One Way to Peace

The West Coast's biggest pulp and paper maker is also its strongest corporate guardian of labor peace. In 14 years, Crown Zellerbach Corp., which employs 11,000 in 13 paper mills, has not lost a single day's production because of strikes, and has helped to supply the same pattern for the entire Coast paper industry. Last week, in the first of a series of 15 studies of The Causes of Industrial Peace under Collective Bargaining, the National Planning Association told how Crown Zellerbach does it.

The first task was to provide workers with security. When times were bad, Crown Zellerbach and the other paper mills developed work-sharing plans that kept employment stable throughout West Coast paper mills; now, with work plentiful, it has cooperated with the workers in setting up health and retirement insurance plans. No coddler of employees, Crown Zellerbach thinks workers should shoulder more responsibility. For example, the average Crown Zellerbach employee works with equipment worth $25,000 (in 1940), and is asked to suggest ways to make it more efficient. At its largest mill the company gets up to 100 suggestions a month, finds about 40% useful.

Working Partners. The company tries to give its workers a feeling of "belonging" by spreading authority around. Foremen (whose authority has been steadily whittled away in many big companies) are undisputed bosses of their crews; they have the final say on hiring. They are also held responsible for cutting costs in their departments. The foremen in turn are urged to let their men share in the task of planning operations.

Until recently, when it granted the union shop (to two A.F.L. unions), the company encouraged new workers to join, warned them that troublemakers who tried to undermine the union would be disciplined or fired. The union has reciprocated the trust, frequently advises management on promotions, often waives a worker's seniority right, if it feels a better man deserves the job.

Spiritual Force. At the union's suggestion, the West Coast paper industry bargains as a unit once a year, has set up a regional union-industry joint relations board to settle grievances. But most are settled at the plant level. Only ten have reached the board since 1934.

The man chiefly responsible for the company's notable record is Alexander R. Heron, Crown Zellerbach's thin, scholarly vice president and industrial relations chief, consulting professor of industrial relations at Stanford University. In a recent book, Why Men Work (Stanford University Press; $2.75), the latest choice of the Executive Book Club, Heron explained the program's philosophy. Said Heron: U.S. workers no longer work primarily for food and shelter. "The most potent reason why we work at physical jobs ... is a spiritual force ... the urge in man to realize and express himself as a person." Management, said Heron, can best help the worker realize himself by believing "in the right and ability of workers to share in the task of thinking and planning."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.