How US labor and management can compete effectively with foreign
producers, by the father-and-son team of Irving Bluestone (Labor
Studies/Wayne State Univ.) and Barry Bluestone (coauthor, The
Deindustrialization of America, 1982). Hands-on union experience
(Bluestone pore was a ranking assistant to Walter Reuther of the
United Auto Workers during the 60's) plus considerable economic
sophistication are evident here. The result is a well-written,
fact-based analysis of the basic pact between labor and management
from WW II onward, and a thesis on how to improve it. The
Bluestones cull the essentials of agreements from the "glory clays"
(late 40's-early 70's) and see a missing ingredient: pervasive
union participation, especially in strategic corporate decisions.
Crucial to the authors' thinking is the idea that a new "work
culture" must be created through a revised union-management
relationship based on the 1984 Levering-Moskowitz-Katz study 100
Best Companies to Work for in America, which indicated that
companies transcending limitations of typical US contractual
arrangements enjoyed greater worker involvement and a sense of
common goals, thus improving productivity. The Bluestones, however,
lack a long-range view: Their expertise doesn't address union
history sufficiently to include the evolution from Wobbly idealism
to infiltration by organized crime and petrification by
bureaucracy; nor do they come to terms with the national malaise
created by the interaction of the seemingly unattainable American
dream, loss of morale, and drug/alcohol dependency. Finally, the
effects of industrial automation combined with cheap, efficient
labor may not be much affected by the means suggested here. Right
as far as it goes, but falling far short of solving a problem that
is as much international and cultural as institutional. (Kirkus
Reviews)
It is no secret that corporate America is in trouble--as are labor
unions--and a principal reason is our archaic system of
labor-management relations, which excludes labor from participating
in, and sharing responsibility for, the growth and profitability of
the enterprises for which it works. In a book sure to arouse
controversy in both management and labor circles, Barry and Irving
Bluestone propose a New Enterprise Compact under which labor
becomes co-responsible with management for all strategic business
decisions--pricing, investment, plant location, and more.
General
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