Mr. Stoddard is secretary of the Industrial Information Service and has been in close touch for several years with the labor situation in this country. During the war he was a member of the War Labor Board. Mr. Stoddard has also had wide experience in journalistic work and was for a time an assistant in the University English Department.

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One of the outstanding facts in the industrial world today is the rapid development of what is commonly called the "employee representation" movement. This movement is not so peculiar to the United States; British, French, Italian and German industrial managers and workers have gone further in it than we have. It is known by various names, such as "shop committees," "workers' control," "industrial democracy," and the like.

What is employee representation? The President's Industrial Conference of a year of so ago defined it as the organization of the relationship between employer, and employee. It is precisely that. It is government in the factory, mine or mill. It is a structure of conference committees which, in the best prevailing practice, are composed in equal numbers of elected representatives of the management. It is an organization, local to the particular concern in which it is set up, whose function and purpose is to so correlate the mutual interests of employee and manager as to produce the most harmonious working relationships, the most effective production methods, and the best teamwork between the two often hostile factors in industry, labor and capital.

The development of employee representation received its great impetus in this country between 1917 and 1920. The erroneous impression has gone forth that the principle is new and the practice novel and without precedent. Such, however, is not the fact. The essence of employee representation is the recognized and organized participation of workmen, in greater or less degree, in the determination of questions affecting their wages, hours, and conditions of labor. Wherever union agreements have existed as for example, on the railroads, in the mines, in sections of the printing trade and in the boot and shoe industry, employee representation has, to a certain extent, also existed. It is to be noted in passing that in those few large industrial groups where collective agreements are of long standing, more ambitious joint councils are now forming as the natural and logical development of closer relations between employer and employee.

"Shop Committee" System

An early "shop committee" system was installed in one of the Westinghouse plants in the 90's. The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company's plan of representation dates from before the World War. The History of Labour in the United States cites instances of collective dealings in this country in the 18th century. Even in Europe, where the tendency has developed more fully than in the United States the recognition by law of "joint control" goes back several years. In England, for example, the Miners' Minimum Wage Act of 1921 gave statutory powers in the matter of fixing wages to joint boards of miners and mine owners. In Germany the first step toward the legal recognition of the workers' right to participate in management dates from 1891 when an act was passed amending the Industrial Code.

Three weeks ago the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, cooperating with employers' association of all New England States held in Boston a conference on employee representation. It was a most interesting meeting. Representatives of the General Electric Company, the International Harvester Company, the Thomas Plant shoe manufacturing company, the MacCallum Hoslery Company, the Walworth Manufacturing Company and the W. F. Whitney Company described their plans and reported in no uncertain terms on the success of employee representation. In brief, the testimony there presented was to the effect that better relations with the employees had been established, sharp labor controversy reduced or eliminated altogether and, in some instances better production methods installed. It is significant that, although adverse opinions were invited none raised objection to the principle of employee representation. If this conference represents accurately the opinions of New England manufacturers, it would seem that employee representation has gained a permanent place in industry hereabouts.

New Plan is Natural

Employee representation is the natural and normal development of large scale industry. When industrial units were of relatively much smaller size, contact between man and master was direct, friendly and close. The employer-employee relationship was simple. As industry expanded with thousands of factories employing from half a thousand to ten or twenty thousand men and women, this contact was destroyed. The distance between employer and manager increased. Employer and manager became separated. They could not do business together efficiently because they had no adequate machinery to express the real relationship which necessarily underlies industrial work.

Short sighted but entirely honest trade union opinion opposes employee representation on the ground that it is an attempt to destroy or discriminate against the unions. In some cases such a motive is a compelling one with employers. But in general employee representation is "open shop"--like American industry in general that is, it does not discriminate between unionists and non-unionists. It does not recognize the col- lective body of the union, but recognizes and deals with the collective body of its own employees, through their duly and honestly elected representatives. Employee representation tends to solidify the interests of all the workers in a plant with the interests of the management.

Unionists of broader vision see that there is a place for the trade union and a place for employee representation. It is a curious fact and one well worthy of reflection that in this country the impetus to employee representation comes from employers, while in England the impetus comes from trade union workers who have felt that the trade union form of organization is not adequate to meet the needs of collective dealing within the individual plant, and that the more intensive form of local, shop representation is a requisite to industrial goodwill and efficiency.

Statement Made on Scheme

The Industrial Information Service has on file a remarkable statement on employee representation in a large New England factory where, within the space of about two years, the entire atmosphere has been cleared as a direct result of "taking the employees into the game." I cannot illustrate better the possible effect of employee representation than to quote the following paragraphs from this statement:

"What is a fair wage, and what the content of a fair day's work, were, perhaps, the most vital subjects for dispute. These are many times left to some crude method of bargaining, where the solution is more a matter of erratic opinion than fact, or merely the result of blustering intimidation. Therefore, immediately our plan of representation was adopted, we set out, through the General Committee, to determine a sound and fair basis of wage. This committee drew up a scale of rates for hourly workers, and a list of basic rates for piece-workers, consistent with the relative amount of skill and intelligence for the average man involved for the work in each group. The resulting arrangement was acceptable to all because, through the representation of both company and employees, light was thrown into the remotest corners of the plant and the facts brought out.