On the Shop Floor: The Implications of Unions and Employers Seeking to Foster Employee Involvement

Sally Klingel, Cornell University ILR School

Abstract

The article focuses on the implications of unions and employers seeking to foster employee involvement. It is reported in the article that the growth of working life programs suggests a revolution in workplace relationships that may go far in laying the basis for new patterns of industrial relationships. Research is beginning to document how and under what conditions these new workplace relationships can alter traditional processes of industrial relations, such as collective bargaining, union operations, supervisor-worker interactions, management styles of administration, and worker reward systems. Although quality of work life programs are designed primarily to mobilize and utilize a broader range of resources in the management system of the enterprise, the end result is to create a new social reality on the shop floor. It is the nature of this social reality that is addressed in this paper. The goal of this study is to standardize worker behavior within prescribed job boundaries. Major activities involve the transmitting, interpretation, and enforcement of these rules.