Government's role in promoting labor-management cooperation - Reflections of Eight Former Secretaries

Monthly Labor Review, Feb, 1988 by W.J. Usery, Jr.

In either case, the U.S. Government's role in maintaining a healty environment for cooperative labor-management relations has been -- and remains -- essential. Collective bargaining, the foundation of American industrial democracry, remains fundamental to the well-being of the free enterprise system.

Unfortunately, during recent years, contemporary issues confronting labor-management relations have languished in a kind of purgatory -- an isolated landscape inhabited almost exclusively by labor union leaders and corporate labor relations executives. Critical issues over which these labor and business leaders preside affect all of us, especially in a highly competitive world where events in one corner of the globe affect those in another. But because the issues are often highly controversial and complex, they have been ignored, for the most part, by the remainder of the republic.

That clearly must change if the United States is to remain strong and maintain a leadership role in an emerging, restructured world economy. It is imperative that we openly explore, debate and resolve the labor-management issues challenging the tradition of industrial democracy in America. To do otherwise is to seek solace and hope in ignorance; to do otherwise is to invite economic decline.

Historically, the joint efforts of business and labor built the great productive capacity of our Nation, even though the apparent interests of those two parties have at times been in conflict. The future, too, will be determined by the institutions of business and labor and their respective abilities to adapt to a changeing world, to find mutuality of interest, and to join forces. If we are to understand how that cooperative process has occurred in the past, we simply cannot ignore the role of government.

Until recently, the Federal Government actively sought a positive, pivotal role in labor-management relations. Collective bargaining is but an extension of political democracy, and the U.S. Government since the early years of this century has upheld the rights of American workers -- and at times even encouraged them -- to organize and negotiate with employers. The U.S. Government has played an essential, integral role in the establishment of collective bargaining and American industrial democracy.

Now that we are commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Department of Labor, I sincerely hope the celebrated occasion will force the issues confronting the American working people back to center stage where they will receive not a curtain call but the spotlight of public and political attention. I believe the U.S. Government, through the policies and activities of the Labor Department, can and must help in that process, just as it has done in the past.

We cannot afford to regress down the path of protracted labor-management conflict. Nor can we afford indecision regarding critical issues which demand attention. We must choose, instead, to travel the road of enlightened cooperation between business and labor, each depending on the other. I do not believe it is an exaggeration to say that the productive vitality of our great Nation and the American working people hangs in the balance.