Page:Robert W. Dunn - American Company Unions.djvu/19

 they are selecting their own representatives, but actually we select them'."

Says W. D. Moriarity, professor of economics. at the University of Washington, who has apparently looked into the shop committees with some care: "It is one of the triumphs of the employers' unions (that is, associations confined to one concern or one line of business, and fostered by the employers as a way of getting their men out of control of the American Federation of Labor) that they have been able to use the shop committee … to get more and more control over their labor"” He says further that the committee is often "just a 'rubber stamp' to satisfy the men that they are having something to say about things and a way of meeting their employers to present grievances or requests."

Another student who made a survey of some 175 plans in operation concluded, after he had weighed the evidence from all the companies, that "employee representation systems are not organized to give employees means for exerting economic pressure. When they take advantage of the opportunity to do so, the plan is usually abandoned."

It should be observed also that many of the plans lie more or less dormant when there are no strikes on the horizon, but in time of industrial disturbance they are revived and dressed up to fool the worker again and keep him away from the real trade union. Should a strike come before the plan has been installed; it will frequently be introduced immediately after the strike is broken, with the strikebreakers as charter members! One company, the Standard Gas Engine Company of San Francisco, after inaugurating such a plan after a strike had been smashed, reports that its shop "is now`