Article September 11, 1954 Issue

LABOR AND MANAGEMENT: A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH

H. PHELPS GATES

Many large business and industrial concerns have built their relationships between labor and management on permanent foundations of good will and mutual respect. Others have failed miserably. Why? What is it that makes an employee happy in his work? How can an employer do a more constructive management job? Certainly the acknowledgment of the dignity and integrity of the individual is a major factor. Labor-management experts have worked diligently to strengthen these concepts. And there is sure to be much more progress along this line as an understanding of the spiritual status of man as God's idea is gained. It will come through a recognition of the dignity and integrity of God's man as described in the eighth Psalm: "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet."

This simple statement of man's dignity, crowned as he is with glory and honor, having dominion, is worth considering as a preamble to constructive labor-management relations. It is a recognition of man's integrity, wholeness, and completeness as the son of God.

"Oh, yes," says a practical expert in this controversial field, "but what good are such spiritual concepts in profane rough-and-tumble disputes over wages, hours, and working conditions? How are you going to take the Bible into a smoke-filled conference room?"

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