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 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. He identified four key groups of “contributor-claimants” (Boulware, 1969, p. 17)—customers, owners, other businesses, and employees. He quickly identified three key areas of neglect: GE had failed to explain how it benefited others, GE 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 finally, the firm had failed to manage people's expectations about what was reasonable, possible, and feasible.

Within six months, Boulware outlined a ninepoint 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 advertisements in plant-city newspapers.

As Boulware later explained, his objective was “the deserving and thus the regaining of favorable regard and the active cooperation of employees and neighborhoods in their own interests” (Boulware, 1969, p. 5). He later observed,

Boulware's innovative strategy was grounded in solid public relations ideals. First, he strived to correct causes of people's justified dissatisfaction “by getting them to tell us what was wrong and doing all possible not only to right any such wrongs but also to try to right them in their way and not our own.” Second, he hoped to correct information or misconceptions that caused unwarranted dissatisfaction—“no matter how far afield we had to go in our own improved education and in helping our employees update their knowledge—and no matter who of high or low estate had to be contradicted in the process” (Boulware, 1969, p. 84).

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