Human Relations and Industrial Peace

In 1948 the Belgian Gov passed the Econ Reorganization Law requiring enterprise councils in all plants of 50 (later 200) or more workers. Councils composed of the head of the plant, management & elected labor delegates were to meet monthly. No decision-making power was conferred, but communication & ideas were to be exchanged. Random sample of 92 councils were studied relative to the influence of environmental factors on labor-management relations & industrial conflict (strikes). Though strike rates of some industries may be explained by production & employment factors, these are inadequate for all industries in any one yr. Some industries show a fairly stable propensity to strike (tables & coefficients are presented), but others vary markedly. The main hypo is: satisfaction with the councils is inversely r'ed with the strike rate, even when other signif factors are held constant (1956 data). The derived rank r matrix & probabilities support the hypo (-.867). Satisfaction with HR as signif'ly related to production level was confirmed. management can afford to be cooperative when high production occurs, but production is less related to strike-rate (-.60) than to HR. D. N. Barrett.