Industrial Relations During The Great War

In early twentieth century America, industrial and labor relations appeared to be at a crossroads. With the outbreak of ‘The Great War’, American industry was tasked with supplying essential products to the Allies’ war effort. At the same time, manufacturing managers faced a labor shortage and tense labor relations as major unions like the American Federation of Labor grew in power and prominence. In an attempt to bolster their labor force and alleviate these tensions, the National Association of Manufacturers’ created a strategy instituting an all-out multimedia campaign to appeal to American patriotism in an attempt to promote labor-management cooperation in working towards meeting the vigorous demands of wartime production. This campaign …show more content…
Therefore, I believe it is fair to conclude that the campaign strategy of NAM was generally successful. In his mid-war editorial, John Alpine, while critical of many aspects of the industrial relationship at the time, stated that “It now is clear that the government is determined to use every means to induce workers and employers to make full use of the democratic machinery of the National War Labor Board to secure uninterrupted war production. With such a determination organized labor must find itself in complete accord, for the simple reason that the machinery provided is constituted with the intent to deal fairly and democratically with both parties involved in dispute.” I believe that through the process of promoting general peace and cooperation in the workplace, NAM and various other entities involved in the industrial relations environment helped to establish the United States as a manufacturing powerhouse looking forward throughout the twentieth century. By appealing to the general public through simple yet effective means including strong symbolic imagery as well as other media such as films, NAM articulated its message perfectly for the audience they saw fit. Given the lack of widespread information