In the strategies devised by some of the larger national unions to win a campaign on which they have embarked, the particular relations of a company and its employees may be regarded as irrelevant. The battle is on for certain gains or improvements or for a broad industrywide policy and the most important consideration for the top union leadership is the most effective method of attaining the ends desired. For instance, in the steel and motor industries the campaign for pension and welfare provisions was no respecter of individual companies. The steel strike was a general strike against all steel companies but directed particularly against the United States Steel Corporation. When the Bethlehem Steel Corp. agreed to terms acceptable to the union, these became the pattern for the industry and, as other steel firms accepted such terms, the men went back to work. Prior relations of individual companies and employees had little to do with either the strike or its duration. Indeed, months later the local union in one of the important companies repudiated the national pattern and accepted a contributory plan which they could have had without a strike. In the automobile industry there was no general stoppage. The union could not do otherwise than make its demands against one of the Big Three, regardless of its prior relations with the smaller companies. For the union this was the propitious time-following the successes of both the United Mine Workers and the United Steelworkers. It happened that the largest automobile company was operating under a 2-year contract which had not yet terminated. The demand was made on another of the Big Three whose contract had then terminated. The settlement was indefinite and controversy regarding it continued after the men went back to work. In the meanwhile there was no strike against any of the smaller companies, some of which agreed, as they traditionally do, that they would accept the terms agreed to by the leaders. However, when the contract of the third of the Big Three terminated, a strike was called which lasted more than 3 months before a satisfactory formula was agreed to by the parties. The largest of the Big Three, being no pace-setter now because of the accident of chronology, settled on terms of the pattern already created. In these two important industries it would be hard to establish that the benchmarks of good industrial relations indicated in the studies of the National Planning Association had much influence on the course of events.

A similar generalization could be made regarding any one of the hundreds of coal companies where the nature of the bargaining, the product sold and the cost-price situation requires a general settlement by the industry before any individual firm can afford to come to terms. And in the controversy on the railroads regarding the number of men necessary to operate Diesel locomotives, the struck lines were widely separated roads whose prior industrial relations were no worse than those of others not struck; nor were the struck roads the only roads which refused to use two firemen on the Diesels. They were selected solely on strategic grounds to make it hurt and yet to avoid a national tie-up and drastic Presidential action to protect the national health and safety.

The strategy of the union movement and its national aims and purposes can result in the confrontation of particular employers with demands which might seem to them beyond their power to handle or control unless they too join with other employers similarly circum

stanced. In this, as in other ways, the union movement is forcing a greater amount of group action on employers and requiring them to consider and to act upon problems which heretofore had not been the concern of the individual businessman at the plant level or of the management of individual companies. Moreover, in the course of actual bargaining the strategy employed by the union negotiators may greatly influence the possibilities for peaceful settlements. These may involve the relations of the local to the national union, the degree of authority of negotiating committees to make final decisions, the extent of joint action by different unions, the rivalries among and the internal pressures within different unions.

CHAPTER V

SOME EXPERT ADVICE ON MAKING COLLECTIVE

BARGAINING WORK

There is a growing literature in the form of advice to the parties on what they should or should not do if they are to succeed both in protecting themselves in the joint venture of collective bargaining and in making the relationship constructive and successful. It deals with subject matter to be included, attitudes adopted, procedures followed, relations developed, and conceptual differences compromised or ironed out. This chapter presents the views of three recognized experts on the pitfalls of collective bargaining and on the conditions which in their view can make for mutual success in collective bargaining.

SUMNER H. SLICHTER: CONTENTS OF A GOOD AGREEMENT

A collective bargaining agreement embodies the substance of the relationship of the parties. Prof. Sumner H. Slichter, of Harvard University, has long been a student of union agreements. While he fully appreciates the human and democratic values of unionism, Dr. Slichter has also been deeply concerned with the effects of collective bargaining on the operations of business and on the functioning of the economy. He concludes from his many detailed studies of union contracts, union policies, and labor-management relations under the changing conditions and pressures of our economy that there are about 10 conditions which a good agreement should meet if it is to promote the interests of the parties and the public weal. These are:

1. It should give security to the union.

2. It should give management reasonable opportunity to select its own employees,

3. It should protect management from being required to discharge valuable employees because of the imposition of discipline by the union unless the discipline has been reviewed by the same umpire who reviews discipline imposed by management.

4. It should give management reasonable freedom to make changes in methods and equipment.

5. It should give workers reasonable protection from technological changes. 6. It should not enforce wasteful utilization of labor.

7. It should provide an orderly way of allocating work in the event of a drop in the demand for labor by the enterprise. It should protect the workers from permanent lay-off because of temporary declines in the demand for labor.

8. It should permit management to retain reasonable incentives to encourage efficiency.

9. It should provide machinery for determining the meaning of the agreement in the event of disputes over its interpretation and for enforcing the agreement in the event of violation by the employer or by the union.

10. It should provide machinery for hearing grievances which do not arise out of alleged violations of the agreement but which arise because the employer or the union is acting in ways which the other regards as unfair (Sumner H. Slichter, The Challenge of Industrial Relations, pp. 57–58).

These elements of a good collective-bargaining agreement were itemized by an economist who has been a careful student of union policies as they affect national prosperity. The emphasis is on the elements which bear on both the efficient conduct of business and the equitable distribution of the human costs of change and progress. Yet the itemization is different principally only in form and detail from the generalizations in the National Planning Association studies. They both reflect the conviction that successful collective bargaining takes into account the problems and the needs of both union members and employers. Professor Slichter's criteria refer more directly and in greater detail to practices which might adversely affect consumers and the public or which add to cost of production without equivalent offsetting benefits to workers. At the same time they refer to a broader area than the conduct of industrial relations between a particular firm and a particular union.

Professor Slichter concludes that both management and labor can make important contributions toward improving the results of collective bargaining. To management he says:

1. Help the union feel secure; in other words, make plain to the members that the management has no desire to discourage membership in it. Any fears on the part of the union members or officers that management will discourage membership will greatly increase pressure to limit or destroy management's discretion in hiring or making lay-offs, transfers, or promotions. Such fears will also cause the union to seek to win the support of workers by arousing fear of management and antagonism toward it.

2. Make the job of the union representative as easy and pleasant as possible by dealing with him promptly in a matter-of-fact way, making an effort to get to the bottom of cases quickly, and disposing of them without unnecessary delay. This, of course, does not assure that the union representatives will be easy to deal with. The better the service that he is able to give his members, however, the greater his prestige with them and the less the danger that he will have to foster trouble in order to stand in with a radical minority in the union.

3. Give the union a chance to straighten out an employee who is failing to observe shop rules or who is producing work of poor quality. Management can do this by warning the shop steward of the man's deficiencies. If the employee fails to observe the warnings of the shop steward, the steward is in a better position to refuse to plead the man's case when discipline is imposed.

4. Keep the union well informed about the business and the plans of the company. Perhaps the most frequent mistake which employers make in the field of labor policy is not to tell the union officers and members enough about the business. The greater the importance which both management and union attach to common interests, the greater is the likelihood that they will work out trade agreements and interpretations of trade agreements which are satisfactory to both. I venture to repeat my reference to the manufacturer in the Middle West who insists that the shop stewards meet with management once a month because he does not wish people trying to represent his employees who do not know the facts about his business. Certainly union representatives cannot be expected to know about the employer's problems unless the employer is willing to inform them.

5. Seek the help of the union in encouraging good attendance, good production, good quality. Do not confine the union to the narrow negative role of policing the agreement.

6. Consult the union representatives before putting into effect new policies or rules which affect the employees. Invite criticisms of the proposals and sugges tions for improving them from the union representatives.

7. Be prepared to back decisions of management with facts and to show how and why management reached its decisions. Be ready to consider facts and arguments offered in criticism of management's decisions. Be unimpressed by oratory, table pounding, or threats.

8. Do not reward violations of the agreement by yielding to men who engage in wildcat strikes or slow-downs. Be prepared even at great expense to assert the rights given management by the trade agreement with the union. Any other course is expensive in the long run. The issues which produce wildcat strikes or slow-downs should go to the umpire unless withdrawn by the union and should not be heard by the arbitrator until the question of discipline for the participants in the wildcat strike or the slow-down has been settled.

9. Do not "short circuit" the union. If the management intends to introduce benefits not required by the agreement, seek the advice of the union and make the announcement jointly with the union.

10. Do not let misstatements by the union about the company or the management pass unnoticed. Public reply is usually both unnecessary and undesirable. The author or publisher of the misstatements, however, should be called in for a conference and given the facts. This policy will usually lead to union representatives' learning to inform themselves properly before making statements about the company or management (p. 62-64).

To the unions Professor Slichter offers the following advice:

1. Know the long-run interests of the union members and see that the members know their long-run interests. A few leaders of unions are extremely well-informed concerning the economies of the industries in which they operate. Unfortunately most leaders have very limited knowledge of the economic problems of their industries. In particular, many union leaders are inadequately informed concerning the competitive position of their industries. Nevertheless, union officers are usually better able to see long-run consequences of given policies than is the individual member. Hence unions should be an influence for helping members to take a broader and longer view of their interests than they would take if left solely to themselves. Union leaders, for example, should be a powerful influence in advising members against insisting upon make-work rules because, at best, make-work rules give the union members only a temporary benefit and because in the long run a large part of the cost of such rules falls on the members themselves. 2. Avoid building loyalty to the unions by fostering misunderstanding between workers and management and by endeavoring to arouse fear and hatred of management. Most managements are good enough and fair enough so that efforts of union leaders to "smear" them backfire and undermine the confidence of the rank and file in their own union leaders. Furthermore, this tactic makes the management distrust the union and hold aloof from it, thereby limiting the possibility of the union representatives' developing useful contacts with the management.

3. Invite the management to inform shop stewards concerning employees who are failing to do satisfactory work so that the steward can investigate such cases, warn the employee if such action seems indicated, or protest to the management if that action seems appropriate.

4. Develop the union into an effective agency of communication between workers and management by training shop stewards in the work of investigating and presenting grievances and by training special representatives to make technical criticisms of time studies, rates, job standards, job evaluations.

5. Welcome opportunities to cooperate with management in improving quantity and quality of production (pp. 64-66).

Professor Slichter would, however, not leave everything to the joint determination of collective bargaining. Writing during the period when amendments to the Wagner Act were under consideration and before the Taft-Hartley Act was passed, Professor Slichter averred that it was necessary for the Government to protect the community interest and the public welfare in a number of ways if collective bargaining was to fulfill its function of establishing a better balance. among the interests of workers, management, and consumers. Chief of these was the need to protect the integrity of management by forbidding unions from requiring membership of supervisory employees and provision of a procedure to prevent undue or unreasonable obstruction to technological change and increased efficiency.