CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

12. UNION-MANAGEMENT CONFLICT: HISTORICAL TRENDS AND NEW DIRECTIONS 355
organize workers to fight for higher wages and better working conditions.
Capitalists responded fiercely. Throughout the later 19th century, strikes
by railroad workers periodically erupted in violence. Mines provided a
similarly turbulent setting, as conflict between labor and management
developed into armed battles in small towns surrounding coal mines in
Kentucky, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, governments, both local and
national, tended to enter the fray on the side of business. On the legal side,
labor unions were treated by the courts as illegal conspiracies to restrain
trade throughout most of the 19th century, and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act
of 1890 applied to labor as well as to companies. Only with the 1914 Clayton
Act did lawmakers declare that labor was not a “commodity” and that labor
unions had a right to exist, but even this law made it simple for employers
to seek injunctions against strikes and picketing. Business interests were
supported not just by the courts but also by force: State militias and even the
U.S. Army were occasionally called in to protect property rights.
Rights
The Great Depression and the New Deal of the 1930s brought about a
new era in American labor relations. The National Labor Relations Act,
signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935, sought to establish
labor peace, primarily by creating a balance of power between labor
and management (Heckscher, 1996). Violence and force as the primary
approaches to conflict resolution gave way to a new system of industrial
relations (Dunlop, 1958).
This New Deal system relied upon a rough balance of power between
the parties, giving both sides an incentive to come to the bargaining table,
rather than resorting to strikes, lockouts, or violence. At the table, labor
and management negotiated to establish sets of rules—embedded in fixedterm
contracts—to govern the workplace. During the life of the contract,
the parties attempted to resolve disputes by applying these rules. Disputes
over the rules that could not be resolved directly between management
and union representatives were typically solved through binding arbitration;
outside neutrals were hired to hear the case, and their decisions were
contractually binding on both parties. With the institutionalization of the
new system, dispute resolution shifted from “power” to “rights.”
This system of rights-based dispute resolution comprised four key elements.
First, the system established a set of rules for determining who,
if anyone, would represent workers collectively. Disputes over the legitimacy
of union representation had been a source of violent disagreement
between workers and management; the new system provided a set of procedural
steps to determine whether collective representation was desirable,
and sought to ensure that workers could choose such representation
free of coercion. Second, where workers chose unions, the system included