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Industrial Relations Policies Of American Management 1900–1933

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Norman J. Wood
Norman J. Wood
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Economics atUniversity of Georgia
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Abstract

The first third of the twentieth century completely transformed the practice of industrial relations in American business. Three principal motivating forces may be identified. These not only fluctuated in time, place, and influence, but have received unequal and less than impartial historical attention.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , Winter 1960 , pp. 403 - 420
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1960

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References

1 Professor Bendix has made a detailed study of the evolution of American managerial ideology since the 1890's. See Bendix, Reinhard, Work and Authority in Industry (New York, 1956)Google Scholar, chap. 5. Professors Brown and Myers have concentrated on the changes in managerial philosophy since the 1920's. See Douglass V. Brown and Charles A. Myers, “The Changing Industrial Relations Philosophy of American Management,” in Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Meeting of Industrial Relations Research Association (Dec., 1956), pp. 84–99. Professor Witte has traced the major causes of management changes in policy and practice since the beginning of modern labor relations policy around 1890. See Witte, Edwin E., The Evolution of Managerial Ideas in Industrial Relations, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations (Cornell University, Bulletin No. 27, Nov., 1954)Google Scholar.

2 An eyewitness paints a picture of this period:

An enormous number of different-sized parts were used in the machines put out by the concern, and as is the practice in the average old-fashioned shops these parts, coming from foundry or machine-shop were dumped at any vacant space in the rambling collection of buildings, sheds, and passage-ways. A man never knew exactly where to find any of the parts of the machine he was assembling. Moreover, he never was certain of finding at his machine the tools he had left the night before. It was his usual habit to spend the first half-hour or more in the morning getting things together and often rowing with his fellows over tools which he believed they had taken from his bench. This is so characteristic a practice that it is no unusual thing for workingmen to hide their tools on leaving the shop at night. (Tarbell, Ida M., New Ideals in Business [New York, 1917], pp. 16, 17.)Google Scholar

3 Lescobier, Don D. and Brandeis, Elizabeth, History of Labor in the United States, 1896–1932, Working Conditions (New York, 1935), p. 303Google Scholar. This is one of four volumes on labor history written under the guidance of John R. Commons.

4 Witte, Managerial Ideas, p. 6.

5 Bendix, Work and Authority, p. 274 f.

6 Welfare work has been described as “anything for the comfort and improvement, intellectual or social, of the employees, over and above wages paid, which is not a necessity of the industry, nor required by law.” This definition would exclude employer-sponsored insurance, pension or profit-sharing plans. (United States Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin 250 [Feb., 1919], p. 8.)

7 Lescohier and Brandeis, History of Labor, p. 318.

8 Tolman, William H., Social Engineering (New York, 1909), p. 355Google Scholar.

9 Lescohier and Brandeis, History of Labor, p. 321.

10 Ibid., p. 317.

11 Ibid., p. 316.

12 Computed from Wolman, Leo, Ebb and Flow in Trade Unionism, National Bureau of Economic Research (New York, 1936), p. 192Google Scholar.

13 The major reason behind the failure of unionism to penetrate manufacturing, of course, was the great wave of immigration which started after the Civil War and continued until World War I. The changing composition of this immigration was also significant. Prior to 1880, nearly two thirds of the European immigrants came from western Europe. Around 1880, immigration from eastern and southern Europe increased rapidly, accounting for a majority of new arrivals between 1895 and 1917. The eastern and southern European immigrants found their job opportunities in the factory, not on the farm as had the western Europeans. They were unskilled, lacking in knowledge of English, often illiterate, and anxious to obtain and hold a job. Should a union organizer seek to crystallize the grievances of these workers into action by the formation of a union, the employer could quickly replace those interested in unionism with still newer immigrants who were eager for their jobs. It is probable that such practices evoked little public concern. See Report of the United States Immigration Commission, 1901, vol. XV, p. xix. Hearings of House Committee on Immigration, 68th Cong., 1st Sess., Dec., 1923, and Jan., 1924. Report of the United States Immigration Commission, vol. IX, pp. xxiii, xxix.

14 Lescohier and Brandeis, History of Labor, p. 316.

15 Latimer, Murray W., Industrial Pension Systems in the United States and Canada, Industrial Relations Counselors (New York, 1932), pp. 26–28Google Scholar, 30, 35, 474, 483.

16 Emmett, Boris, Profit Sharing in the United States, U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin 208 (Washington, D. C., 1917)Google Scholar.

17 Lescohier and Brandeis, History of Labor, p. 376.

18 Chaney, Lucian W. and Hanna, Hugh S., The Safety Movement in the Iron and Steel Industry, 1907–1917, Bulletin No. 234, Bureau of Labor Statistics (Washington, D. C., June, 1918), p. 13Google Scholar.

19 Lescohier and Brandeis, History of Labor, p. 367.

20 Ibid., p. 366.

21 Work Councils in the United States, National Industrial Conference Board, Research Report No. 21 (New York; Oct., 1919), p. 1Google Scholar.

22 Collective Bargaining Through Employee Representation, National Industrial Conference Board (New York, 1933), pp. 8, 9Google Scholar.

23 Miller, Earl J., Workmen's Representation in Industrial Government (University of Illinois, 1924), chap. I.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., pp. 322, 323.

25 Wolman, Ebb and Flow in Trade Unionism, pp. 236, 237.

26 Lescohier and Brandeis, History of Labor, p. 331.

27 Turnover dropped from over 10% per month in 1920 to 2% per month in 1921. “Turnover Study by Policyholder's Service Bureau,” Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. This study covered about 350 manufacturers having approximately 6,000,000 employees. Personnel Journal, vol. VIII (Oct., 1929)Google Scholar.

28 Lescohier and Brandeis, History of Labor, p. 327.

29 Industrial Relations in Small Plants, National Industrial Conference Board (New York, 1929), p. 20Google Scholar.

30 Witte, Managerial Ideas, p. 9.

31 In September, 1920, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce published the results of a referendum submitted to its members in which a large majority of them endorsed dealings with shop committees. U. S. Chamber of Commerce, Special Bulletin, No. 31 (Sept. 1, 1920).

32 Lescohier and Brandeis, History of Labor, p. 351.

83 Brooks, Robert R., As Steel Goes (New Haven, 1940), p. 78Google Scholar.

34 Collective Bargaining through Employee Representation, National Industrial Conference Board (New York, 1933), pp. 15–18Google Scholar.

35 Of this total, 43.5% worked for railroads, 34.2% were in manufacturing employment and 18.5% worked for public utilities. Latimer, Industrial Pension Systems in the United States and Canada, pp. 39–41; Table VIII, p. 57; App. Table I, pp. 470 ff.; App. Table II, pp. 474–477.

36 Ibid., pp. 7, 843, 846.

37 Employee Stock Purchase Plans in the United States, National Industrial Conference Board (New York, 1928), pp. 2, 35Google Scholar.

38 Witte, Managerial Ideas, p. 8.

39 Roethlisberger, F. J., Management and Morale (Cambridge, 1943), pp. 13, 14, 15Google Scholar.

40 “Official and unofficial propagandists united in developing a nationwide interest in the protection of America against dangers believed to inhere in free immigration and unassimilated masses of foreign born residents. Americanization and immigration were discussed from coast to coast in clubs, lodges, churches, schools and industries. The subject was ‘front page copy’ in newspapers and magazines, especially from 1917 to 1919.” [Lescohier and Brandeis, History of Labor, p. 28.]

41 Ibid., p. 30.

42 The annual average immigration from 1922 to 1931 was approximately 340,000 per year as compared with about 1,002,000 per year from 1905 to 1914. See the annual reports of the United States Commission of Immigration. Both the 1921 and the 1924 immigration laws favored admission of immigrants from northern and western Europe over those from southern and eastern Europe. For example, the 1924 law allotted 84% of the annual quota to the former area. This remained the case until July, 1929.