boulwarisme

Traductions

• anglais

  Date : 1985

  Définition

  A collective bargaining approach followed by General Electric Company and named after GE's former vice president for employer and public relations, Lemuel Boulware. It was described by Professor Herbert R. Northrup of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Finance and Commerce as follows: "After careful research and a full exchange of views with the union bargaining agents for many days, or even weeks before an offer is made, the company puts what it believes proper on the table and changes it only on the basis of what is considered 'new information'".
  
  A bargaining strategy in which an employer attempts to persuade the employees that his or her initial offer is in their best interests, thus bypassing the union, and changes this offer only if he or she receives new information of persuasive arguments from the union.
  
  ((...)) management's position was to present a "truthful offer" in labor contract negotiation that is considered realistic and final.

  Notes :

  It was described in more detail by NLRB Trial Examiner Arthur Left as embracing the following: 1. Through extensive, year-round research, the company attempts to determine what is "right" for its employees in the light of all the attitudes. 2. When bargaining begins, the company listens to the presentations made by all of the unions with which it deals and then evaluates their demands, using all the facts it has on hand, including those supplied by the unions. 3. On the basis of its research and study, the company then makes its determination of what is "right". It makes an offer to the unions, which includes everything it has found to be warranted; nothing is held back for later trading or compromise. The same basic offer is made to substantially all of the unions with which the company negotiates. 4. The company does not, however, present its offer initially on an avowed "take-it-or-leave-it" basis. It states a willingness to make prompt adjustments whenever new information from any source of a significant change in facts indicates that the initial offer fell short of being "right". But the company also emphasizes that it will not make any change it believes to be incorrect merely because of a strike or a threat of a strike. 5. As a basic part of the approach, the company "markets" its positions directly to the employees through an elaborate employee communications systems, making use of plant newspapers, daily news digests, employee bulletins, letters to employees' homes, television and radio broadcasts, and personal contacts. It is the company's belief that the employees, in turn, may influence union acceptance of the offer. 6. Finally, it is the company's policy to make certain that no one union of those with which it deals gets more favored treatment than any other. Moreover, it applies the terms of the basic offer made to the unions to be employees who are not represented by a union. In December 1964, the NLRB held that General Electric violated the good faith bargaining duty under the Taft-Hartley Act by its overall approach to and conduct of 1960 negotiations with the Electric Workers (IUE).
  
  Originally named after a vice president of the General Electric Company who used this bargaining tactic. In National Labor Relations Board V. General Electric Company (1969), the Court of Appeals declared that this activity is a refusal to bargain in good faith and thus an unfair labor practice.

  Termes :

  1. boulwarism
  2. boulwareism