Company Unions Research Articles

Unionizing the Trinity Portland Cement Company in Dallas, Texas, 1934-1939

1934-35, Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration confronted a direct challenge to Section 7 (a) of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) in Dallas, Texas. A local panel of the National Labor Relations Board established by the president through power given him by a congressional resolution in June 1934 ruled that the Trinity Portland Cement Company had to recognize the overwhelming desire of workers at the company's plant in Dallas to name Portland Cement Workers Union Number 1 93 1 o as their exclusive bargaining agent. Portland Cement Workers Union Number 193 10 was affiliated with the Texas State Federation of Labor (TSFL) and the American Federation of Labor (AFL) . On December 10,1 934, however, the company notified the board that it refused to comply with the ruling.1 Although Trinity's workers had voted in favor of the union by a nearly unanimous margin of 150 to 2, company officials held out in defiance of the NIRA's labor provisions, hoping to retain their company union and reaffirm exclusive control over labor policies. Until January 1939, Trinity's workers battled an array of anti-union measures in an attempt to force the company to recognize their union and sign a collective bargaining agree-

The Effect of Micro and Macro Stressors in the Work Environment on Computer Professionals' Subjective Health Status and Productive Behavior in Japan

To investigate the effect of micro and macro stressors in the work environment on the subjective health status and productive behavior of computer professionals, we conducted a web-based investigation with Japanese IT-related company employees in 53 company unions. The questionnaire consisted of individual attributes, employment characteristics, working hour characteristics, company size and profitability, personal characteristics (i.e., Growth Need Strength), micro and macro stressors scale, and four outcome scales concerning the subjective health status and productive behavior. We obtained 1,049 Japanese IT-related company employees' data (response rate: 66%), and analyzed the data of computer engineers (80%; n=871). The results of hierarchical multiple regressions showed that each full model explained 23% in psychological distress, 20% in cumulative fatigue, 44% in job dissatisfaction, and 35% in intentions to leave, respectively. In micro stressors, "quantitative and qualitative work overload" had the strongest influence on both the subjective health status and intentions to leave. Furthermore, in macro stressors, "career and future ambiguity" was the most important predictor of the subjective health status, and "insufficient evaluation systems" and "poor supervisor's support" were important predictors of productive behavior as well. These findings suggest that improving not only micro stressors but also macro stressors will enhance the subjective health status and increase the productive behavior of computer professionals in Japan.

“Glorified Messengers for Management” or “Legitimate Unionism”? An Analysis of Local Independent Unions in the Post-Company Union Era

Local independent unions (LIUs), which have represented a sizable minority of union members, largely emerged from company unions once they had been declared illegal upon the upholding of the National Labor Relations Act. This paper constructs and analyzes three distinct patterns of the organizational transformation of company unions into LIUs to determine if these LIUs became autonomous and independent of management or remained controlled by the employer. It was discovered that, in a majority of the cases, these LIUs were legitimate unions that operated independently of employer domination.

We Are Independent: The Role of Employers in the Formation of New Unions Under the Employment Relations Act 2000

This paper reports on the, formation of new, predominantly workplace based unions or New Unions under the Employment Relations Act 2000 (ERA). Specifically it questions whether employers actively support and facilitate the formation of New Unions and whether they represent an independent form of employee representation. To date scholars have argued that employers play a significant, if not dominant role in New Union formation that limits their ability to act independently. Some have questioned their status as genuine unions, and implied that many represent a form of de-collectivist strategy that deliberately seeks to undermine more genuine union organisations, through the formation of tame or company unions. This paper argues that New Union formation is an employee driven phenomenon, and that little evidence of employers deliberately precipitating, or dominating, the formation process can be found. New Unions operate independently of employers whose involvement is more likely to reflect an acceptance of workers' legal right to organise collectively, established by the ERA, not a deliberate attempt to undermine existing unions.

Deference and Defiance in Monterrey: Workers, Paternalism, and Revolution in Mexico, 1890–1950

Deference and Defiance in Monterrey: Workers, Paternalism, and Revolution in Mexico, 1890–1950

Correlation between Negotiated Rents and Neighbourhood Quality: A Case Study of Two Cities in Sweden

The aim of this paper is to analyse whether or not differentiated rents reflect differences in neighbourhood quality in housing of similar quality and age in two target cities in Sweden. The system for rent setting in Sweden is partly based on a process of negotiation in which the annual change in actual rents is an outcome of negotiations between the local branch of the Swedish Union of Tenants and local municipal housing companies. One possible outcome of these negotiations could be change to the rental structure in the different neighbourhoods within the municipality. By allowing differences in negotiated rent outcomes in different neighbourhoods, a better relationship of rent level to tenant perception of neighbourhood quality can be achieved. It is the understanding of the authors that in a number of local-housing-market rent negotiations over the last decade, the parties involved have agreed on the need for and have consciously aimed towards making such adjustments. In this paper, regression analysis has been used to analyse data about rent levels for residential units from two cities in Sweden, namely Gothenburg and Luleå. It can be concluded that differentiated rents are indeed present, hence the existing rent-setting system in Sweden can be used to improve the relationship between rental structure and neighbourhood quality.

Labor Militancy in South Korea*

Korea has adopted the labor institutions of Japan, which are noted for ensuring industrial peace unparalleled elsewhere, fostering worker-management cooperation: company unionism, no temporary layoffs, synchronized annual contracts, seniority-based wages, and the bonus system. Yet the labor relations in Korea have been turbulent for the last 15 years, with its strike intensity exceeding that of any industrialized country during most of that period. Why is labor so militant in South Korea? This research identifies two types of factors responsible for Korean labor militancy. First are sociopolitical factors: abrupt decontrol of labor relations in 1987 for which labor and management were and continue to be ill prepared, and the dominance of the age-cohort of young, assertive workers in the workforce. The second factor is that Korean industrial policy and structure are shown to encourage union militancy as an unintended consequence.

The creation of the incapable social tenant in Flanders, Belgium. An appraisal

As long as the social rented sector housed traditional families and the allo- cation procedures were rather loose, there was little commotion about the sector. A combination of a change in family structures, economic changes, and the strengthening of allocation procedures in favour of those most in need did change perceptions. Marginalisation and ghettoisation, especially of high-rise social housing estates, became buzzwords. This paper deals with the causes of these changes and with their implica- tions. The marginalisation discourse calls for enlarging the target groups and estate- specific allocation procedures (to obtain a 'social mix'). It illustrates a profound desire to diminish the number of ethnic minorities, single parents, single-person households and all kinds of people with a weak income profile who gain access to social rental housing. Furthermore, this discourse is reaching a crescendo: after it was started in the early 1990s by staff members of local social housing companies, it passed through the union of the social housing companies, the umbrella organisation of the sector, and parliament, reaching its greatest momentum so far in early 2002 when it was adopted by the Flemish housing minister. The counterpoint to this negative discourse is the high degree of satisfaction among social tenants, as observed in a study carried out in 1999. In our paper we will try to explain the background of these opposing trends and the possible consequences for the social rental housing in general and for tenants in par- ticular.

W.L. Mackenzie King: Rockefeller’s ‘other’ public relations counselor in Colorado

This study profiles William Lyon Mackenzie King’s role as a counselor to John D. Rockefeller Jr. in the aftermath of the bitter 1913–1914 Colorado coal strike. Mackenzie King—not his more recognized counterpart, publicist Ivy Lee—provided many of the modern public relations ideas that Rockefeller eventually adopted to alleviate tensions and improve labor relations. These included the development of the Colorado Industrial Representation Plan, a prototype company union structure that was designed to facilitate employee communications. Mackenzie King, who later served 22 years as prime minister of Canada, also advised Rockefeller on a wide range of public relations activities, including testimony before government hearings, meetings with union leaders, community philanthropy in Colorado, and Rockefeller’s historic visit to Colorado in September–October 1915.

Cold War Americanism: Business, Pageantry, and Antiunionism in Weirton, West Virginia

After World War II, Weirton Steel remained a critical barrier to the unionization of the steel industry. Weirton kept unions at bay through a plan of high wages, welfare, and company unionism, which it combined with an authoritarian style of management. Forbidden from using intimidation by the federal courts, Weirton substituted a celebration of Americanism that associated freedom with limited government and an absence of unionism. Foreseeing a union drive in 1950, Weirton staged a pageant to dramatize its version of patriotism. The steelworkers countered with a competing version that stressed trade unionism as a way to give workers a democratic voice. This article reveals how postwar patriotic pageantry was rooted in the struggle between labor and capital.

Wage–Setting Institutions, Unemployment, and Voters’ Demand for Redistribution Policy

This paper examines unemployment, wages, and voters’ demand for redistribution policy under three different labour market structures: laissez–faire, wage–setting by company or industrial unions, and wage–setting by a central union. Decisions on the level of taxes and benefits are made by majority rule. Taxes, wages, and unemployment are lowest under competitive wage–setting and highest with decentralised unions. A higher degree of centralisation of union wage–setting implies lower unemployment and taxes because a fiscal externality is internalised. Under some conditions about the composition of the population, the political–economic equilibrium can further be improved upon by cooperation between the government and the central union. This seems to have happened in the Netherlands where the unions and the government agreed to cut taxes and restrain wages, which has led to the ‘Dutch Miracle’.

Changing Management-Union Relations: Consultation in the UK Pharmaceutical Industry

The revival of interest in workplace consultation in the UK reflects both a managerial drive for improved company performance and trade unions'aspirations that new legal rights may strengthen their role in the workplace. This article probes the links between managerial policy, union organization and activity and the wider product and labour market context through a case study of workplace consultation at a UK pharmaceutical plant. The research finds that both management and unions failed to gain from changes to the consultation process, largely as a result of the lack of strategic management, managerial fears about strengthening employee representation and weak trade unions.

Unnatural Extinction: The Rise and Fall of the Independent Local Union

This article analyzes what happened to independent local unions (ILUs), also known as company unions, since 1935. After providing a statistical analysis of ILU membership since 1935, the article looks at the factors that shaped membership trends: changes in labor law, the characteristics of ILUs, worker attitudes toward ILUs, and employers' industrial relations policies. New evidence is presented that suggests that even those employers who still favored ILUs in the 1950s were orienting them away from collective bargaining and toward the “new nonunion model” of the 1960s and 1970s.

Parents and schools: the 150-year struggle for control in American education

Who holds ultimate authority for the education of America's children - teachers or parents? Although the relationship between home and school has changed dramatically over the decades, William Cutler's fascinating history argues that it has always been a political one, and his book uncovers for the first time how and why the balance of power has shifted over time. Starting with parental dominance in the mid-19th century, Cutler chronicles how schools' growing bureaucratization and professionalization allowed educators to gain increasing control over the schooling and lives of the children they taught. Central to his story is the role of parent-teacher associations, which helped transform an adversarial relationship into a collaborative one. Yet parents have also been controlled by educators through PTAs, leading to the pereption that they are company unions. Cutler shows how in the 1920s and 1930s schools expanded their responsibility for children's well-being outside the classroom. These efforts sowed the seeds for later conflict as schools came to be held accountable for solving society's problems. Finally, he brings the reader into recent decades, in which a breakdown of trust, racial tension and parents' rights have taken the story full circle, with parents and schools once again at odds. Cutler's book is a valuable guide to understanding how parent-teacher cooperation, so essential for our children's educational success, might be achieved.

Borrowing from Europe? Employers' views on associability and collective bargaining reform in the new South Africa

This article reviews findings from a first survey of employers' views on collective bargaining reform that now forms the centrepiece of post-apartheid South Africa's experiment with 'democratic corporatism'. Using factor analysis, three constructs have been identified that inform employer attitudes to a revised system of sectoral bargaining: 'autonomous capacity'; 'conditional association'; 'external threat'. Despite the potential for anomie, these factors appear significant in the way they consistently explain an employer's orientation towards associational membership and, by proxy, sectoral bargaining. Moreover, at least two-thirds of responding firms identified strongly with each of the three factors but, typically, firms with weak capacity and in need of collective protection from the other actors are most likely to associate. Regression analysis further reveals company well-being, foreign ownership and union presence to have a significant impact on these three factors to varying degrees. Equally, two of the factors (autonomous capacity and external threat) impact significantly on an employer's tolerance of free-riding in others and on the temptation to do so for oneself. Overall, for this sample of firms, employer bodies are to be viewed more as 'political devices' than as 'economic agents' in the immediate aftermath of political liberation. In this sense, they are different from their European counter-parts. However, there is an increasing likelihood of this changing as the flexibility agenda looms ever larger in employers' minds and as issues of 'political insecurity' correspondingly fade.

Human resource management and Deming's continuous improvement concept

Abstract This article presents a loss minimization or continuous improvement model for human resource management (HRM). Minimization of losses arising from the interaction of two critical human resource (HR) quality targets, commitment and equity, requires ‘profound knowledge’ of social processes and the development of HR systems. The history of HR can be interpreted as a social continuous improvement process that makes use of four systems approaches: trust, bureaucracy, unionization, and regulation. Variance-minimizing tools that were appropriate for earlier phases of HR history (characterized by higher levels of HR loss) may be too blunt for the level of commitment industry now demands. Enterprise or company unionism may be a preferable quality management tool, although the National Labor Relations Act inhibits its adoption.

10th International Meeting of the European Union of Independent Lubricants Companies (UEIL)

10th International Meeting of the European Union of Independent Lubricants Companies (UEIL)

Review Essay: The Remarkable Rehabilitation of Company Unionism in Recent Industrial Relations Literature

In recent years industrial relations scholars have begun to reassess the historical experience in the United States with employer-dominated employee organizations. Arguing that such organizations are necessary for U.S. businesses to be competitive in international business, some scholars are attempting to rehabilitate such “company unions”. This paper examines the arguments of Bruce Kaufman, a prominent academic proponent of company unions, and concludes that the case is not made. Theoretical, methodological, and empirical problems are apparent in the argument. The article concludes by assessing the relationship between unions and corporations, and between classes in this country, and notes the failure of certain industrial relations scholars to understand the realities of those power relationships.

Historical perspectives on ideological and legal challenges to labor-management participation efforts

Labor-management participation efforts have grown dramatically under such forms as quality circles, total quality management, participation teams, and employee councils. Employers promote participation efforts as a means to increase employee commitment, product quality, customer satisfaction and company profitability. Nonetheless participation efforts are under assault both legally and ideologically. Segments of the labor movement challenge participation efforts as subterfuges for union busting and violations of existing labor laws. This article constructs an historical framework against which to cast the current debate over participation efforts. It traces the roots of differing ideological perspectives on participation efforts by examining the rise of the industrial democracy movement in the 1920s and the use of representation plans and company unions. The historical roots of differing legal perspectives on participation efforts are also examined. The article discusses the historical reasons why contemporary labor statutes were written with such strong circumscription of employee-employer participation efforts.

Modern manors: welfare capitalism since the New Deal

Acknowledgments 1The Coming of Welfare Capitalism 2Modernizing Welfare Capitalism 3Preserving the Past: Eastman Kodak 4Changing Styles: Sears Roebuck 5Recasting Company Unions: Thompson Products 6Beyond the Manor: Politics and Public Opinion 7The Cold War of Industrial Relations: Welfare Capitalism and Unionism in the 1950s and After Postscript Notes Index