Page:Robert W. Dunn - American Company Unions.djvu/50



An elaborate literature of tactics has sprung up around the company union. Manuals, produced by such federated employers' associations as the National Industrial Conference Board, show the employer just what moves are necessary to convince the workers of his sincerity. The personnel and management associations hold conferences to compare employers' experiences in installing these employers' devices. The reports of these meetings are used to stimulate others to adopt the plans.

The technique of introducing a plan is given particular attention in this literature. The employer who contemplates putting in a works council is warned of the pitfalls, and given advice on the best courses to follow. Suggestions are made as to how the plan can best be "sold," as they put it, to the workers. The employer is told that he must educate his employees to the plan; that he must introduce it gradually, that it must not appear to be forced on the workers, that the workers must be made to feel that the plan originated with them, and not with the company. The science of plan introduction has been worked out in the greatest detail. And from the employers' point of view it is well that this is so. For many employers, in their indecent haste to put over a plan, have blundered unnecessarily, and spoiled their own game! In one well-known instance the workers voted