Featherbedding and technological change

Featherbedding, or work-restriction, is a subject receiving much attention, yet is little understood, with formal analysis being limited to very recent times. It has been the most volatile issue in collective bargaining. The management side is almost certain to attempt to obtain public support and to put pressure upon the union side by claiming that the bargaining demands of management are only designed to end featherbedding. It is a claim of virtue against sin and is usually successful in influencing pub lic opinion. The significance of public opinion in the settlement of labor management disputes is subject, however, to considerable argument.

The role of the union is defensive. It seeks to maintain the status quo in work-rules and hiring. In ordinary circumstances the union is faced with a problem of existence. It is not necessary to have all mem bers of a union unemployed before the union is confronted with the ques tion of its extinction as a viable institution. Depending on the traditional activities of the national union, there is a minimum sized organization necessary to support the hierarchy. When an organization is faced with life or death, it is generally indifferent to public feelings, even when they are given expression in the pleadings of the President of the United States.

The labor practices that we are analyzing have counterparts in other fields. The theoretical work on the subject or in these other areas is con siderably older and more advanced, with the font of analytical work in the studies on consumer surplus going back to Duepuit and Marshall.¹ In ordinary trading relations the purchaser faces a fixed or variable price, but with the clear stipulation that he determines the amount purchased. Thus, as a shorthand one can define the competitive firms or a consumer as a quantity adjuster. The ability to adjust quantity is a standard re quirement of an efficient market. When the buyer is not free to adjust quantity, there is a psychological problem. We see it in labor markets as featherbedding, but this is just a particular manifestation of a broad type of monopoly power.