Harmony in Labour Relations. I: New Trends on the American Scene

Irish Jesuit Province

Harmony in Labour Relations. I: New Trends on the American SceneAuthor(s): Daniel LyonsSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 77, No. 908 (Feb., 1949), pp. 69-74Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20515935 .

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HARMONY IN LABOUR RELATIONS I.?New Trends on the American Scene.

By DANIEL LYONS, SJ.

HENRY FORD II recently criticized management for spending millions of pounds annually on improving its equipment, while at the same time never bothering to improve its relations with

its employees, nor even to understand them. There can be no doubt

that if employers in the past thirty years had spent half as much time

cultivating the friendship, respect, and goodwill of their employees as they have spent fighting organized labour, they would have been

far more successful.

Management is coming to realize that success or failure in business

depends more on success or failure in its industrial relations than on any other single factor. Far-seeing businessmen are placing more

value on the human equation. They have discovered that contented

and discontented workers do not produce equally. Progressive industrialists insist that for employers to cultivate the friendship of

their employees with as much energy as they expend in cultivating the friendship of their business associates is only common sense.

They maintain that unless employees are interested in the welfare of the firm for which they work and enjoy the satisfaction that comes

from doing their job efficiently, no business can endure in a com

petitive economy. In the improvement of labour relations, management should take

the initiative. It has everything to gain from industrial peace: the

service it renders to society would be better understood, public good will would be assured, slow-downs would largely be eliminated, strikes

would occur less frequently, and greater productivity would emanate

from more contented workers. Most managers, however, are

primarily businessmen, more skilled in finance than in the field of

human psychology. Many have failed to show the understanding and imagination necessary for the promotion of industrial peace.

Management in the past has suffered from its myopic conviction

ihat all labour problems are wrapped up in the size of the pay-check. That this is an over-simplification is obvious from the fact that many

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firms with higher wages have more strikes than others with much

lower wages. A living wage is necessary, and it is the first moral

duty of industry, but in itself it is far from enough to bring about

good labour relations. Statistics prove that wage rates are usually not the real cause of labour trouble. Out of a dozen surveys, not one put wages as the main cause of strikes. Wages appeared fifth, sixth and tenth on the list of strike causes. The surveys indicated

that wages do not cause strikes as much as does the insecurity of

job tenure, the failure to settle grievances promptly, and the general lack of interest by management in the worker.

Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution industry seems to have

been overlooking the fact that man was patterned after the Divine

Image, not as a mere automaton for production. To subscribe to

the theory that workers are interested only in the amount of their

pay, to overlook the moral, physical, social, psychological and

political factors in human motivation is to adopt the economic deter

minism of the Communist system. It would be a strange anomaly if those very employers who are worried about Red labour leaders

were themselves unconsciously to operate on this key principle of

Marxism. Yet this is obviously the case when management, after

agreeing to pay a just wage, adopts a policy of guerrilla warfare in

regard to contract provisions, if its handling of plant rules amounts

to a policy of pin-pricks, if it ignores just grievances, if it substitutes

favouritism for seniority in the matter of promotions and lay-offs.

Enlightened management believes that the day is past when

employers could insist that "

this is my business, and 111 run it as I

feel like ". As Mr. Henry Nunn, of the Nunn-Bush Shoe Company, declares, the attitude of dictating to the workers "merely begets a

similar attitude on the part of labour". He continues:

"Management-labour relations is not primarily an economic

problem. It is also a social and pyschological problem. A

worker strikes for the same reason one man hits another man.

The worker is mad at the boss and he wants to hurt him. And

the only way he knows how is to strike. It is just a way of

telling the boss to go to hell."

Such employers as Mr. Nunn insist that the question of wages is

less important than fair treatment, security, and a reasonable hope of promotion. They know that peaceful human relations cannot be

insured by a contract alone; they are convinced that industrial

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harmony depends on far more than written agreements or labour

laws.

To say that industrial relations are human relations is to utter an

obvious truism of which management has been aware for many

years. Recent developments, however, indicate that management is

just beginning to realize the far-reaching implications of this truth.

Too often a wall has been built up between management and labour

which leaves the two groups like enemies in a state of temporary truce. Many employers now realize that the wall must be broken

down, and that they must take the initiative if it is to be removed.

No longer do they feel it is enough merely to furnish such pre

requisites as adequate ventilation, decent washrooms, and sufficient

lighting. Management is beginning to realize that if it is to view the

worker as a human being it must look upon its shops as social institu

tions in which the employees are entitled to citizenship. The recent election in America was a warning to management that

it cannot sit back and expect labour legislation to substitute for

harmonious labour relations. It had a chance at that during the

past two years, under a Republican Congress, but it is now evident

that this device was a failure. More than ever before, management must face the fact that people in every type of work are prepared .to

quit their jobs for what they consider to be their rights. The energy behind this determination cannot be burked by passing laws, either

in America or in Ireland. It is too late for that. The challenge for

management everywhere is whether or not it has the imagination and

the ability to lead this energy into constructive channels.

There is a new school of employers who believe that the whole

traditional approach to the problem of employee relations is incorrect.

Management all too often looks on labour merely as an economic

cost. The average employer says of wages : "

How little can I pay and still hold the work force?" Yet the same employer says of

advertising : "

How much can I afford to spend on advertising in

1949?" Many employers, such as Mr. Charles Luckman, the presi dent of Lever Brothers, now maintain that such an attitude is not

only inhumane, but short-sighted. They feel that the people who make

their product are just as important as the jingle that sells it. In other

words, they are convinced that superior workers spell superior work

manship. They believe that, although wages may seem to be the

cause of industrial unrest, such intangible factors as self-respect, social

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recognition, and the need for security are the underlying causes of most labour difficulties.

At the root of much industrial unrest stands big business. Even if the modern corporations had all the fairness and goodwill in the

world there would still be special problems simply because business is big. John Ruskin, in his book, The Medieval and Modern Work

man, pointed out: ?

" It is not that men are ill-fed, but that they have no pleasure

in the work by which they make their bread, and therefore look to wealth as the only means of pleasure."

Although he penned these lines over sixty years ago, Ruskin touched on one of the most difficult of all labour problems to-day. The fact that so many jobs require no skill is a problem, because it makes the

worker lose interest in his work. It is one of the most difficult of all labour problems, because it cannot be solved directly. The late Edsel Ford estimated that 43 per cent, of all the jobs in his plant could be learned in a day, while another 40 per cent, could be learned

in a week. He estimated that 99 per cent, of Ford jobs could be

learned in from a day to a year. Similarly, a Chrysler official stated

recently that three-fourths of their employees had been trained in less

than three days. It is no wonder that such workmen are lacking that

satisfaction and sense of accomplishment which come from being able

to take pride in one's work.

This does not mean that everyone who performs unskilled labour

must be dissatisfied. But it does mean that the unskilled worker

should be made to feel that his work is important, that it is appre

ciated, and that he has not been lost in the crowd. Otherwise, he

is going to feel like a cog in a huge machine, and no human being whose mind has been fashioned after the creative Intellect of God is

content to be a mere cog. There is a certain type of cruelty liable

to result from the awful impersonalization attached to working is

large establishments. Thousands of employers have unconsciously contributed to this cruelty by failing to realize that industrial relations

are human relations, that factory "

hands "

are human beings.

Many employers are well aware that the modern corporation ha*

become extremely calloused in the treatment of its employees. The} realize that labourers have usually been looked on altogether imper

sonally, as part of a vast "labour market", from which individual:

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LABOUR RELATIONS

can be hired or not, as needed. To get a worker the corporation has not even to give a ration coupon, and to retire him it has not even to pay the expense involved in retiring worn-out machinery. Until

recently, for example, if an extra miner were needed to dig coal one

day a week, he was supposed to live near the mine, ready for work when needed, yet no provision was made for the fact that he and his

family had to eat regularly, whether they were employed regularly or not.

Machinery, since its invention, has always been looked on as "

capital equipment ", something that has to be maintained in good condition even when not being used. Machinery has always been cared for, serviced on a long-term basis, and money has been set aside regularly for the day of its replacement. To the

workers, however, has generally been ceded the inferior status of a raw material, to be bought only when needed, to be employed only

when profitable, to be laid off and forgotten when broken down or

exhausted. Yet it is clear that the human being who operates a

machine, much more than the machine itself, needs to be cared

for, maintained in good condition, provided for on a long term basis, and that funds should be set aside against the day when

he becomes worn out and must be replaced. In the ideal order, labour should share in some way in the partnership of industry. At least

labour must be looked upon as a capital asset, rather than merely as a

raw material.

Studies of the human element in industry are not new. In the

early 1920's considerable research was pursued concerning the

individual worker. At that time concerted effort was made to

establish the fitness of a particular worker for a specific task, and

successful studies were also made to get more production with the

same amount of effort. To-day there is a pressing need for more

sociological and psychological studies of the worker himself. Much

has yet to be learned about man's hopes, interests/and desires, in so

far as these motivate and organize his work behaviour. The famous

Hawthorne experiment by General Electric opened up new vistas

which are still largely unexplored. It and similar studies indicate the

powerful effect that such factors as friendship, rivalry, leadership,

personal problems, motives of approval, and financial incentive play in regard to work performance. In the words of Professor T. N.

Whitehead, these studies reveal that "significant changes in work

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IRISH MONTHLY

behaviour can always be traced to changes in mental attitude, rather

than to physical circumstances".

Professor Whitehead goes on to show that these changes in mental

attitude usually relate to the human relationships of the workers, either

among themselves or between themselves and management. He

maintains that as long as employees are working well within their

physical possibilities their output depends on their morale. This

is conditioned mainly by the interest their work has for them, as work

is ultimately performed because it provides an acceptable mode of life

and because it satisfies the creative human need for self-expression.

Many authorities believe that employers in general have just begun to scratch the surface of their labour problems. (Some seem to be

still an inch away from scratch.) All familiar with the field agree that

there is a great deal of progress yet to be made, and that the induce

ments for management to pursue the quest are incalculable. As

young Henry Ford has well said:? "

If we can solve the problem of human relations in industry, I believe we can make as much progress toward lower costs

during the next ten years as we made during the past twenty-five

through the machinery of mass production." Whenever industry in the past was confronted by an apparently

insurmountable difficulty, it rose to the occasion. Each problem became a challenge; each difficulty an opportunity. This same spirit, which has made western civilization the industrial colossus of the

world, can likewise solve the difficult problem of human relations in

industry.

[Next month's article on Harmony in Labour Relations will

present the opinions of leading American industrialists on how

industrial harmony can be improved. The third article of this series

will discuss the problems and possibilities of the main employee pro

grammes now being tried in the United States (1) the guaranteed annual wage; (2) multiple management; (3) profit-sharing.]

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Harmony in Labour Relations. I: New Trends on the American Scene