Reducing Friction in Employer-Employee Relationships

Abstract

Friction constitutes a pervasive phenomenon in shop relationships. It has, however, received little attention. Concern has centered almost exclusively upon the more familiar and often dramatic labor Frictions and disputes, of course, are closely related. Both constitute forms of human behavior-negatively charged behavior-within a specific work environment. Both have their causes, because all human behavior is caused-motivated-by a multiplicity of subjective and objective factors. But these two related forms of shop behavior also differ one from the other. A dispute represents behavior that has crystallized into a concrete incident. It is embodied in demands, issues, or complaints; it is handled by defined procedures; it is ended by a settlement. In a word, the conflict, dispute, grievance, or even difference has been formalized. It has become a discrete episode, precipitated out of the continuous flow of shop relations for resolution within a framework of law and custom-the so-called grievance machinery-or by bargaining across the negotiating table, or by a test of strength. Friction, in contrast, comprises the whole matrix of precursor-behavior that may eventually produce an explicit dispute. It is fed by all the negative currents of feeling and sentiment entering into the continuous flow of shop relations-the resentments, fears, suspicions, and antagonisms arising in daily dealings in particular shops and stores and mines and mills. Friction contains the ingredients of conflict before they have crystallized into the overt clashes termed disputes. Friction in the shop thus belongs clearly to the unceasing interaction of management and men in daily work. It portrays a continuing aspect of the dynamics of industrial behavior. The episodic character of disputes, however, makes it unfortunately easy to detach each controversy from its whole context. Indeed, the very pressure for disposing of the specific issues to which a dispute has been reduced strengthens the tendency to isolate the incident from all that has preceded and all that will follow it.