ADEQUATE REPRESENTATION OF EMPLOYEES i
rights be accorded employees by the management, while in others the
conviction that the request has been instigated by unrepresentative
“leaders” and is not genuinely the desire of the employees may
justify what appears to outsiders as stubborn opposition. The
management should be very sure of its ground, however, before
opposing an apparently concerted demand of employees for recogni-
tion of any right such as this which they regard as fundamental.
Somewhat related to the matter of special, full-time representatives
or expert advisers is the arrangement under a few plans permitting
elected representatives to choose from among other employees some
of the members of certain committees. An example is the plan of
S. F. Bowser & Company of Fort Wayne, Ind., which provides
three joint committees to deal with special classes of matters, on
which a minority of the employee members may be selected from
employees who are not elected representatives. This enables the
employees to draft into their service individuals possessing special
talent but who have not sought election in their particular depart-
ments. This plan further requires that no member of the joint com-
mittee on final appeal may serve as a member of the joint assembly
(works council) or on any other committee. Should a representa-
tive be chosen for the appeals committee, he would automatically
cease to be a representative and his place would be filled by a new
election. The purpose of this provision is to preserve an attitude of
impartiality on the part of those serving in a strictly judicial
capacity.16
The measures necessary to assure adequate representation of
employees are many. Their precise formulation, as we have seen,
must take into account the local situation and the attitudes which
past experience has developed among employees. This comment
applies perhaps with even greater force to the subject of joint con-
ferences: their composition and the method of conducting them.
These are discussed in the following chapter.
16 See Chapter IX, p. 167, for further consideration of this point.
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