Union–management relations

What effects do unions and collective bargaining have on the outputs of the employment relationship that are of greatest interest to workers, employers, and the larger society? The historical evidence is that unions improve the wages, hours, and working conditions of their members. Perhaps the biggest and most direct effects have been on wages and fringe benefits; estimates indicate that unions have raised the wages and benefits of their members by 15 to 30 percent above those of comparable nonunion workers. Unions have also pioneered over the years in introducing an expanded array of fringe benefits such as paid vacations, sick leave, pensions, seniority provisions, apprenticeship and training programs, and grievance procedures for resolving conflicts on a day-to-day basis.

Assessing the effects of collective bargaining on the goals of the firm is a more difficult task. Historically, unions have served to encourage greater formalization and professionalization of personnel management practices. By increasing wages and related labour costs, unions have also encouraged employers to take actions that improve labour productivity. But the evidence is that, overall, unions reduce returns to shareholders, in part because they increase the cost of labour.

Some behavioral scientists distinguish between “distributive” and “integrative” bargaining. Distributive bargaining is essentially a win–lose engagement. What one party “wins” through hard bargaining comes at the expense of the interests or goals of the “losing” party. In contrast, with an integrative bargaining approach the parties engage in cooperative problem solving in an effort to achieve a resolution from which each party benefits.

In reality, most bargaining relations are mixed-motive in nature; that is, they have both distributive and integrative features. In the 1980s, however, the pressures on labour and management to solve complex problems intensified and therefore strengthened the efforts of many unions and companies to develop integrative relationships. The scope of labour–management relations expanded to include more opportunities for employee participation and union consultation in managerial decision making. Again, these innovative relationships did not spread to large numbers of bargaining relationships. Instead, sustained innovation and cooperation tended to be limited to environments in which the economic pressures for change were intense and the company was willing to share influence and power with the union and accept union leaders as joint partners in the enterprise.

Do the principles of organizational behaviour and industrial relations apply universally across nations and cultures? This issue not only has fascinated scholars and policymakers but, at critical points in history, has influenced the course of international events. After World War II, for example, the head of the U.S. forces occupying Japan imposed American-style labour laws and industrial relations practices under the belief that they would help ensure that Japan would not fall back into a militaristic or totalitarian state. By the 1980s the situation had reversed. Many American experts called for adoption of Japanese management practices in hopes of achieving the same high productivity, quality, and cooperative labour–management relations found in leading Japanese firms.

In both of these instances some practices were effectively transplanted to the other country. Free trade unions and collective bargaining did evolve in postwar Japan, albeit not in the same fashion as they had in the United States. The success of Japanese management prompted many American firms to reexamine their own policies and practices and to implement certain principles of the Japanese system. This has been the case in American manufacturing, especially in the automotive industry, where the success of Japanese “transplants” (Japanese-managed plants operating in the United States and staffed with American workers) has convinced American auto executives that the Japanese approach works. This approach organizes workers into teams and promotes such practices as labour–management cooperation, worker participation, training in quality control, and just-in-time inventory systems, all of which contribute to higher quality and productivity than that produced by traditional American practices.

It should be noted, however, that practices that are successful in one country may fail in another; imitation does not guarantee success. To understand why, and to explain why practices vary among nations, one needs to consider differences in national cultures, political and economic conditions, timing of the industrialization process, and key historical events that affect different countries. The comparative analysis that follows briefly reviews how these factors have influenced industrial relations in the United States, Japan, and Germany. These countries are often compared, because all three have achieved high rates of economic growth, productivity, labour peace, and improved standards of living, yet these results have been achieved through very different institutions and practices.

Perhaps the value most closely identified with American culture is that of individualism. The importance of individualism can be seen in organizational systems of authority and conflict resolution, where subordinates are free to question the orders of superiors and may attempt to resolve differences in a one-on-one fashion. The expected response to individual ambition and achievement is reward and promotion, and individuals normally turn to collective actions only when frustrated with organizational responses to individual efforts.

The broader economic and political context in which organizational and industrial relations developed has been one that places a high value on the role of the free market and minimizes government intervention in private enterprise. This ethos was particularly strong during the period of rapid industrialization between the late 1800s and the 1920s. The economic and social shock of the Great Depression modified this position considerably, however, and since then the American public has expected the government to play a more active role in regulating economic policy and industrial relations practices. Still, the view favouring decentralized institutions, industrial self-governance, and free enterprise has kept industrial relations focused at the level of the firm.

Given these values, it is not surprising that the greatest conflicts in American industrial relations tend to arise over efforts to unionize a company and over negotiation of the specific terms of an employment contract. The value Americans place on individualism and mobility also helps explain why turnover rates tend to be higher in American firms than in many other countries and why cooperative labour–management relations are difficult to sustain.