Conference Board, we read that "the company's interests are of primary concern in the joint meetings, and accordingly compensation of the employee representatives by the company may be reasonably expected." The "company's interest" is thus frankly stated to be the first concern of these "mutual arrangements" and "industrial democracy" plans. It is only natural that the workers should be compensated for working in the company's interest. The significant fact is that so completely are they hypnotized by the catch-phrases of the company's "human relations" salesmen that they perform their committee service gratis, or at least for no higher compensation than they receive on their regular jobs.
To Offset the Union.
"A large employer of labor who organized a shop committee has told me recently that the whole aim of the shop committee movement is to head off unionism. That, he pointed out, was its principal merit," writes John A. Fitch in his Causes of Social Unrest. The same writer, who has had some opportunity to know the mind of the employer in its franker moments, records an incident which is typical:
"In a meeting of employment executives … the director of personnel of a large employing concern advised his fellows to encourage the formation, of apparently democratic organization of employes. 'But of course,' he said, 'never let these organizations get out from under your control. Let the employees think they are running them, but be sure always to keep them in hand'."
Still another instance, cited by the same social investigator, will throw light on the motives of employers when they turn to "shop committees" to save themselves from labor unions:
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