A DUAL RESPONSIBILITY
J., Rev. Edward J. Hogan, S.
Labor-Management Relations: A DUAL RESPONSIBILITY By Rev. Edward J. Hogan, S. J. Last year. The New Lemder published two pioneering articles by John Daniels On January 10. he tot forth his plan...
...Now circuses have joined the list Of items anti-Communist...
...We capitalists are overlooking a great reservoir of talent by not inviting these men on to the boards of directors of our corporations and boards of trustees of our universities and other public institutions...
...This very relationship, Professor Walker believes, dooms to failure the efforts of such employers to promote mutual understanding...
...This plan is in advance line with a current industrial trend...
...New members from the ranks of labor would require the same indulgence...
...But the very imminence of the peril is awaking, a generosity, a willingness to sacrifice, in a word, virtue which gives hope that the cooperation sought by Mr...
...Furthermore, because of the wide powers given to the boards already, courts are likely to endorse any such arrangement if approved by the present directors, unless manifestly injurious to the stockholders...
...Newspaper headline...
...Daniels has himself pointed out, however, that dual responsibility is already accepted in the case of directors chosen for their connection with banks, etc., to which (as well as to the corporation) they are responsible...
...Professor Friedrich Baerwald of Fordham University in his Fundamentals of Labor Economics writes of the growth of political responsibility among unions in England i.nd France when labor received a share in government...
...Richard Armour...
...What of it...
...It's startling news, since over here " The time seems swiftly drawing near When some of us may be afraid Of ordering pink lemonade...
...Daniels recommends a democratic American solution to this problem of the concentration of economic power...
...THERE IS AN OLD American superstition to the effect that corporations are run by the stockholders or by boards responsive to the wishes of stockholders...
...Professor Walker, while appealing for the spirit of partnership, shaves Mr...
...Daniels' admonition as regards providing managerial training for workers chosen to participate in policy-making...
...But be the labor representatives few or many, their introduction into the inner circle—presupposing a cooperative spirit all around—would be a vast step towards the harmony which should exist among the partners in a close-knit enterprise, and would reduce the dangers presently mounting from concentration of power in too few hands...
...So control of man's thoughts is predicted . By scientists, savants, and seers...
...According to law, of course, the stockholders are the owners of the corporations, and directors are their representatives...
...All hope for the future depends upon d return to first principles, upon a reaffirmation of spiritual and moral values—without which there is no sense of personal responsibility...
...In any event, it should be noted at the outset that Mr...
...Newspaper headline...
...Newspaper headline...
...For prehistoric stuff...
...And he quotes James F. Lincoln, of the Lincoln Electric Co...
...GoOD fences made good neighbors...
...W HY seek in caves, we'd like to know...
...WITH A GREAT NUMBER of owners and employees, thinkers and writers, devoting themselves to these problems, it may confidently be hoped that there will be an ever-increasing spirit of partnership among the elements contributing to American industry...
...Daniels' articles appeared...
...Both the board of directors and the union would first have to mature so as to really want to be partners...
...There is also a wider question involved—the whole question, namely, whether the vast economic power wielded by our great corporations should continue to rest in the few people now in control...
...Daniels and other public-spirited leaders will be achieved...
...A just warning, indeed, if only we bear in mind that even now young directors may lack the seasoning that will come with experience On the board...
...Both article* aroused widespread interest...
...So much for the effort to improve the spirit of partnership in enterprise, and the effect of elevating worker members to management posts and directorships...
...This is attributed to the breaking down of friction between workers and employer, to labor's increased sense of "belonging," and the assurance that it would receive its due share of increased profits of production...
...The corn of screen and radio Is primitive enough...
...One final point...
...John Daniels, in The New Leader and before the Joint Congressional Committee on Labor-Management Relations, for organic partnership between management t.nd labor...
...The falsity of this notion was brilliantly exposed by Berle and Means in their book The Modern Corporation and Private Property...
...The New Lemder has published a number of commentaries on Mr...
...This will accrue to the benefit of industry and to elimination of the injustices, despotism, jealousies, and threats of unreasonable government interference, with which industry is now bedeviled...
...He evidently intends, therefore, that the plan should be introduced gradually...
...Or anyhow suspect of tending Toward that unhappy, bourgeois ending...
...In Frost's fine words—let's heed them While noting this, amidst our labors: Bad neighbors make us need them...
...They are able and attractive men...
...In /act, however, state laws and court decisions have given such wide powers to the directors, and stockholders are so numerous and so divided, that the directors can do almost as they like, and can be brought to task at law only for the most flagrant malfeasance or betrayal of trust...
...In all such moves as this," he says, "a worker participating in company affairs at a major management level should never be placed in a position that is over his head...
...Daniels should vastly develop the responsibility of labor leaders...
...Russia Accuses Circuses o] "Bourgeois Tendencies...
...J. T. Convocation...
...of Cleveland, to the effect that this military type of management "has, of course, failed in competition with any enlightened attempt to get cooperation...
...He would require that such worker-representatives be first given some experience in positions of management so as to be better equipped for their duties on the board...
...he tot forth his plan for an organic partnership of management and labor...
...he re examined this plan in light of the now contract between General Motors and the CIO United Auto Worker...
...Because of widespread abandonment of these principles and values we are faced with a social breakdown of the gravest proportions...
...He wrote in the Chicago Law Review: "Among my warm friends are a number of labor leaders...
...Professor Ross G. Walker's article on 'The Misinformed Employee," in the Harvard Business Review of May, 1948, is concerned with the great number of workers at odds with the employer because they refuse to believe the latter's true reports on the state of the business...
...In my opinion he should be competent to meet one seasoned judgment with another, and should have full appreciation of the necessities that must go along with so high an expression of confidence...
...For a full test of the plan, the ground would have to be prepared...
...Similarly, every reasonable increase of labor's share in management opens its eyes to the latter's problems, decreases its suspicion that ihe employer is a hostile power, and puts the leader of labor in the position of being obliged to help keep all wheels turning...
...His plan to have labor nominate some of the corporation's directors merely considers that inasmuch as political government in a democracy is divided and limited, so should economic sovereignty be representative of the groups it rules, and not vested in an oligarchy which is despotic even when benign...
...EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL Thought Control Predicted at Af...
...Ignatius Loyola in New York City...
...That being supposed, invaluable benefits could be anticipated...
...S. J. Father Hogan is Assistant Pastor of the Church of St...
...He is Moderator of the Social Order Forum, an organisation of men of that parish, and presides at neighborhood meetings for the study of industrial questions...
...ON THE FENCE Radar Fence jor Nation is Sought...
...Hogan has also written and spoken frequently on the subject of labormanagement relations...
...ON THE QUESTION of the competence of worker representatives we may well quote the midwestern business leader, Cyrus S. Eaton...
...New item...
...Yet the false assumption of stockholder control continues to influence the public mind...
...IT IS TO BE HOPED that we shall hear a great deal more of the recommendation made by Mr...
...But that article indicts the bulk of American employers for striving to win over workers with mere statistics and explanations, while maintaining the old master-and-man autocratic relation ship...
...Since Mr...
...He suggests placing workers, chosen by their fellow-workers, on the boards of directors of corporations...
...No system is any better than the people who work it...
...The boys in the/Kremlin Have done it in Russia for years I ¦ HEY, RURE...
...On July 31...
...Lawyers may be disposed to find illegality in the proposal, chiefly on the ground that by law directors must be responsible only to stockholders...
...Even this might not be necessary for union officials whose business competence had been proven in their dealings with management, and whose information had been developed from ihe excellent research departments of the more advanced unions...
...Daniels has no starry-eyed notion of ham-stringing corporations by electing to'their directing boards workers of unproven ability...
...Leading With My Left KERNEL OF TRUTH A missing link of the plant world—the most primitive corn known to botanists—has been discovered in a New Mexico cave by two young Harvard scientists...
...THE CLOSER APPROACH to partnership recommended by Mr...
...Daniels' proposal, and is glad to present in this issue a discerning observation by Rev...
...Many labor-management committees, during the war and since, resulted in increased production...
Vol. 32 • June 1949 • No. 23
