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91 more days off a year, cost neutral, with 85% union approval

91 more days off a year, cost neutral, with 85% union approval

Gallo Glass Company

Manufacturing

91

more days off per year, cost neutral

85%

union approval after six months

13

seven-day breaks per year

The problem

For 40 years, Gallo Glass employees worked the same 8-hour Southern Swing schedule: 14 straight days out of every 15. The family-owned Modesto plant (founded 1958) runs 16 lines around the clock and produces 2.5 million wine bottles a day. It already had one of the lowest attrition rates in the industry and average tenure above 10 years. Still, union employees and management both wanted more time off so people could be with their families and rest between shifts, without raising operating budgets. After evaluating several consulting firms, Gallo hired Coleman Consulting Group in 1997 for its union experience, its ability to stay cost neutral, and its focus on employee welfare. Connie Rush, HR Manager, put the goal plainly: give workers more time off so they could enjoy other areas of their lives, while holding the current operating budgets.

What we did

  • Worked side by side with employees across all three shifts, measuring work flow and productivity around the three shift changes
  • Surveyed every employee so the new program would meet their needs and stay cost neutral
  • Designed a 12-hour schedule with Gallo management and the Glass, Molders and Pottery Union (GMP)
  • Gained employee trust as a neutral party so management and the union could discuss change impartially for the first time
  • Implemented the new schedules within two and a half months of the union approval vote

The results

  • 91 additional days off per year
  • 13 seven-day breaks per year
  • 75% union approval at ratification, rising to 85% after six months
  • Cost neutral: operating budgets held
  • One fewer disruptive shift change, contributing to higher productivity and lower injury rates (not quantified)
  • Employees chose the 12-hour schedule themselves; one employee who had left came back because of the new schedule, and others said "If they took this away from us, everyone would quit"
In order to attain our business goals, we need to keep our people happy. After seeing the positive results and increase in morale, this change is nothing short of priceless and we couldn't have realized these benefits without Coleman Consulting.

Bill Holmes, Vice President, Gallo Glass

Need a union schedule change that sticks? Get a 30-minute workforce diagnostic.

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