Presidential Commission: Worker-Management Relations

Findings of the Presidential Commission on the Future of Worker Management Relations: Policy Implications

The Dunlop Commission report on the on the future of worker-management relations discusses the heightened tensions between employees and their managers due to slower economic growth, stagnant real wages, and a shortage of blue-collar jobs. The commission reviewed what changes should be made in laws and collective bargaining practices to reduce conflict and how to resolve more workplace problems without the courts or government action. Also, the report explored how to enhance workplace productivity through labor-management cooperation and employee participation. 

The commission's major findings were as follows:

• There has been a shift from manufactured goods production to the service sector.


• Technology has changed the way information is exchanged, jobs now require more education, and workers are expected to take more management initiative.


• More people are working, a reflection of the larger percentage of women in the work force.


• Although United States workers are, on average, the most productive of the world's major economies. However, they work more hours and income inequalities are sharper.

The reported states, "the move away from the stereotypical model of a male wage earner with a wife and family at home poses the question of whether existing policies are flexible enough." For example, women are sometimes denied unemployment benefits because the law tends to do more good for full-time workers, rather than part-time workers and women who may enter and leave the work force more often for family reasons. Women may also be denied benefits if they have left jobs to because their husband's job relocated and are unable to find a new job. By and large, unemployment laws were written in an era when only one adult was an income earner.