Who Is Management?

Is an International Union of Corporation Presidents and Chairmen of Boards of Directors entitled to the rights of collective bargaining guaranteed by the Wagner Act?

Had the National Labor Relations Board been asked this question, it would doubtless have answered with a resounding No--drawing a clear distinction between who is Labor and who is Management. But the question was put to the Board about the Foreman's Association of America and the Board answered Yes--only to take back its answer last week.

A basic issue was at stake. To perform its function of directing production, management has to have not only officers but noncommissioned officers, just as much as an army does. But in most industries foremen, although they still direct production, no longer directly exercise the power to hire & fire. For this reason, apparently, NLRB last year decided that foremen are just a special grade of skilled labor and entitled to the privileges of labor.

This put employers on the spot. With many controversies continually arising with labor over questions of shop procedure, how was management to have any representation at the point of contact, if the foremen were part of organized labor?

Last week the Board (its complexion having been altered by a change of membership) decided in effect that foremen were not Labor but Management. It ruled that, while foremen could organize, their unions could not claim the rights of collective bargaining given under the Wagner Act.

The Board held that to recognize a union of foremen as a legitimate bargaining agency would: 1) "impede the processes of collective bargaining," 2) disrupt "established managerial techniques," 3) "repudiate the historic prohibition of the common law against fiduciaries serving conflicting interests."

Said young Robert H. Keys, president of the new Foreman's Association of America: "The decision is bad public policy. . . . We will accomplish in the shop what the law intended we should be able to accomplish in the court." Added the union's lawyer, Walter Nelson: "If employers bolstered by the decision flout the union's demands, there will be trouble." This sounded like the threat of a strike: the first strike of organized foremen in U.S. history.

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