Quote:
Originally Posted by davem4616
.... this takes the post a little off course, but it is about the Swedes, so I'll share:
Back in the 1900's a manufacturing company in central Massachusetts, where I was raised, sent recruiters to Sweden and brought hundreds of Swedes over to America to work in their factory. Their research had indicated that Swedes were much more inclined to adapt and follow direction and far less likely to organize into a union than other nationalities or the local US workers at that time were. This one company wanted to avoid having to deal with a union. That company ended up with a predominant Swedish workforce and to this day never did unionize. All of the other large manufacturing firms in that same city did unionize.
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I'm chuckling while reading this. Back in the 1900s my cousin Joe owned textile mills in Fall River MA; his family were the first developers of tricot, a fabric used for women's undergarments. He gave me a tour of one of the plants including comfortable and attractive employee breakrooms and dining room (I was impressed), and as we walked he brought up the issue of union organizing. He said that he had found an ideal solution to not having it in his plants.
I asked how he managed that. He explained, "I pay my workers more, I provide better benefits, I give them more comfortable facilities, and it benefits me in return because they feel more a part of the business," going on to extol the benefits of employee loyalty. How simple, eh?...