NEED FOR INTERPRETATION AND EVALUATION 21
time regulation of industry long since were abandoned; many others
born of insincerity and narrow visioned strategy have been allowed
to lapse.
Mistrust of managements’ ulterior motives and fear of employees’
radical purposes are giving way to mutual confidence and respect.
The larger questions of constitutional form and details of procedure
are occupying less attention, consideration instead being given to the
technic of effective operation. The scope of activities of works
councils has broadened from adjustment of grievances and considera-
tion of demands respecting wages, hours, and working conditions, to
constructive, contributory participation by employees in the solution
of managerial problems.
A mere list of the corporations which have operated under some
form of employee representation for three years or more is indicative
of the place this movement has achieved in the brief period since its
advocates were quite generally regarded as faddists. An inventory
of the subjects which are discussed by responsible executives with
committees of their employees, and in many cases settled by the vote
of a joint council composed equally of elected employee representa-
tives and appointed management representatives, the latter chosen
from the ranks of minor executives, shows that both management
and workers regard these joint conferences seriously.
NEED FOR EVALUATION
Despite these indications that many prominent and influential
leaders of American business have come to regard employee represen-
tation as essential to good management, this opinion is far from being
universal; and there is much diversity of opinion among persons inti-
mately familiar with employee representation as to many fundamen-
tal questions relating to objectives and the technic of operation. The
airing of these differences, while promoting clarification of individual
views, has tended to increase bewilderment among employers who
still hesitate to take the plunge and among those innocent bystanders
who view with contemplative skepticism, when not with alarm, all
modifications of social arrangements which take shape within their
own generation. To regard employee representation as essentially
a device to defeat the unions is one unfortunate attitude, derived from
