The JLMC was envisioned to bring two organizations with differing and sometimes conflicting interests together to pursue goals of real meaning to both. At the time of its founding in 2008, staff were recently unionized and relations were considerably strained. Both organizations serve the same constituents – for Labor, its membership, and for KCLS, its staff. Both agreed a collaborative relationship would better serve one and all, while also assuring both perspectives and interests were brought to bear on matters of importance to staff and the organization. Working together would heal rifts, improve relationships and result in stronger outcomes.

Following the development of a Collaborative Labor-Management Agreement, the JLMC embarked on a multi-year project to redesign the System’s library staffing model to better deliver on KCLS’s strategic plan and mission. This was a massive undertaking that vitally impacted approximately 1,000 staff in a 1,200 person organization. The JLMC worked closely together for almost eight years to bring this project to completion. The past two years have been spent together developing a comprehensive response to a significant increase in safety and security issues across KCLS’s progressively more urbanized service areas. Both projects have realized complex goals, both technical and adaptive.

The collaborative was a healing process for an organization torn by the impetuses for unionization, the unionization process itself, and the administrative response. It improved relationships through shared work of meaning and created better outcomes through an ongoing collaborative approach to large scale problem-solving that has been realized far beyond original expectations. KCLS has multiple bargaining units and contracts, and there is no doubt unions are with KCLS to stay. Using substantive, meaningful organizational challenges as the foundation for concerted efforts toward positive change is a crowning achievement in KCLS’s recent history, and can only continue to serve as a foundation for good into the future.