Page:Robert W. Dunn - American Company Unions.djvu/41

 unionization for two decades, have installed a plan calculated to give the workers the impression that they have something to say about the plant, without granting them a particle of real authority. An executive of the company recently explained to a friend of the writer that the company was learning how to rid itself of labor disturbances by the use of this plan. One of the tricks used in connection with the inauguration of the plan was to pay the committee's expenses on an "investigation tour" to the General Electric Company, the United States Rubber Company, and others. The executive explained: "Of course we sent them to the factories where we knew they would see the things we wanted them to see." The committee returned to Lawrence, met for a day or two (presumably on company property and on company time, and with the personnel director advising them) and adopted the plan.

Does this plan give the workers any power? The company with unusual candor explains that it does not. It also explains that in most factories where some legislative function appears to be given to the workers, the actual fact is that "this function is so safeguarded that all the executive power actually remains with the management." So the Pacific Mills, with a degree of frankness not displayed by most companies, calls its plan "advisory." In other words it helps the company to find out more exactly just what the sentiment of the workers is. It can thus be better prepared to give the workers the proper kind of economic dope to make them swallow wage cuts when they come. For example, in 1925, when the Pacific put over a cut in the woolen department, the shop councils were simply called together by the management and the wage cut briefly explained. The employees were given no opportunity to vote on the reduction. The