Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions, and the Transformation of Work in the 20Th Century, Revised Edition
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Employing Bureaucracy LEA’S ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT SERIES Series Editors Arthur P. Brief Tulane University James P. Walsh University of Michigan Associate Series Editors P. Christopher Earley London School of Business Sara L. Rynes University of Iowa Ashforth (Au): Role Transitions in Organizational Life: An Identity-Based Perspective. Bartunek (Au): Organizational and Educational Change: The Life and Role of a Change Agent Group. Beach (Ed.): Image Theory: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations. Brett/Drasgow (Eds.): The Psychology of Work: Theoretically Based Empirical Research. Darley/Messick/Tyler (Eds.): Social Influences on Ethical Behavior in Organizations. Denison (Ed.): Managing Organizational Change in Transition Economies. Earley/Gibson (Aus.): Multinational Work Teams: A New Perspective. Garud/Karnoe (Eds.): Path Dependence and Creation. Jacoby (Au.): Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions, and the Transformation of Work in the 20th Century, Revised Edition. Lant/Shapira (Eds.): Organizational Cognition: Computation and Interpretation. Lord/Brown (Aus.): Leadership Processes and Follower Self-Identity. Margolis/Walsh (Aus.): People and Profits? The Search Between a Company’s Social and Financial Performance. Pearce (Au.): Organization and Management in the Embrace of the Government. Peterson/Mannix (Eds.): Leading and Managing People in the Dynamic Organization. Riggio/Murphy/Pirozzolo (Eds.): Multiple Intelligences and Leadership. Schneider/Smith (Eds.): Personality and Organizations. Thompson/Levine/Messick (Eds.): Shared Cognition in Organizations: The Management of Knowledge. For more information about LEA titles, please contact Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, at www.erlbaum.com. Employing Bureaucracy Managers, Unions, and the Transformation of Work in the 20th Century Revised Edition Sanford M. Jacoby UCLA LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES PUBLISHERS 2004 Mahwah, New Jersey London Senior Acquisitions Editor: Anne C. Duffy Editorial Assistant: Kristin Duch Cover Layout: Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey Textbook Production Manager: Paul Smolenski Full-Service Compositor: TechBooks Text and Cover Printer: Sheridan Books, Inc. Photo Credit: “Foreman and worker at SKF roller bearing factory, Philadelphia, circa 1944.” Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, reproduction number LC-USW3-022490-E DLC. This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Copyright C 2004 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All right reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other means, without prior written permission of the publisher. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers 10 Industrial Avenue Mahwah, New Jersey 07430 www.erlbaum.com Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Jacoby, Sanford M., 1953– Employing bureaucracy : managers, unions, and the transformation of work in the twentieth century / Sanford M. Jacoby.—Rev. ed. p. cm.—(LEA’s organization and management series) Previous ed. has subtitle: managers, unions, and the transformation of work in American industry, 1900–1945. ISBN 0-8058-4409-0 (case bound) — ISBN 0-8058-4410-4 (paperback) 1. Personnel management—United States—History—20th century. 2. Working class—United States—History—20th century. 3. Bureaucracy—United States— History—20th century. 4. Labor unions—United States—History—20th century. I. Title. II. Series. HF5549.2.U5J32 2004 331.09730904—dc22 2003021882 ISBN 1-4106-1014-4 Master e-book ISBN To the memory of my mother and father Contents Series Foreword ix James P. Walsh and Arthur P. Brief Acknowledgments xi Introduction to Revised Edition 1 Chapter 1: The Way It Was: Factory Labor Before 1915 10 Chapter 2: Systematic Management and Welfare Work 29 Chapter 3: Vocational Guidance 49 Chapter 4: Problems, Problem-Solvers, and a New Profession 74 Chapter 5: Crisis and Change During World War I 99 Chapter 6: A Different Decade: Moderation in the 1920s 124 Chapter 7: The Response to Depression 154 Chapter 8: Another Great Transformation, 1936–1945 179 Chapter 9: From the 1950s to the Present 205 Endnotes 225 Index 299 vii Series Foreword Employing Bureaucracy was something of a smash hit when it was first published nearly twenty years ago. Our field sorely lacked much of a historical appreciation for the employment practices we witnessed and studied every day. This book filled that void, but time marched on. No longer as contemporary as it once was, scholars stopped turning to it. It was becoming one of those classic books that senior scholars had read and perhaps forgotten, and one that the newer scholars recognized but had not read. It was time to update the book and bring it back to the attention of our colleagues. We are thrilled to present this new revised edition of the book. Now more than ever, we need this historical perspective. Let us illustrate the power of Sanford Jacoby’s analysis with just one example. Consider how many of us are quick to dismiss the “organization man” of the 1950s and 1960s and yet openly share our anxieties about the corporate restructurings of the recent past. Jacoby shows us how the small cohort of middle managers, born during the Great Depression and surviving World War II, were a very scarce organizational resource. Firms went out of their way to make themselves attractive in the hope of building long-term employment relationships with these valuable managers. Of course, such security was quite welcomed by the people who had survived this tumultuous era. Oddly enough, those of us who came of age during the protest movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s, or during the prosperity of the more recent past, are tempted to look back on our parents and grandparents as incredibly risk- averse cogs in a post–war industrial machine. That is not fair at all. Ironically, many of these same children and grandchildren now find themselves wishing for such secure employment practices. Jacoby shows us how contemporary firms have shifted a good deal of their risk onto their employees, thus creating the anxiety we witness every day. This kind of historical analysis gives us not only a good deal of empathy for others but also the incalculable benefit of being able to look behind the headlines for a much better understanding of the world of organization and management. We hope that everyone in our field will read—or reread—this terrific book. —James P. Walsh —Arthur P. Brief Series Editors ix Acknowledgments I am deeply grateful to many friends and colleagues for their ideas and support. David Brody, Clair Brown, Ellis Hawley, Diane Lindstrom, Michael Reich, George Strauss, and Lloyd Ulman read at least one version of the original manuscript. Walter Fogel, Joan Hannon, Daniel Mitchell, Joseph Pratt, and Peter Seixas gave useful editorial advice. David Arsen, Sean Flaherty, Candace Howes, Charles Jeszeck, Rebecca Morales, Stacey Oliker, Greg Topakian, and the late Abraham Ackerman provided help of various kinds at critical junctures. The UCLA Faculty Research Committee and the Eleanor Roosevelt Institute provided financial assistance. UCLA’s Institute of Industrial Relations and the Anderson School contributed funds for research assistance. Passages in this book have been taken from several previously published papers: “Industrial Labor Mobility in Historical Perspective,” Industrial Relations (Spring 1983), pp. 261–282; “The Origins of Internal Labor Markets in American Man- ufacturing Firms” in Paul Osterman, editor, Internal Labor Markets, MIT Press, 1984; “Melting into Air? Downsizing, Job Stability, and the Future of Work,” Chicago-Kent Law Review (2000); and “A Century of Human Resource Manage- ment,” in Bruce Kaufman, Richard Beaumont, and Roy Helfgott, editors, From Industrial Relations to Human Resources and Beyond, M.E. Sharpe, 2003. For the revised edition, I am grateful to Andrew Gordon, Robert Samuelson, and Louis Uchitelle—who complained that the original edition had gone out of print—and to Walter Nord, who prodded me to do an update. Financial support for the revised edition was provided by the Anderson School at UCLA. Thanks to Nini Jiang and Cynthia Zhang for research assistance. Above all, I want to thank my children, Alex and Margaret, and my wife, Susan Bartholomew, for their encouragement, patience, and love. —S.M.J. xi Employing Bureaucracy Introduction to Revised Edition In 1972, a dramatic strike took place at a General Motors assembly plant in Lord- stown, Ohio. The strikers, many of whom were young and well-educated, walked out in protest over working conditions at the plant. They said they were seeking something more from their labor than high wages, pensions, and job security. One young worker wanted “a chance to use my brain, a job where my high school education counts for something.”1 The strike received national attention and unleashed a torrent of books and articles about job satisfaction, the work ethic, and the quality of working life. Their authors sounded a common theme: that workers were dissatisfied because their jobs were uninteresting, meaningless, and lacking in opportunities for personal growth. This view was shared by a diverse group of observers. But there was little agreement over what should be done to improve the situation. Work reform experts prescribed remedies such as job enrichment and more participative forms of management;2