J A C K B A R B A S H ”

A New Approach to Teaching Labor Courses

MY OBJECTIVE here is to lay out a scheme for teaching labor problems which is based on the effect of industrialism on workers at the worksite. First, I shall present a discussion of shortcomings in existing courses; second, a synopsis of a proposed approach which is responsive to present shortcomings; and finally, a statement of the positive educational values which are sought.

Shortcomings in Existing Courses

“The true basis of trade unions,” G. D. H. Cole said a gener- ation ago, “is in the workshop, and failure to realize this is responsible for much of the weaknesses of trade unionism today.”l Whether or not this is a valid criticism of trade unionism is arguable, but it is a fair criticism of the study of trade unionism and of labor courses in general in American universities.a

The integrating principle for most courses is either a variant on labor market economics, or union-management institutionalism, or-most charac- teristically-a combination of both labor market economics and labor insti- tutionalism, invariably capped by a public policy discussion. The typical course is likely to include union history and practices, collective bargaining, labor legislation, employment and unemployment, wages theory, organiza- tion of the labor market, and, occasionally, management’s administration of the labor function. With few exceptions, the texts tend toward encyclopedic treatment-the typical text runs between 500 and 600 pages, with a substan- tial number running to 700 or 800 pages. What distinguishes one text from another and one course from another is the sequence of units, not content.

Labor market economics and union-management institutionalism are necessary to the labor course, but insufficient as its sole foundation. To remedy this deficiency it is necessary to investigate labor problems in the

* Professor of Economics, University of Wisconsin. 1 G. D. H. Cole, Self-Gouernment in Industry (London: Bell, 1918), p. 139. 2 My experience is that the labor texts fairly reflect the courses which they support.

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worksite setting; a failure to do so affects both the substantive meaning of the “macro” material and the teachability of the labor course.

Labor market and economics materials presented alone blur the connec- tion between union policies and the workers’ interests on the job, union or no union. Another result is the neglect of much stimulating material dealing with the nature of work, workers as a class, the work society, and the ration- alization of work. Although these topics are not yet in the main line of stylish economic analysis, they are indispensable in “appraising the role of labor as an interest group vis-8-vis the business firm.”3

From the viewpoint of teachability, the worksite approach allows the student to see the labor problem in a setting where he is likely to have had some experience, rather than in a setting which requires mastery of both conceptualization and its application to a concrete situation. It seems to me to be pedagogically sounder to start out by giving the student a structured view of empirical content which he can grasp at once, and then to permit the analytic constructs to flow out of the empirical material.

This forcing of an analytic framework on the student before he has some concrete points of reference characterizes the teaching of elementary eco- nomics generally. It is based on the absurd assumption that it is possible to give a sophomore a kit of rigorous analytic tools which henceforth will enable him to interpret authoritatively all economic affairs.

But there is more than pedagogic artfulness involved here. Labor prob- lems do in fact begin at a worksite between living workers and living man- agers. They do not begin in a labor market, or in a labor movement, or in an economy, or in a labor force, although the material must ultimately be cast in these constructs for analytic purposes.

The encyclopedic nature of labor courses and the triteness which this necessarily produces can conceivably be lessened if some valid and meaning- ful structural principle holds the content together. I shall suggest how the worksite serves this purpose.

Emphasis on the Worksite

Below is a synopsis of how I think the labor course (or sequence of courses) should be organized? The conceptual elements of

SAnbeas G. Papandreou, “Some Basic Problems in the Theory of the Firm,” in Barnard Haley, A Suruey of Contemporary Economics (Homewood, 111. : Irwin, 1952), 11, 200.

4 My experience with this sort of course is in a graduate seminar in industrial relations theory and as the starting oint for a course in trade unionism at the University of Wisconsin. A rudi; mentary treatment, fut rather more detailed, appeared as “The Elements of Industrial Relations, British Journal of Industrial Relations, I1 (March, 1964), 66-78.

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course organization, all of which function in an environment of industrial- ism, are:

1. A diversity of interest at the worksite, based on the fact that managers seek efficiency and rationality while workers seek security.

2. The confrontation of these opposing interests in a bargaining situation. 3. The extension of diversities into the labor market and political forums. It is the necessary difference in function between workers and managers

at the industrialized worksite that gives rise to a diversity of interests be- tween them. This diversity holds regardless of the workers’ location in the work hierarchy, regardless of whether the workers are in a union or not, and regardless of whether the manager is a private entrepreneur, a civil servant, or a communist functionary. The specific expression which the diverse inter- ests take and the manner of accommodation will vary depending on the management and the workers involved. However, when workers join unions or when the management is a complex organization, then the simple tension between rationality and security acquires an overlay of institutional interests that recedes farther and farther from the worksite, but hardly ever so far (at least in the United States) that rationality and security lose their primary importance in the respective management and worker structures. Bargaining is an especially appropriate word to describe the process by which the parties react to one another, because bargaining comprehends the diversity, the pressure to agree, the power to withhold, and the higgling which in fact characterize the relationship.

Worksite interests extend beyond the worksite. They reach into the labor market and (if it may be put this way) into the political “market,” where a major part of the parties’ efforts are aimed at reinforcing the strength of their positions at the worksite. Employers strengthen their position through trade associations, workers strengthen theirs through the labor movement, and both parties seek to strengthen themselves through political alliances.

Management efficiency and the worker’s defensive response each rep- resent highly intricate networks of behavior. Some of the strands in this network are: ( 1 ) the nature of the industry-work complex within which man- agement and the workers are functioning, (2) the chance impact of individ- ual personalities, ( 3 ) the economic position of the enterprise, i.e., contract- ing, stabilizing, or expanding, (4) the state and orientation of the economy, i.e., war, cold war, peace, and contraction, stagnation, growth, (5) the state of economic development, i.e. the well-known Rostovian stages, (6) the political-social-economic system, i.e. (loosely) emerging capitalism, welfare- state capitalism, communism in a backward economy, etc.

The labor problem has been a focus for and has stimulated most of the

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significant currents in the intellectual history of Western society since the French Revolution. This history, in turn, has reacted on the behavior of the interests involved in industrialization. Currently, the labor problem and its social consequences are of major significance in the process of emerging industrialism and nationhood. The standpoints of appraisal have ranged widely to include reformers, revolutionaries, academic intellectuals, public policy makers, philanthropists, and engineers. Three broad themes are evi- dent in their thinking: (1) the meaning of the labor problem as regards change in the total social order, (2 ) the social and economic effects and the permissible limits of labor conflict in the industrial society, and (3 ) the in- vention and evaluation of various management “sciences,” techniques, and ideologies to alleviate the tension between rationality and worker security.

There has been an evolving style in the conduct of American industrial relations which may be classified under the headings of pragmatism, possi- bilism, and pluralism. There are some who even go so far as to urge this style as a model for other industrial relations systems.

Educational Values

The educational values which I suggest are essential to

1. A course structure which deals with basic labor problems, while it

2. An integration of “first” principles of social and economic behavior. 3. A relevance to the world‘s urgent issues. 4. A subject-matter content in labor problems which can be adapted

without much strain to labor courses in the established disciplines. The scheme thus allows for such standard units as trade unionism and its history, collective bargaining, industrial relations, personnel administration, econom- ics of labor, institutionalism, industrial sociology, public policy, theories and ideologies of the labor movement, industrial psychology, and comparative labor movements.

5. A course outline that makes room for newer topics and concepts (at least new to the labor course), for example, stages of economic development, comparative industrialism, organization theory, work theory, the idea of a working class culture or style, conflict theory, and political theory.

6. The utilization of content and concepts from a variety of disciplines in ways that come “naturally” to the subject matter.

7. The organization of content so as to recognize both professional- vocational objectives and liberal education objectives in the fitting of tech-

achieve in labor courses are:

makes involved subject matter more comprehensible.

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nical details into the broader structure of the industrialization and economic rationality processes.

As much as anything else I am trying to communicate to the student a conception of labor problems as a legitimate-not pathological-expression of an industrial society. Management rationality and workers’ organization are, according to this viewpoint, both essential and interacting functions. Similarly, the bargaining process is intrinsic to industrialism and the free society. The private and public policy content of this approach center about the working out of institutions and techniques to deal with diversity of views on increasing the production of goods and services, improving the human condition, and maintaining a healthy balance of forces in society.

Teaching Method The course design set out above has been adapted to teaching

purposes in a mimeographed manuscript entitled The Logic of Industrial Relations. “The Logic” is a restatement of the work noted in footnote 4, but in the form of a series of 50 major propositions which begin with economic rationality as the foundation of industrialism and are developed in accord- ance with the elements summarized above.

I have used “The Logic” in three ways in three varying teaching contexts. First in point of time and motivation was a series of sessions in the manage- ment training programs of several corporations. It was there that I was first struck by the need to see labor problems as a necessary effect of industrial- ism. My procedure was to discuss each proposition in terms of how it con- formed to the practical experience of the participants who ranged from first- line supervision to the highest rungs of corporate-wide management. I have also used this mode of approach for groups of trade union leaders at all levels, but in these situations the focus was the legitimacy of the rationality- efficiency function under industrialism.

The second use was as the framework for a graduate seminar in indus- trial relations theory where the objective was to discuss each of the propo- sitions in detail and then to prepare research memoranda testing the validity of particular propositions.

A third use was in an undergraduate economics course in trade unionism. Here “The Logic” was the starting point and, as the course developed, a point of reference for each of the major units, including, among others, union organizing, union government, collective bargaining, the strike, politics and legislation, etc.

The experience suggests that this method is a viable approach to the teaching of labor courses in a variety of situations.