ADEQUATE REPRESENTATION OF EMPLOYEES 111 
all situations. It may be necessary in many to do as has been done 
in the representation plans of several of the telephone companies, 
recite the names of all positions which classify their holders as be- 
longing to the management and therefore exclude them from the 
right of voting or serving as employee representatives. 
Careless wording, or possibly intention, has left the way open in 
several plans for foremen and others regarded as members of the 
management to serve as employee representatives even though they 
themselves are ineligible to vote. In several companies where this 
has been the situation foremen have been elected to represent their 
own employees. Undoubtedly in many cases there has been a gen- 
uine desire of the men to have their foremen represent them on 
the workers’ council. In some other cases, however, there is reason 
to suspect that the foreman, having let it be known that he was a 
candidate, was elected because of a fear among his employees that 
unpleasant consequences would follow his defeat, or because others 
hesitated to incur his enmity by running against him.? Certainly in 
the majority of establishments there is a natural line between the 
foreman and his subordinates which makes it unlikely that he would 
adequately interpret to the management the viewpoint of his men. 
Certain unions, it is true, insist that the foreman be a member of the 
¥ We regard as of doubtful advisability the attitude taken by the management 
of one large company when employees proposed an amendment to the plan mak- 
ing a certain class of minor supervisors who might be called sub-foremen ineligible 
for election as employee representatives. The management argued that the de- 
sired result might be obtained without amending the plan since, if there were a 
decided sentiment favoring the change, it would find expression in the results of 
the next election. How real is the reluctance of employees to oppose their fore- 
men if candidates for the office of representative is suggested in the account 
given by James Myers (Representative Government in Industry, p. 101) of an 
elected committee on which six of the eleven members were foremen. The plan 
was revised to provide that thereafter nominations should be by departments, 
each department nominating two men for each vacancy, but that elections should 
be by a general vote of the entire mill. In the first election after this amendment 
became effective, the vote of the mill, recorded in such a way as to conceal the 
vote of separate departments, resulted in defeating all but one of the six foremen. 
Under the revised plan the employees of any department could “compliment” 
their foreman by nominating him; if he failed of election, he would not be war- 
ranted in attributing his defeat to the opposition of his own workmen. 
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