Employers' associations and collective bargaining in New York city

This is a study of how small-scale businessmen-those em THIS ploying from one to fifteen or twenty workers in the man ufacturing, distributing, building, retailing, and service trades of New York City-have formed associations for the purpose of negotiating and administering labor agreements with unions of their employees. It attempts to explain why these employer bargaining groups are created, what forms they take, what powers they exercise, and what procedures they follow. The study sets forth the major patterns of multiple-employer bargain ing and discusses the various strategies, techniques, and pres sures that unions and associations exert upon each other during the negotiation of group contracts. It then follows the executed agreement through the many problems that arise during its ad ministration: the problem of maintaining uniform interpreta tions against the pressure for local deviations from contract standards, the problem of creating machinery for settling dis putes and seeing that it works successfully, the problem of im posing penalties and inflicting punishments upon those who violate the agreement.

The study is based primarily upon personal interviews with representatives of employers' associations and of labor unions in New York City during the fall months of 1947 and 1948. It is a report on what the interviewer has learned.