Labor and Management

Carnegie – Gompers – Laughlin – Taylor

I can only begin to trace out the connections between these four, their relation to our previous readings, and their importance for the future.

Between Carnegie and Gompers exists the standard negotiations for higher wages and shorter hours. Standard claims of labor and standard costs of business. In doing business one cannot ignore labor. As we see with Carnegie one can take either a more cooperative, or more confrontational, approach. It seems both are ways of doing business.

The Homestead Strike highlights some of the importance of our past readings. The steel mill was Carnegie’s property, by contract, and he hired detectives to take it back. On the other side, laborers felt they had mixed their labor sufficiently with the plant to give them some claim of ownership. The violence exhibited by both sides failed to address this fundamental question about the nature of property. In every job I have ever had, workers have started to feel this sense of ownership. I offer for consideration that it is this sense of property that must be directly engaged in more cooperative negotiations.

I also offer that Frick’s attempt to bust the union was not business. Having achieved all the concessions he could have wanted for the purpose of running the business he went after their organization. There is a difference between reducing costs and eliminating every possible source of opposition. I wonder if an analogy holds between attempting to destroy a functioning collective bargaining unit and a functioning individual bargaining unit. Attempts to keep workers attached to their jobs are numerous. Listen to the song “Sixteen Tons”. I’ll go into this more in audio I think.

Some further quick points I offer for now: (1) Laughlin picks up the economists argument and is basically arguing about the relationship between the division of labor, productivity, and wages. By attacking Laughlin, Gompers is really attacking Smith. (2) Taylor is the logical conclusion of Smith’s division of labor. After all, if we are going to divide it, let’s divide it right. The whole purpose of this division is to increase productivity and Taylor notes, with some justification, that this increase in productivity depends on a correct division. (3) Finally, it is the unsatisfactory nature of Taylor’s system that now serves as the touchstone for a huge amount of management literature to come.