The Required Changes
First, management must have true concern and respect for the employee. And there must be good communication between management and workers as well as a friendly atmosphere among employees themselves. The family atmosphere that exists in small, family-owned companies is usually free from the conflicts harassing big industry. In big industry the impersonal assembly line makes employees feel like endless cogs in an impersonal machine.
A strike at Britain's Pilkington glass works illustrated the point. The strike last spring was said to be the ugliest and costliest in England's recent industrial history. It was the first strike in the 144-year history of the company. It is easy to understand why.
Founded in 1826, Pilkington had become the largest family-owned company in Britain. The workers were well-cared for. The company paid good wages, provided recreational facilities for its workers and maintained a harmonious relationship with its employees.
Until ten years ago, there was a strong loyalty to the company. The atmosphere among the employees was one of helping each other. Everyone was happy. There was no need to strike.
Then the company began to expand rapidly. Thousands of employees moved into the area to work in the factory. The old spirit and atmosphere among the workers was crushed. There was no longer any real job satisfaction.
The outcome?
Demands by employees, fear of management — a strike!
Such a strike occurs only when effective relationships have broken down. But labor disputes and strikes will further damage an already bad relationship between management and employees. A strike always leaves the relations between the two parties in a strained atmosphere of bitterness.
Why Jobs Don't Satisfy
Management must have a personal relationship with workers. Employers should be just and fair in dealing with employees and treat them with dignity and respect. A worker should be allowed to make suggestions and discuss his problems directly with management.
Some companies have set up work involvement programs to give employees more opportunities for responsibility, achievement, creativity and job enrichment. These are the areas which give workers the most satisfaction with their jobs.
Such a program is the key to better industrial relations, greater efficiency and higher productivity.
To survive, business must be able to change and to adapt to new technological discoveries, shifting economic policy and demands for better working conditions. But more than this, greater concern must be given to the psychological needs of workers. Management must find ways of instilling a sense of skill, variety, responsibility and achievement in what are now tedious, boring and mundane jobs.
Company managers are also responsible for the welfare of their workers. They should be concerned about occupational facilities, living conditions and opportunities for education and self-improvement that will help workers to better their status in life. That education should include the development of character in order to enable a man to find greater happiness — to learn how to live as well as how to earn a living.
Increase in pay and even better working conditions, however, do not fully satisfy workers' needs. Workers have other needs that, if fulfilled, would give them longer-lasting satisfaction.
Workers need a sense of achievement — need to do jobs that have purpose. They should be recognized for accomplishing something of importance. Where possible and necessary, they should have a part in decision-making and should have opportunities to advance in their field of work.
Factory workers are fed up with being human machines — assembly-line slaves. This is one crucial reason for the recent auto-worker militancy that led to the strike against General Motors.
Most assembly-line workers despise their jobs. Their bitterness can hardly be understood by anyone performing interesting tasks in pleasant surroundings.
The Worker's Responsibilities
The worker, on the other hand, also has responsibilities to his employer. He should give a full day's work for a full day's pay. He should want the company to make money. Yet, employers find it difficult to recruit people who are willing to give a full day's work. Too many are clock watchers. The fellow who is really interested in his job and works diligently sticks out like a sore thumb in many shops.
Then consider the cheating and stealing taking place in the businesses and factories of our, country. Stealing tools, materials and goods from the company is now commonly accepted as the worker's "right."
Stealing time from the company by being absent without a good reason is another problem confronting employers. One estimate said a staggering 100 million man days per year are lost through unwarranted absenteeism.
Slipshod, indolent work done in a couldn't-care-less manner is another increasing problem. How many have the desire to work hard and efficiently to produce a quality product?
There is no such thing as something for nothing. Incomes cannot increase faster than productivity.
Workers should be loyal to their employers. They should support the company by building it up instead of tearing it down. And employers should be loyal to their employees. Management and workers should think of themselves as being partners working in harmony! Each should cooperate with the other for the betterment of the business and the salary.
Eliminating the Strike
If workers followed these principles and if employers fulfilled their responsibilities, there would be no need for strikes. There would be no need for unions to help workers battle against their employers. Everyone would act according to sound reason and in a responsible manner.
In short, this requires a change in attitude — a change in human nature.
This is the permanent solution to the strike problem. And it admittedly looks rather naive in our dog-eat-dog world to think man might change his nature.
Yet, why should such a solution be thought of as naïve or fundamentally impossible? It isn't a new idea.
Almost two thousand years ago a great religious leader, Paul of Tarsus, counseled his church members in the following terms: "Whatever you [employees] do, put your whole heart and soul into it, as into work done for the Lord, and not merely for men . . . you employers . . . your responsibility is to be fair and just toward those whom you employ" (Colossians 3:22 through 4:1, Phillips translation).
Here was the way — the principle of giving! If our workers put these principles into practice, there would be no strikes, no lack of concern for employees. The economy — both personal and national — of all nations would rise to new heights, surpassing the wildest dreams of economists.
Impractical Solutions?
Such a drastic change in our American and British way of life should not be considered naïve or impractical by either employers or employees in our nations. It should be obvious this is the only way to economic prosperity with justice. Both the old sweatshops and recent union shops should have proved to us that neither greedy management nor greedy labor can gain any real advantage by getting the "upper hand."
We have swerved to both sides of the road, and it is time to try — for the first time — the middle of the road: service, mutual respect, and consideration. These are expressed in just salaries (freely offered), hard work (happily supplied), and mutual sharing of the company's prosperity.
You — whether company president or assembly-line worker — are in a position to change whenever you want to. The spirit of service can spread through your company just as easily as the spirit of greed and competition. Some companies have tried it, and they now have happy employees, hard workers, good salaries, and the satisfaction of a job well done for a fine company.
But if this solution still sounds naïve to you, then your company, your salary, and even your nation will continue to be plagued with economic woes, spiraling inflation, embezzlement, distrust, loss of profit, and every economic woe that accompanies the selfish, grabbing, and greedy way of life. The decision is in the hand of each of you.