Managers and Nonunion Workers in the Rubber Industry: Union Avoidance Strategies in the 1930s

Daniel Nelson

ILR Review, 1989, vol. 43, issue 1, 41-52

Abstract: This study of the rubber industry in the 1930s confirms the recently developed thesis that employers in that decade were more diverse in their responses to the rise of organized labor, and more successful in thwarting or containing unions, than most early labor histories have given them credit for. The author finds that small and medium-sized firms in the industry were highly sensitive to short-term economic considerations, whereas the largest firms implemented policies that reflected previous industrial relations experiences. Goodyear, Firestone, and U.S. Rubber adopted policies that the author (borrowing a typology from Howell Harris) characterizes as persistent anti-unionism, realism, and progressivism, respectively. All three achieved most of their objectives, including the elimination or restriction of union influence.

Date: 1989
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://ilr.sagepub.com/content/43/1/41.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:43:y:1989:i:1:p:41-52

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in ILR Review from Cornell University, ILR School
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().