Peter S. McInnis’s “Teamwork for Harmony: Labour-Management Production Committees and the Postwar Settlement in Canada” unearths major steps undertaken by the leadership of Canada to bring the much needed order in the labour industries as well as in the settlement of the Canadians after the second world war. Peter sheds enough light into how, what would later turn into one of the most successful and long-lived cooperative experiments in the industrial relations of Canada came to be. He elaborates how the then Prime Minister of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King orchestrated the formation of the formal Labour-Management Production Committees (LMPCS) (Donaghy et al., 1997).
These committees, (LMPCS) were designed to encourage teamwork and enhance harmony among the competing interests in the workplace (Hollander, (1998). The writer elaborates that these committees were established to counter the challenges that arose during the war, such as worker absenteeism and low industrial productivity. The writer adds that these committees were also to function as channels for the trading of productivity information between workers and the management in a way that did not seize collective bargaining practices Peter narrates the measures undertaken to achieve this end, how a superfluity of materials such as guidebooks, films posters and other propaganda adorned the intrinsic worth of labour-management cooperation schemes (McInnis, 2001).
The journal further illuminates how the LMPCS, rapidly expanded from the support of the Trade and Labour Congress (TLC) and the Canadian Congress of Labour (CCL) who were as a matter of fact rivals. Other support came from the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association (CMA) as well as the Canadian Chamber of Commerce inclusive of other separate unions that urged government officials for the insertion of such systems of cooperation. Peter informs that by the time the war came to end, there were hundreds of committees already in existence in many large- and medium-sized industrial setting.
The writer informs that one of the major outcomes of the Second World War was that it had conveyed about immense state intervention on a measure that was thought unconceivable during the years of the Great Depression. Many were involved in the industrial work. LMPCs offered regular access to the management boardrooms which was a new phenomenon because even the collective bargaining had not guaranteed before. The new program had come in at a time when collective agreements were starting to take shape of modern structure as intricate list of rights and responsibilities minutely itemizing all action of labour management. Previously official and unofficial mechanism for labour –management cooperation permitted for concession of issues not specifically covered in the contract semantic. McInnis therefore asserts that LMPCs were an essential adjunct to the attainment of enforced joint bargaining. During the post war period there was increased number of committees and consequently their mandate were extended to include other related issues such as health, welfare and quality of working life (McInnis, 2001).
McInnis asserts that LMPCs had been limited to technical qualifications on labour-management cooperation as they recount to the dedicated fields of industrial relations or business management. He further asserts that these assertions adopt an indiscriminating valuation of workplace cooperation modeled on liberal pluralist models upholding rubrics of demeanor and managerial procedures to attain industrial democracy and social constancy. He says that these rules are based on the assumption that labour and resources share a primary equality of economic power and that basic semantic of class conflict can be moderated by the realization of a ‘state of antagonistic cooperation’ (McInnis, 2001).
McInnis elaborates that even after the war; the government articulated its current plan for peace. The war experience had justified the experiment in collective Labour-Management Production Committees. As a result the LMPCs continued to receive support from the federal government as a contrivance for restoring economic uncertainty in the immediate rebuilding era. Consequently the number of committees and that of members represented by them continued to increase. However, McInnis says that the governments support for LMPCs started to decline as the war contracts started to decline. For instance he asserts that the advisory committee of the IPCB had not met for a number of months and this forced the CCL executive to write to the federal officials to complain about the insufficient budget to carry out its duties. McInnis further informs that all these rapidly changed and Canada experienced the most extreme period of strike since 1919.
McInnis paints a clear picture of the state trade unions that although they were strong in numbers they were weakened by lack of political leverage in the Canadian polity. He asserts that due to these shortcomings even the survival of the trade unions was at stake and therefore the strike served as an important gesture of economic power. He provides insights on how the trade unions used the strike to compel the government to adopt consensual approach as opposed to coercive measures in the workplace, for instance he writes that the secretary-treasurer of the CCL Pat Conroy in front of the federal committee observed that ‘the lid, figuratively had been put on wages for a period of six years, and it was inevitable that, unless the pressure is eased the lid would blow off. After which the LMPCs official support was restored and the program was extended.
McInnis has done a superb job in unearthing and laying it bear the process by which collective bargaining in Canada came to be. He has provided incredible evidence on the major efforts put forth by the LMPCs in the struggle for industrial welfare and quality working life. His journal sheds enough light to the struggles and the efforts of the LMPCs which can be credited for a large proportion in the reconstruction of postwar Canada.
References
Donaghy, G., & Comité canadien de l'histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. (1997). Uncertain horizons: Canadians and their world in 1945. Ottawa: Canadian Committee for the History of the Second World War.
Hollander, T. (1998). "Down the middle of the road": The Canadian State and collective bargaining, 1935-1948.
McInnis, P. S. (2001). Harnessing labour confrontation: Shaping the postwar settlement in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
