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The Company Union Movement, 1900–1937: A Reexamination
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 June 2012
Abstract
The fostering of worker confidence in the organization has been a major goal of big business for a century. Professor Nelson, a well-known authority on the history of human resource management, here provides a new look at company unions. His view shows that the characterization of these organizations by liberal and labor critics was not always accurate. Some company unions represented noteworthy contributions to the development of a professional approach to labor relations.
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- Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1982
References
1 “The Company ‘Union’ Meets,” United Rubber Workers Council, ca. 1934.
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20 “Report of the Special Conference Committee,” July 15, 1920, 5; Hicks, My Life, 136–137.
21 National Industrial Conference Board, Experience with Works Councils, 5.
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25 The Leeds & Northrup Company Papers at the Eleutherian Mills Historical Library include the minutes and other records of the Leeds & Northrup Cooperative Assocation. The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Archives has a complete set of the Wingfoot Clan, which reported the activities of the Industrial Assembly. Minutes of Industrial Assembly meetings between 1933 and 1937 are available in National Labor Relations Board Papers, Case VIII-C-33, Record Group 25, National Archives.
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30 Nelson, Daniel, “‘A Newly Appreciated Art:’ The Development of Personnel Work at Leeds & Northrup,” Business History Review, 44 (1970), 521–522Google Scholar; Morris E. Leeds, “Plan for a Conference on Cooperation,” May 27, 1918, Leeds & Northrup Co. Papers.
31 Wingfoot Clan 8 (October 11, 1919), 1. Litchfield recalled that he had been warned that “young men, radicals and men of foreign influences” would dominate the Industrial Assembly. Paul W. Litchfield to F. A. Seiberling and G. M. Stadelman, May 3, 1921, Goodyear Archives. See Wingfoot Clan 10 (January 4, 1921, 1; (January 11, 1921), 1; (March 15, 1921), 2; (March 30, 1921), 2; (April 12, 1921), 1.
32 Executive Committee to Council, October 7, 1920, Leeds & Northrup Co., Papers.
33 NICB, Experience with Works Councils, 164. Cooperative Association Minutes, November 22, 1920, Leeds & Northrup Co. Papers.
34 Cooperative Association Minutes, January 17, 1922, Leeds & Northrup Co. Papers. Executive Commit tee Minutes, October 17, 1922, Leeds & Northrup Co. Papers. The Plan appears in Stewart, Bryce M., Unemployment Benefits in the United States (New York, 1930), 529–531.Google Scholar
35 Wingfoot Clan 18 (November 6, 1929), 4.
36 Managers' exact roles in company unions seem to have been a function of the size of the companies. Leeds & Northrup executives were involved in the day-to-day operation of the Cooperative Association. Goodyear personnel officials handled these duties; but top executives, including the marketing and financial vice presidents, presided at innumerable picnics, banquets, and social outings. For a similar pattern, see Giddens, Standard Oil Company, 343–344.
37 Allen, House of Goodyear, 185; “Fourth Assembly, 1922–23.” Goodyear Archives. See Wingfoot Clan 13 (February 27, 1924), 1.
38 Wingfoot Clan 15 (January 20, 1926), 3. “Seventh Assembly, 1925–26,” Goodyear Archives. Wingfoot Clan 15 (February 17, 1926), 3; (March 10, 1926), 1. The Goodyear employees' satisfaction with the Industrial Assembly is acknowledged by men who later became active in the CIO union, presumably a hostile group. See, for example the statements of two men who served as vice presidents of United Rubber Workers Local 2. Interviews with Ralph Turner, May 10, 1976 and Charles L. Skinner, April 23, 1976. American History Research Center, University of Akron.
39 Cooperative Association Minutes, September 13, 1927, December 18, 1928, April 18, 1930, December 16, 1930, Leeds & Northrup Co. Papers. Sarah Kirk to Council, April 22, 1930, Leeds & Northrup Executive Committee Report 54; General Wage Committee to Council, July 15, 1930, Leeds & Northrup Co. Papers. Apparently this was as close as the company came to the appointment of a personnel manager. After 1922 the Cooperative Association committees performed most of the duties of contemporary personnel departments.
40 Executive Committee to Council, April 29, 1931; Cooperative Association Minutes, May 20, 1931; May 25, 1932; June 23, 1932; August 4, 1932. Wingfoot Clan 19 (July 23, 1930), 1; (October 15, 1930), 3. See Brody, “Rise and Decline of Welfare Capitalism,” 76. The early history of the United Rubber Workers is traced in Roberts, Harold S., The Rubber Workers (New York, 1944).Google Scholar
41 D. H. Schultz to Leeds, White, Johnson, June 15, 1932, Leeds & Northrup Executive Committee Report 59, Leeds & Northrup Co. Papers.
42 Wingfoot Clan 22 (July 5, 1933), 3–4; (August 2, 1933), Supplement; Bernstein, Lean Years, 280, 491. Both men served on NRA advisory committees. Litchfield made the NRA administrator rather than the Goodyear directors the final arbitrator of disputes between the Assembly and the management. Cooperative Association Minutes, March 26, 1934, Leeds & Northrup Co. Papers. Report of Executive Officers and Research Director to the First Convention, United Rubber Workers of America, September 14, 1936 (Akron, 1936), 4; Paul W. Litchfield to Ralph A. Lind, January 17, 1935, Goodyear Archives; Wingfoot Clan 23 (November 7, 1934), Supplement; (November 21, 1934), 1; 24 (March 27, 1935), 1; Roberts, Rubber Workers 201–203.
43 Cooperative Association Minutes, March 13, 1934; “Statement of Representatives of the Cooperative Association of Employees of the Leeds & Northrup Company, March 27, 1934”; U. S. Senate, Committee on Education and Labor, Hearings, 73 Cong. 2 Sess. (Washington, 1934), 449–456, 551; Cooperative Association Minutes, April 5, 1934; Special Committee on Labor Legislation to C. S. Redding, April 10, 1935; Leeds to J. E. Whisler, April 12, 1935; Cooperative Association Minutes, Juty 8, 1935, August 15, 1935, Leeds & Northrup Co. Papers; Wingfoot Clan 23 (March 28, 1934), Supplement; 24 (April 3, 1935), 1. Cooperative Association Minutes, May 20, 1937; C. S. Redding to Executive Committee, November 26, 1937, Leeds & Northrup Co. Papers.
44 Roberts, Rubber Workers, 212–217; Wingfoot Clan 24 (October 24, 1935), 1, 3; (October 30, 1935), 5. “Disestablishment of Goodyear Industrial Representation Plan,” National Labor Relations Board Papers, Case VIII-C-33, Record Group 25, National Archives. Akron Beacon Journal, August 25, 1937.
45 Gullett and Gray, “The Impact of Employee Representation Plans,” 98.
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