Peace, It's Wonderful

Chicago's union-hating S. Buchsbaum & Co. (jewelry, plastics) had busted one union in 1919, defeated another after a 16-week strike in 1935. It had hired detectives to sniff out any traces of unionism, had fired employes if they even had a relative who was a union member. That was Buchsbaum's record when in 1941 it signed up with Local 241, International Chemical Workers Union, A.F.L. Since then Buchsbaum has had not a single strike or work stoppage. Relations with employes have been so cordial that an arbitrator has never even been called in.

This sea change seemed so strange to the University of Chicago's Committee on Human Relations in Industry that it spent three years investigating. Its report on the company might well be a primer on labor relations.

No Unions. The man responsible for the new labor policy is President Herbert Jerome Buchsbaum, 48, plump, energetic owner of the company, who inherited it, along with its anti-union policy, from his father, Samuel. In his youth, son Herbert had been given many an anti-union lesson, used them to break the strike in 1935 after he took over the company.

Herbert Buchsbaum was convinced that there was nothing good about unions. Says he: "Nothing happened between 1935 and 1940 to change the way I felt. . . . But while I stayed the same, the world around me changed." One change: the Wagner Act. Once more, in 1941, the union called a strike.

No Violence. Buchsbaum, who thought all labor leaders were racketeers, was first impressed when union president Samuel Laderman prevented violence when strikebreakers drove a car through pickets. He was further impressed when a friend whose plant Laderman had unionized told him "that Sam was a real human being. He liked opera. He disliked fights."

But Buchsbaum was still determined to break the strike until he faced a committee of employes across a conference table. He told them that he opposed unions because they limited production. They answered with a flood of suggestions for increasing production by eliminating inefficiencies. Said Buchsbaum: "I could see how I could save thousands of dollars. . . . They had my interests at heart -- as well as their own." In a flush of enthusiasm he granted the union the checkoff, a 5-c--an-hour wage increase, and the right to examine the company's books.

No Pattern. The new spirit of cooperation enabled Buchsbaum and Laderman to work out specific problems. Example: when friction developed between anti-union foremen and union members, Buchsbaum agreed to fire a troublemaking foreman, the union agreed to let him fire troublemaking union men. And with union chairmen handling shop discipline, foremen were free to supervise actual production. The company now has only one foreman for each 100 workers (v. one for 20 workers before unionization). Thanks to war orders -- and lately expansion into new products -- the dollar volume per worker (1,600) has tripled. The gross will be about $12,000,000 this year, v. $2,500,000 prewar.

Buchsbaum's quick settlement of its major problems, said the report, could not serve as a pattern for most U.S. businesses. There were special factors which enabled Buchsbaum to make such a rapid change. The company was small, relationships close, one man was in a position to make all decisions. The union leaders were intelligent, reasonable and honest.

Nevertheless, concluded the report: "Both union and management leaders must recognize that they are dealing with systems of human relations. The executive who thinks in narrow legalistic terms will always be baffled by the human problems. ... If the union leaders simply press for expanded economic returns without seeking to make a positive contribution to the industry, then . . . wholehearted cooperation cannot develop."

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