SOURCES OF MODERN INDUSTRIAL CONFLICTS 
EFFORTS OF EMPLOYERS TO IMPROVE CONDITIONS 
Employers, on the other hand, by virtue of their responsibility for 
continung production, have made noteworthy efforts to correct the 
situation. Thus welfare work, scientific management, employment 
management, corporation training, and more recent phases of modern 
personnel practice are examples of attempts made by employers to 
meet the recognized need for closer contact with their employees. 
Welfare work has progressed from the stage where it was conducted 
paternalistically by the employer, both as respects expense and ad- 
ministration, to the modern stage where employees not only ad- 
minister many phases of it, but share jointly with the employer in 
its cost. 
Apart from the humanitarian motive behind welfare work there 
was originally very generally the intention to instill in employees a 
sense of loyalty to their employers rather than to outside organiza- 
tions such as labor unions. It was the employer’s desire to avoid the 
annoyance of dealing with business agents and at the same time 
to dominate more completely the lives of his employees. There was 
at first no appreciation of the fact that employees would resent 
welfare work given to them and entirely beyond their control ; and it 
was only after repeated failures of welfare plans administered in that 
manner that employees’ mutual benefit societies, athletic associations, 
and similar bodies were sanctioned by employers. Neither before 
nor after this modification in the method of conducting welfare work 
was it wholly successful as a means of guaranteeing employees’ 
loyalty. 
Arising independently of the welfare movement, scientific manage- 
ment appeared as the contribution of engineers accustomed to pre- 
cision of method and predictability of results. It was intended to 
provide such modifications in the conditions of work and the pecu- 
niary inducement offered workers as would guarantee satisfaction 
of the desires both of employers and employees. It would seem that 
the founder of scientific management professed childlike faith in the 
! United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Welfare Work for Employees in 
Industrial Establishments in the United States,” Bulletin No. 250, Ch. 10; also 
Boettiger, Louis A., Employee Welfare Work, Ch. 10. 
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