Keeping the workplace peace

Paul Clinton

With a surgeon’s calm, John Hermann explains his philosophy about

repairing the broken bonds between employee and employer.

Hermann, president and chief executive of Labor Relations Services

Inc. in Newport Beach, usually intervenes when a shop is on the verge

of unionizing.

“[Unionizing] pits hourly employees against management,” Hermann

said. “It creates an internal fight on a regular basis. That is no

way to run a railroad.”

Hermann came out of retirement in 1998 to form the company. It was

a retirement that Hermann says lasted exactly two days, after almost

three decades as a labor mediator.

Companies with labor headaches turn to Hermann to guide them out

of their misery.

Kevin Kelly, who founded Emerald Packaging Inc. in Union City,

turned to Hermann’s company after he came to work one day and saw his

parking lot strewn with leaflets urging his employees to unionize.

Two of Hermann’s consultants surveyed the employees, collecting

more than 60 complaints about the lack of fairness in the way

supervisors were treating workers. Hermann prepared recommendations

for solving some of the problems, which Kelly said he implemented.

“Those moves turned around the immediate situation,” Kelly said.

“I have no doubt that letting managerial mistakes pile up again will

prompt another visit from the union.”

While union membership in the workforce has dwindled -- now, only

13.3% of workers in the country belong to unions -- the threat to

employers is still taken seriously, Hermann said.

Hermann’s services include an employee attitude survey, focus

groups and small group sessions to expose employees’ gripes.

Hermann earned his master’s in social psychology from Arizona

State University in 1973 and went to work for Kraft Foods as a labor

mediator. In 1978, he joined American Consulting Services, based in

Newport Beach.

Four years later, Hermann founded Total Employee Relations, which

he sold in 1998 before starting his current firm.

Hermann, 53, says the majority of employee issues can be ironed

out by management as long as there is a mutual loyalty, trust and

respect. Oddly enough, Hermann, when he was at Kraft, developed a

reputation as a manager who could skillfully fire employees.

“I ended up being so good at firing employees that they would end

up thanking me,” Hermann said. “I’ve always viewed myself as an

employee advocate and an agent of change. It can be done

judiciously.”