those who hold aloof are compelled by the scorn of striking workmen for the scab.46 Unionization gives a satisfying sense of the support of a strong group; this intensifies the loyalty of the members to one another and to their leadership. It also heightens the suggestibility of each member to whatever behaviour happens to be pronounced in the group at the time. The strongest dispositions are most intensified by organization, for instance, the resistful disposition, but the leaders in control of a great labour organization, in declaring a strike which may bring suffering to thousands of their members feel their responsibility as keenly as do the leaders of a nation in declaring war. The effect of labour organization is much like that of the organization of the people of a nation into a state: it increases the power of resistance at the disposal of those who control the mass. Organization has also a distinct effect in individualizing workmen. If one of the results of organization is an increase of wages and this is wisely spent, it increases the vitality of the individual workman and thus decreases the submissiveness due to low vitality. Organization also gives an added sense of security of jobs and an assurance of getting what the workman feels he is entitled to; it makes him more hopeful, less indifferent and more productive as a worker. 48 Furthermore, the union is the great means of education of the workers.49 And it provides a wholesome outlet for suppressed impulses of all sorts, impulses that, without it, find satisfaction in exhausting and degrading forms of recreation.50 Such recreation cannot be furnished in the factory building after hours because it has not the relaxing, carefree atmosphere that have the club-rooms in which workmen naturally assemble.51 Nor are club-rooms furnished by employers at a distance from the place of work, which suggest employer control and restraint, as relaxing as rooms of their own.

The new attitude of labour is the natural result of the growing consciousness of all these benefits of unionism. In the first place, trade

46 Watts, An Introduction to the Psychological Problems of Industry, 166; U. S. Department of Labor, Report on the Bisbee Deportations, 4. Tead says workmen support a strike in order to prevent their families suffering the scorn of the neighbours' wives and children. (Tead, Instincts in Industry, 18-19. See also, Warne. The Coal-Mine Workers, 160-165.) In Russia, the Bolsheviki brought resisting aristocrats and others to terms by threatening that they would "be turned over to the contempt of the people." (Bryant, Six Red Months in Russia, 195.) 47 Tead, op. cit., 134.

48 Tannenbaum, op. cit., 45-64.

49 Ibid. Ch. VII.

50 Ibid. 64-66.

51 Watts, An Introduction to the Psychological Problems of Industry, 204-205.

unionism has now existed long enough and developed far enough to convince organized labour that it has come to stay. Whatever reactionary employers or the public may think, organized workmen have a conviction of the assured continuity of their union, and this conviction is reacting on impulsive behaviour to make it more intelligent. A second condition that has increased the sense of the permanence of the union is the conflicts and rivalry with organized employers, which have resulted in the increased solidarity of employers' associations and in labour's conviction that the very life of the movement depends on eliminating rivalry between labour groups and achieving a similar solidarity. A third condition making for sense of permanence is that the great variety of benefits achieved by union action and the methods employed have developed a more and more adequate idea of union purposes and policies, so that certain principles are now regarded as settled and as constituting the nucleus of labour union tradition.

T

CHAPTER X

EMPLOYMENT MANAGEMENT AS A REMEDY

FOR THE CONFLICT OF INTERESTS

2

HE industrial relations described in the preceding chapters resulted in a large labour turnover,1 and the position of employment manager was created in order to decrease the turnover and so lower costs and increase profits. A small turnover is desirable because of the expense of breaking in new men and also because an efficient organization requires not only that workmen shall know their jobs but that they shall be accustomed to working together and shall know each other's idiosyncracies in a way to make possible the most efficient co-operation.

The employment manager succeeds the foreman as the "hiring and firing" agent; the foreman's function is reduced to that of director of workmen. Under the old conditions-which still generally obtain -the foreman represented the company to workmen, who rarely or never came into contact with any higher official. Grievances of workmen originated, in most cases, in their contact with dominating foremen. The aim is to substitute for the control of foremen that of a man whose personal qualities and training are such as adapt him to the delicate function of hiring men, happily adjusting them to their place in the organization, and inspiring them to do their best work." this he must enlist the co-operation of foremen." His problems are

In

1 "Labour turnover for any period consists of the number of separations from service during that period. Separations include all quits, discharges, and lay-offs for any reason whatsoever. The percentage of labour turnover for any period considered is the ratio of the total number of separations during the period to the average number of employés on the force report during that period." ("Standard Definition of Labor Turnover,” U. S. Bur. Lab. Statis., 1-2. See also U. S. Bur. Lab. Statis., Bulletin No. 247, 224.)

2 Alexander, The Cost of Labor Turnover, Proceed. of Employment Managers' Conference, 1917, U. S. Bur. Lab. Statis., No. 227, 13-17; Fisher, How to Reduce Labor Turnover, Ibid. 29-32; Williams, An Actual Account of What We have Done to Reduce Our Labor Turnover, Ibid. 173-190.

3 Tead, The Importance of Being a Foreman, Industrial Management, June, 1917, 355.

4 Alexander, op. cit., 24-25.

5 Hubbell, The Organization and Scope of the Employment Department, U. S. Bur. Lab. Statis., No. 227, 98, 101, 104.

those of handling human beings and adjusting subtle human relationships; wherefore his personality will play a larger part than in the case of the managers of the financial, production and sales departments, who deal largely with the material side of business.

The first function of the employment manager is to hire workmen and adjust them to their work. This requires psychological analysis conducted with all possible use of technique and resourcefulness. It is possible by psychological tests to determine the relative intelligence of applicants for work and their fitness for jobs, but the moral qualities that enter into fitness cannot be ascertained by tests." Nevertheless some of the conditions that make for desirable moral qualities can be determined and provided. This scientific determination of the fitness of different workmen will remove "the unpleasant necessity of obtaining a workman's character from his superior.

The tendencies of workmen to over-estimate their ability in comparison with rivals, to endeavour to "keep on the right side" of their superiors by doing various things that have little to do with productiveness, to be servile or self-assertive, will, it is maintained, be cut from under by a scientific estimate of their fitness. The qualities that enter into fitness and the working conditions on which efficiency depends once understood, it will be possible intelligently to provide the conditions that conduce to maximum efficiency throughout the working force.

The employment manager is, therefore, an expert judge of men, and this expert knowledge, in spite of his subordination to the employer, ought to give him a degree of independence in the performance of his work. Furthermore, he can make the most of the fact that he must have authority sufficient to enable him to provide the working conditions that are necessary to decrease the turnover. Also, he needs at least to appear independent if he is to win the respect of workmen. And he needs to be in as independent a position as possible in order to exercise his second function, that of amicably settling disputes between the company and workmen. To qualify as an arbiter in the conflicting interests of capital and labour he must not be under the influence of his employer, whose opinions, to be sure, he will consider, as his superior, but whose influence must not interfere with his independent performance of his function as arbiter. Because his impulse Link, Employment Psychology, Pt. I.

Ibid. 178-179, Ch. XVII.

8 Ibid. 306-307, 70, 84, 85, 125, 126.

Alexander, op. cit., 23-24; Hubbell, op. cit., 97-98.

is naturally to the contrary, he must deliberately emphasize the workman's point of view in all his calculations.

A third function of the employment manager is to win the loyalty of workmen to the company 10 and to prevent labour troubles and strengthen the position of the business against competitors.11 Labour troubles prevent a corporation keeping its contracts and so cause loss of business, which is gained by competitors who do not have trouble. The financial position of a business also is injured by labour troubles for investment banks consider the labour situation in a corporation before floating a bond issue of that enterprise on favourable terms. In developing loyalty of workmen to employer, the employment manager may engage in a wide range of activities. These may extend to the supervision of living as well as working conditions. In the adjustment both of living and working conditions, the skilful employment manager has in mind the ruling impulses of workmen. For instance, rivalry makes for inefficiency in work unless properly directed. The inefficiency due to petty rivalry may be met, first, by a procedure for placing workmen in the jobs for which they are best fitted and measuring the relative productiveness of workmen thus scientifically placed, 12 so that relative productiveness can be demonstrated beyond the possibility of argument, and, second, by the education of workmen.13 The employment manager studies also the impulses of men that seek satisfaction in hours of relaxation and endeavours to make living conditions such as will satisfy those impulses. For instance, the parental and homing instincts are satisfied by an eight-hour day, which gives men some chance to enjoy home and children. Permanency of working position also satisfies the homing instinct because it enables the workman to have his own home and garden and to amuse himself with the little improvements. The satisfaction of these instincts is closely connected with the decrease of the labour turnover.

In winning the loyalty of workmen to the company the employment

10 Bloomfield, The Progress of Employment Managers' Associations, Proceed. Emply. Man. Conference, 1917, 12; Bloomfield, Relations of Foremen to Working Force, Industrial Management, June, 1917, 345; Commons, Industrial Goodwill, 149. 11 Gregg, A Method of Handling the Problem of Labor Turnover, Reprint from Textile World Journal, Apr. 28, 1917; Gregg, Labor-Turnover Records and the Labor Problem, Reprint of address before American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Dec., 1917. For an extended statement of the employment manager's duties and responsibilities, including technical matters not of interest to the social psychologist, see Kelly, Hiring the Worker, Chs. III-XI.

12 Link, op. cit., 293-319, 64.

18 Ibid. 380-386.