Book Description

This book examines the potential benefits and costs of labor-management cooperation and factors that influence these potential benefits and costs. The analyses presented are based on a variety of secondary data sources, as well as data from nationwide surveys of plant managers, their local union leader counterparts, and executives of parent companies of the plants sampled. The first chapter reviews the existing literature and sets the stage for the analyses that follow. Chapter 2 develops a general theoretical framework, which broadly guides the subsequent analyses. Chapter 3 describes companywide labor relations strategies that have recently emerged and examines why some parties have embarked on cooperative relations and why just as many have not. In addition, the objectives and structure of joint programs, as reported by a sample of plant managers and local union leaders, are described. Chapter 4 examines how effective these joint efforts have been and identifies factors that appear to enhance or diminish their effectiveness. Chapter 5 addresses the underlying problems arising in the joint decision-making process that undermine the potential success and longevity of cooperative efforts. Finally, how the parties can go about resolving, avoiding, or minimizing the costly effects of these key problems is addressed in chapter 6. In that final chapter, implications for the union movement also are discussed and survey forms are appended. The book concludes with 96 references and an index. (KC)