 12 months earlier.

We made a commitment that we’d do everything possible to reduce positions using attrition, and we lived up to that promise. Virtually all reductions were made through attrition, or voluntary severance. And because we kept employees informed of pending changes, a number of them took the initiative to find positions with other companies before the changes took place.

While we restructured our operations, we committed ourselves to hiring from within the company whenever possible. Since the time we announced the reorganization, we filled more than 80 percent of our open positions with existing employees.

That’s not to say it’s been easy. Our union/management team worked hard over many months to make sure employees had plenty of options and that they would be treated equitably if their positions were eliminated. Yet some employees still had to make tough choices, moving into new positions or in some cases even relocating their families to
remain with us.

It’s been a challenge for all of us to learn new ways of doing our jobs, operating with fewer managers and employees, and looking at our work differently. However, I’m very proud to say that everyone in the company – from managers to our human resources team to the union leadership and individual employees – acted with respect and integrity throughout the process.

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