With these rigid rules, partly already enforced on the employer by
strikes or threats to strike and partly as yet unrealized but
energetically pushed, trade unionism enters the stage of the trade
agreement. The problem of industrial government then becomes one of
steady adjustment of the conflicting claims of employer and union for
the province of shop control staked out by these working rules. When the
two sides are approximately equal in bargaining strength (and lasting
agreements are possible only when this condition obtains), a promising
line of compromise, as recent experience has shown, has been to extend
to the unions and their members in some form that will least obstruct
shop efficiency the very same kind of guarantees which they strive to
obtain through rules of their own making. For instance, an employer
might induce a union to give up or agree to mitigate its working rules
designed to protect the job by offering a _quid pro quo_ in a guarantee
of employment for a stated number of weeks during the year; and
likewise, a union might hope to counteract the employer's natural
hankering for being "boss in his own business," free of any union
working rules, only provided it guaranteed him a sufficient output per
unit of labor time and wage investment.
Pages:
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282