AROUND THE TABLE

...For most employers, it is the time when the union tries to upset the balance sheet and cut into the hoped for dividends by making unwarranted demands both as to finances and working conditions...

...This has been the attitude and will continue to be the attitude until more American employers recognize unions as an essential part of the economic system under which management is prospering, and entitled to greater consideration...

...Collective bargaining, for most working men, is that time, once a year, when their representatives sit around a table with the bosses and try to get a real wage increase which the union should have won the year before...

...They have done an accurate job in their descriptions, although they admit that few relationships in actuality follow their pattern rigidly...

...It would have been interesting had they added a fourth category, open conflict bargaining, which marks too much of our labor-management relationships today...

...Denying that collective bargaining is a "revolutionary force," the authors rightly assign it the role it is rapidly assuming today, that of a constructive force in a free society, providing of course there is no collusion between unions and management in exploiting monopoly power...

...Reviewed by Aldric Revell TODAY, when virtually every union engages in collective bargaining but few analyze its impact on our capitalist society, such a book as this is important because its provocative treatment of the subject encourages serious consideration and reassessment of the roles played by management and labor...

...However, within the categories they lay down, the authors detail what causes one type of bargaining to be "armed truce" and another "union - management cooperation" and describe the benefits and pitfalls of each...

...Collective bargaining can make its greatest contribution toward achievement of society's goals by protecting and enhancing individuals' rights and freedom on the job," they say, adding that it establishes a code for workers on the job as well as providing a means by which workers may participate in non-wage decisions...

...If nothing else, this book might encourage employers as well as workers to stand back and take anothejr look at what they are really doing when they sit across the table negotiating contracts...

...They analyze what they call armed truce, working harmony, and union-management cooperation types of collective bargaining...

...The authors of this small book made a first hand study of collective bargaining as practiced in a wide variety of businesses, and seek to fit this relation between management and labor into a permanent niche in the economic system, as a constructive element in a free society...