JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. –
Col. E. John Teichert, 11th Wing and Joint Base Andrews commander, and Ramona Hawkins, Joint Base Andrews’ American Federation of Government Employees 1401 president, signed a Labor-Management Forum Charter Oct. 11, 2016.
The charter was signed to signify the establishment of a cooperative and productive forum between labor and management relations by discussing workplace challenges on a regular basis.
“This charter creates a productive and regular forum for labor and management to cooperate with one another,” Teichert said. “It will benefit the entire team as we ensure a harmonious work environment while pursuing the mission side-by-side.”
The LMF is intended to promote efficiency, improve employee satisfaction and give workers an opportunity to have their voice heard.
“With this forum, the union has some part of the decisional input on how things happen on base,” Hawkins said. “Sometimes the component of how it might affect the worker on a day-to-day basis gets lost in the big picture, and it really should be part of that big picture.”
To ensure a balanced perspective of JBA, the personnel on the forum consisted of representatives from Air Force District of Washington, 11th Wing, 79th Medical Wing, 459th Air Refueling Wing and 89th Airlift Wing.
The forum affects over 650 civilian individuals and it has three main goals: 1. Improve the ability to accomplish the mission and deliver quality products, services and protection to the public; 2. Improve the quality of employee work life and 3. Improve the Labor-Management relations climate. While it currently involves only one of the unions on-base, the goal is to include all unions supported by JBA.
“It’s a means for labor and management to sit down and talk about issues that affect the work force,” said Bill Babcock, 11 Mission Support Group deputy director. “Our goal is to reduce the amount of grievances to help the overall atmosphere of the work force and management.”