Boulwarism

Boulwarism is a pejorative term used in labor relations to describe a take-it-or-leave-it stance by a party engaged in collective bargaining. More generally, Boulwarism is the aggressive effort by management to communicate its positions on economic and labor matters directly to (union-organized) employees and communities.

The concept stems from the no-nonsense approach to employee relations advocated by Lemuel R. Boulware (1895–1990), vice president of employees and communications at General Electric (GE) from 1947 to 1961. Boulware was a native of Kentucky who graduated from the [Page 76]University of Wisconsin, where he briefly taught accounting and commercial law following graduation. During his career, Boulware held posts with the Easy Washing Machine Company, Carrier Corporation, and Celotex Corporation before becoming operations vice chairman of the War Production Board during World War II. He joined GE as a consultant and also oversaw seven of its manufacturing subsidiaries.

Prior to Boulware being appointed to his corporate post, GE had undergone a bitter seven-week strike in 1946. Boulware's charge from GE management was to overcome the distrust and disapproval among employees and neighbors using innovative solutions that avoided mistakes made at other companies. Boulware's lack of experience in labor relations was considered to be a benefit because he provided a fresh perspective.

Boulware delved into his assignment with the same fervor he used in product marketing and began by conducting in-depth interviews. In his 1969 memoirs, Boulware recounts he identified four key groups of “contributor-claimants”: customers, owners, other businesses, and employees. He quickly identified three key areas of neglect on the part of GE: It had failed to explain how it benefited others; it had not geared “its intentions, practices, manners and results as intimately as we could and should to the other fellow's viewpoint” (Boulware, 1969, p. 5); and it had failed to manage people's expectations about what was reasonable, possible, and feasible.

Within 6 months, Boulware outlined a nine-point checklist of what employees wanted from their jobs. These included attractive compensation, improved working conditions, competent supervision, a feeling of job security, respect for human dignity, opportunities for promotion, information about management's goals, belief in the importance of one's job, and satisfaction about accomplishments.

Boulware aggressively promoted these ideas to employees. He also launched an economics education program that addressed the importance of profits, how jobs are created, how profits are earned, who pays the costs of doing business, the sizeable share of taxes paid by business, the causes of unemployment, and the dangers of price and wage controls. Boulware used articles and ads in employee publications and oversaw a massive program of meetings (using materials borrowed from DuPont) where 190,000 employees were paid to attend three 90-minute sessions on “How Our Business System Operates.” GE extended the message to communities by taking out full-page newspaper advertisements in cities with a plant location.

As Boulware explained in 1969, his objective was “the deserving and thus the regaining of favorable regard and the active cooperation of employees and neighborhoods in their own interests” (p. 83). He later observed,