C11-1
THE CHANGING STRUCTURE OF WORK
• Dominant paradigm for how to structure work in much of 20th century
was scientific management (also referred to as Taylorism).
• Developed by Frederick Taylor and others, sought to maximize
efficiency through carefully studying work tasks and scientifically
determining ‘one best way’ of completing task.
• As managers determine each job’s one best way, Taylorism creates
divide between management and labor:
• Management determines job content, optimal job processes,
and does planning.
• Labor is resource to implement management’s directions.
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C11-2
THE CHANGING STRUCTURE OF WORK
• Bureaucratic control of scientific management well-suited to mass
production of standardized goods and services in stable economy.
• Unstable economic markets in 1970s challenged dominance of mass
manufacturing methods—companies could no longer sell large
quantities of identical products, unable to react quickly to changing
customer demands.
• In addition, repetitive job tasks can cause boredom, alienation, and
mental and physical fatigue which in turn cause absenteeism, turnover,
shirking, and low quality output.
• Both macroeconomic shocks and micro-level issues with employee
satisfaction caused competitive crisis in U.S. business in 1970s,
launched efforts at changing forms of work organization, HR practices,
and business strategies.
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C11-3
NEW BUSINESS MODELS
• Continuous process improvement: Japanese management style
(kaizen) focusing on creating corporate culture of constant change and
incremental improvements.
• Total quality management (TQM) is example of continuous
process improvement strategy.
• Reengineering: reforming business processes, generating large onetime improvements.
• Replacing narrowly focused tasks performed by individuals
with generalists and teams that add value for the organization.
• Workplace flexibility is critical in these new models.
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C11-4
Box 11.5: EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP
FLEXIBILITY
Flexible Employment
Change labor utilization through
varying work hours or number of
employees.
Part-time employment
Temporary employment
Seasonal employment
Lack of sufficient income. Uncertainty.
Periods of unemployment. Stress.
Pay-for-performance
Profit sharing
Ending wage indexation
Risky. Compensation is uncertain and may
decrease. Potential for managerial abuse.
Stress.
Job enrichment
Work teams
Cross-training
Potential for replacing high-wage, skilled
employees with low-wage, unskilled.
Disguised old-fashioned work speed-up?
Stress.
Unilateral management
authority to restructure the
workplace
Lack of a voice in the absence of unions or
works councils. Stress.
Pay Flexibility
Make compensation responsive to
changes in competitive pressures
and organizational performance.
Functional Flexibility
Easily shift workers into different
jobs in response to changing
customer demands and production
needs.
Procedural Flexibility
Change production methods,
technology, and work organization.
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C11-5
JOB CONTROL UNIONISM
• Starts with two management principles for first three-quarters of the
20th century:
• Narrow, standardized jobs (recall scientific management).
• Insistence on maintaining sole authority over traditional
management functions such as hiring, firing, assigning work,
determining job content, and deciding what to produce and
how and where to make it.
• Add in pragmatic union philosophy of business unionism focused on
wages and working conditions.
• What pattern of unionized practices and policies is likely to result?
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C11-6
JOB CONTROL UNIONISM
• Resulting pattern of traditional unionized practices and policies in
postwar period is called job control unionism.
• Designed to provide industrial justice by protecting workers against
managerial abuse by controlling rewards and allocation of jobs.
• Replaces managerial subjectivity and favoritism with objective
measure of seniority as primary method for determining layoffs,
promotions, and transfers.
• Subjectivity also removed from wage outcomes by closely linking
wage rates to job classifications, not individuals.
• Detailed work rules further control how work is performed and
allocated.
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C11-7
JOB CONTROL UNIONISM
• In mass manufacturing world, job control unionism serves both labor’s
and management’s needs.
• Supported mass-manufacturing requirements for stable and
predictable production.
• Fulfilled union leaders’ needs for countering managerial
authority without having to resort to wildcat strikes which
could undermine their own leadership positions.
• Efficiency and equity were served through peaceful, quasilegal application of workplace rules and contracts that fulfilled
industrial justice; voice was provided through collective
bargaining.
• But the bureaucratic model of job control unionism under fire in 21st
century business model emphasizing flexibility.
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C11-8
Box 11.8: JOB CONTROL UNIONISM
UNDER FIRE
Wages are tied to jobs, not
individuals.
Runs counter to paying for performance—cannot reward individual
merit, productivity, skills, or organizational performance.
Jobs are very narrowly defined.
Difficult to deploy workers to different tasks. Employee boredom
and alienation. Lack of quality and teamwork.
Importance of seniority and
seniority ladders.
Hard to promote the best performers or layoff the worst performers.
Extensive bumping results is disruptive.
Extensive work rules.
Hampers flexibility to move workers around, change job
definitions, and adjust production methods.
Detailed union contracts and
legalistic grievance procedures.
Difficult to break with past practices. Change is slow. Innovation is
stifled.
No employee involvement in
decision-making.
Opportunities for harnessing workers’ ideas for productivity
improvements are limited. Innovation is stifled.
Limited employee voice.
Change is slow. Issues are only solved through formalized
procedures. Problems accumulate until the next round of bargaining.
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C11-9
EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT
• Scientific management treats workers as cogs in machine.
• But workers perform their job tasks over and over and
therefore often have good ideas for improving productivity,
increasing quality, and lowering costs.
• Moreover, giving employees discretion in their work can
increase job satisfaction and create better employees.
• Thus, some new business models champion not only workplace
flexibility, but also employee involvement in decision-making.
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C11-10
EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT
• Approaches to employee involvement include:
• Quality of working life programs (QWL)
• Quality Circles
• Joint labor-management committees
• Labor representation on corporation’s board of directors.
• The most extensive efforts to restructure workplace involve not only
increasing employee involvement in the decision-making, but also
changing how work is organized.
• High performance work systems of mutually-supporting HR
practices that combine flexibility with employee involvement
in decision-making.
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C11-11
ALTERNATIVES TO SCIENTIFIC
MANAGEMENT
•
•
•
•
Lean Production—Production by work teams with emphasis on quality
through off-line quality circles rather than on-line worker decision-making.
Just-in-time inventories and focus on smooth flow of materials.
• Competitive advantage: price and mass scale quality.
Sociotechnical Systems—Formal, autonomous work teams have
responsibilities for functional as well as routine maintenance tasks plus
continuous improvement.
• Competitive advantage: quality and customization.
Flexible Specialization—Small-scale production of diverse items using
flexible networks of employers.
• Competitive advantage: innovation.
Diversified Quality Production—Quality through broadly-skilled, highlytrained crafts workers.
• Competitive advantage: quality and customization.
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C11-12
DEBATES OVER
HIGH PERFORMANCE WORK SYSTEMS
• Lean production
• Method for continuous quality improvement . . . or
management by stress and disguised old-fashioned speed-up?
• Self-directed work teams
• Unions as valuable business partners . . . or as shirking their
primary role of advocacy for employees’ interests?
• Do slimmer union contracts promote flexibility and increased
employee discretion . . .
• or provide opportunities for managerial manipulation in the
absence of well-defined standards?
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C11-13
EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION:
ARE UNIONS REQUIRED?
• Nonunion employee representation plans involve group of employees
meeting with management to discuss employment conditions and to
provide employee voice.
• Note: established by management, management determines
structure, management defines issues covered
• But some plans able to influence management decision-making
and employees’ terms and conditions of employment.
• Significant number of nonunion employee representation plans were
part of welfare capitalism package of HR practices designed to create
motivated, loyal, and efficient workforce.
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C11-14
THE ELECTROMATION CONTROVERSY
• But other plans were manipulated by management with
primary purpose of preventing employees from forming
independent labor unions.
• As such, the NLRA’s section 8(a)(2) prohibits employer
domination of labor organizations.
– “… any organization of any kind … or Ee representation
committee or plan … in which Ees participate and which exists, in
whole or in part, for dealing with Ers concerning grievances, labor
disputes, wages, rates of pay, hours of employment, or conditions
of work.”
– Unilateral mechanisms such as suggestion boxes by which
individual Ees make proposals are not at issue
– Committees acting with authority delegated by management do not
“deal with” management
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False Employee Empowerment
As illustrated by Dilbert
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C11-16
THE ELECTROMATION CONTROVERSY
• U.S. business now argues that section 8(a)(2) prevents
legitimate efforts to increase competitiveness and quality
through employee involvement.
• 1992 NLRB ruling has received great attention.
• In Electromation, several committees ruled to be illegal
company-dominated labor organizations even though
established for legitimate business reasons (not union
avoidance).
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C11-17
THE ELECTROMATION CONTROVERSY
Polaroid, 329 NLRB No. 47 (1999)
– Decided (3-1) that Employee-Owners Influence Council was a
labor organization dominated by Er
• Co. selected the 30 members, chose topics for input
– Family/medical leave, termination policy, medical benefits, ESOP
– Co. made presentation, Council discussed w/presenter, then were polled
to determine majority sentiment; Co. would later announce decision
• Co. argued that Council’s activities limited to brainstorming and
information sharing, expressing individuals’ views
• Found that Council functioned as bilateral mechanism – in effect
group proposals were made, responded to
• Dissent held that if Council served Er’s purpose of obtaining ideas
upon which to make mngt decision, was not a labor org; was not
presented to Ees as surrogate for U.; did not interfere w/Ees’ sec.7
rights to organize
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C11-18
THE TEAMWORK FOR EMPLOYEES
AND MANAGERS (TEAM) ACT
• Vetoed by President Clinton in 1996
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C11-19
THREE UNIONIZED CHANGE
STRATEGIES
• Escape
• Escaping from company’s bargaining obligation by relocating
operations to nonunion site, subcontracting, or decertifying
union.
• Force
• Pressuring union and employees to accept changes like wage
and work rule concessions through hard bargaining.
• Foster
• Developing new labor-management partnership based on
recognition of both labor and management goals and
opportunities for mutual gain. (e.g., IAM’s High Performance
Work Organization course)
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