Organized Labor and Management Control
| Author | Neil W. Chamberlain |
| Date | 01 March 1951 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271625127400122 |
| Published date | 01 March 1951 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
152
Organized
Labor
and
Management
Control
By
NEIL
W.
CHAMBERLAIN
THE
charge
that the
effect
of
labor
unions
and
their
program
of
collec-
tive
bargaining
is
to
usurp
managerial
authority
is
an
old
one.
It
is
virtually
coincident
with
the
rise
of
unions
them-
selves.
The
accusation
has
been
made
with
more
heat
and
frequency
in
our
day
probably
because
of
the
greater
prevalence
of
collective
bargaining,
pos-
sibly
also
because
of
the
rising
fear
that
new
forms
of
economic
control
are
threatening
the
kind
of
institutions
the
managers
have
known.
THE
PROBLEM
DEFINED
How
should
we
define
this
problem?
As
it
is
frequently
phrased,
it
poses
the
question
of
the
boundaries
of
manage-
ment’s
discretionary
authority:
Within
what
limits
shall
management
be
free
to
make
its
decisions
on
purely
business
lines,
unhampered
by
group
or
political
pressures
to
modify
those
decisions
for
nonbusiness
reasons?
As
union
power
has
grown,
management’s
discretionary
authority
has
been
to
that
extent
lim-
ited.
The
issue
has
thus
often
been
posed
in
terms
of
the
scope
of
collective
bargaining.
It
has
been
said
that
when
unions
pass
from
negotiations
on
mat-
ters
of
wages
and
hours
and
working
conditions,
and
insist
on
bargaining
on
rates
of
operation
and
quality
standards
and
social
security
schemes
and
even
price
and
output
policy,
they
are
un-
warrantedly
constricting
management’s
freedom
to
make
those
decisions
which
it
believes
are
required
by
business
op-
erations.
The
problem
can,
however,
be
defined
in
another
way,
permitting
more
useful
analysis.
More
realistically,
it
involves
the
placement
of
authority;
it
has
been
raised
by
the
unions’
attempt
to
convert
unilateral
decisions
on
certain
matters
into
bilateral
decisions.
It
is
thus
not
so
much
a
question
of
narrowing
dis-
cretionary
authority
as
it
is
a
question
of
who
shall
exercise
that
authority.
From
this
approach,
the
scope
of
collec-
tive
bargaining,
while
interesting
and
significant,
is
by
no
means
the
heart
of
the
problem.
The
challenge
to
man-
agerial
authority
comes
equally
on
a
simple
wage
and
hours
matter,
where
the
union
is
seeking
an
outcome
differ-
ent
from
that
which
management
would
adopt,
and
where
resolution
of
the
dif-
ference
must
come
through
a
process
of
accommodation.
That
is
to
say,
the
de-
cision
becomes
a
joint
product.
The
important
aspect
of
the
relationship
is
not
that the
union
has
narrowed
some-
one
else’s
range
of
choice,
but
that
it
has
itself
entered
into
the
making
of
the
decision,
which
now
involves
the
ac-
quiescence
of
two
parties.
The
focus
of
interest
moves
from
management
to
the
decision,
and
it
is
asked
by
whose
au-
thority
the
decision
was
made,
and
by
what
process.
These
two
ways
of
phrasing
the
issue
are
likely
to
lead
to
different
results.
It
is
worth
emphasizing
the
distinction
be-
tween
them
right
at
the
start
in
order
to
clarify
later
comment.
What
we
may
term
the
traditional
point
of
view,
which
embodies
the
first
approach
suggested
above,
starts
from
the
position
that
authority
in
business
institutions
inheres
solely
in
manage-
ment.
When
the
union
enters,
its
de-
mands
and
tactics
become
new
data
which
the
managers
must
take
into
ac-
count
when
making
certain
decisions.
But
the
decision,
whatever
it
ultimately
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