Human Resources and Labor Relations in the UsafHuman Resources and Labor Relations in the USAFMG 420 (Term Paper)September 12, 2012How Human Resources and Labor Relations is done in the USAF.The world of business has evolved into a dynamic, complex and demanding marketplace, with markets stretching across international boundaries and rapid environmental and technological advancements. This is no different for the civilian human resource department for the United States Air Force. The USAF from weathering significant draw downs, base closures, and as well as shifting challenges of the two-war paradigm the United States Military has submerged itself in over the last decade. In order to survive in a world with planes without pilots and 500,000 people spread across the globe, the USAF has always used and will continue to use its human resource management for support in rejuvenating its aging workforce, continuous diversity guidance, and formulating a successful strategy that will react quickly to evolving mission and to deploy to any location of armed conflict…while taking care of its people.
Human resource management originated as personnel management as a result of the industrial revolution that swept the western world at the beginning of the 18th century. Gone were the days of the two person workshops, to be replaced by large factories laden with thousands of needy HR employees. As production moved from farmlands to city factories, concerns grew about wages, child labor, and long work days. Workers began to unionize and revolt against the work conditions, protect their interests, and improve overall living standards. With this impasse Employers started realizing that productivity was connected to worker satisfaction and disgruntled employees were a huge setback. They realized that they would need a group of people that could help both the bosses with the hiring and firing and being a voice to help with safety and health issues for the working masses operating in the new era of factory employment.
Its believed that the first personnel management department began in Dayton Ohio, at the National Cash Register Co. (NCR). Company President John H. Patterson was faced with fixing employee relationships in the aftermath of a major strike at the turn of the century. His desired vision was to organize a personnel department to handle grievances, discharges, safety and other issues to meet employee needs. The company had skilled laborers that it wanted to retain, and not lose to other competing companies. The new personnel department also kept track of pending legislation and court decisions to help the organization as a whole. The NCR personnel department was the first personnel managers provided training for supervisors on new laws and practices. It was the beginning to what
>was a new era of work for the company, led by the first employees manager. • The NCR staff began to form a regular, non-union organization in which each director of the employees department was a deputy. • In the early 1920s, the office of the chairman began to work together to form an independent, non-corporate staff. But the NCR soon fell out of favor because of its leadership and the loss of three of its chief executives, who left for London, Pa., in 1928. And in 1933, its two highest ranking executives were transferred. • The division was disbanded in the early 1970s. In 1973, the company became part of an independent agency, the Department of Labor. The NCR paid for a $19,600,000 private pension.
The NRC’s organizational history began with the formation of the Covered Company in 1909. The company operated as a union for a year, but when the National Insurance Commissioners, under the leadership of the then Vice Minister, brought the law change into effect in 1928, the Covered Company made no further efforts to organize other companies. An organized North American corporation known as the Covered Cops made a similar move, under the leadership of Joseph P. Pecoronello as executive director and John H. Patterson as the CEO of the NCR. The Covered Cops operated for a year by hiring a team of experienced NCOs to help them create an organization with superior leadership, training capabilities and organizational experience. Pecoronello and Patterson ran the NCR and the Covered Cops provided a team of three members to manage the Covered Cops. The NCR then operated through an organization of about 70 non-corporate personnel which included a general secretary, one director for all three branches of the Department, and a director for all its divisions. In 1929, the NCR’s corporate structure would be merged into the Covered Cops Corporation to form the National Stock Corporation or CPS Corporation. The Covered Cops merged with the National Police Corps and was incorporated with the Ohio State Police Department in 1927. Under Patterson’s leadership there was a long and successful union among the NPS and other employees of the Covered Cops.
The Covered Cops was a National Association of Police Agencies
One of the key elements of the Covered Organization that was recognized by the National Police Association was the Covered Cops’ strong involvement with police and the police-community response. The National Police Association established a policy to encourage employees of the Covered Cops to report crimes to the NCR. However, these cases involving police and community groups began to become more complex and difficult due to the lack of proper training and supervision. And police in the local precinct or other police departments could feel the brunt of the complaints if they could not act on the complaint directly.
The national authorities did not realize that their efforts to organize the police were being hampered as more police officers were involved in the police-community response. Because police agencies had little formal training in the subject of cooperation with police organizations and were not being trained as cops, they assumed liability