VIIt 
ORGANIZATION AND PROCEDURE: JOINT CONFERENCE 
BODIES 
The vitality of employee representation centers in two situations 
resulting from its routine operation. One of these is the daily con- 
tacts of employee representatives with their fellow employees and 
foremen, largely concerned with the adjustment of minor difficulties 
and misunderstandings.! The other is the periodic and special 
meetings of the various conference bodies created by the plan. The 
present chapter is devoted to a consideration of the technique of con- 
ference procedure. The underlying thought may be expressed in 
this way: Conference bodies should be so constituted and their pro- 
cedure should be such that there may result: 
A. Assumption of responsibility 
B. Realization of freedom 
C. Integration of conflicting interests 
Under existing legal rights of owners and their agents, the manage- 
ment, the obligation rests primarily upon the executives of a business 
enterprise to inject into employee representation the spirit which 
will accomplish these ends. The obstacles to their attainment are 
not the same for all situations, and it would therefore be unfair to 
judge the sincerity or the efforts put forth by the management of 
any given establishment by the degree to which they are achieved. 
But there is room for improvement in every concern, and failure to 
advance in any one of these three directions under the operation of a 
plan of employee representation would seem to indicate that there 
has been something decidedly wrong with respect to the management’s 
participation in the activities of conference bodies. 
1 This function resembles that performed in some unionized shops by a shop 
steward, or by the chapel chairman in the printing trade. 
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