Author Description

Many DuPonters will recognize this story regardless of their position in the company. This book is full of conflict and controversy: stark reality in its fullest. The new "Cultural Paradigm" pits employee against employee. You, the reader, get an opportunity to witness this paradigm change through their eyes. In Richmond, Virginia, the United Steelworkers of America Union sought to become the bargaining agent of the workers, to assist them as they struggled with corporate downsizing. The economic realities of the marketplace was forcing DuPont to restructure to be competitive. The Workers Councils that evolved into the Company Union (ARWI) must also change to assure that working men and women would share in the rewards that would ultimately come with the downsizing of big business. Lacking vision, but not apathy, the laborer at Spruance has fallen victim in a political environment created by the Company Union and Management that has hindered, what could be, an oth! erwise economic opportunity for all. As you read this story, the younger workers coming into the world of manufacturing might want to think about whether they really want to work for big business, afterall. "The American workman, when he realizes that society assures him a comfortable income, is ready to accept the existing organization of industry. But industry actually could not assure that income. Therein lay the fatal weakness-really akin to the sin of pride-of welfare capitalism. Employers confidently understood responsibility for labor's well-being. That obligation, in the end, they could not fulfill." (Braeman, Bremmer, & Brody. Change and Continuity in Twentieth-Century America: The 1920's. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1968.) "The chief element of the DuPont tradition involves a benevolent attitude towards employees," state Levering, Moskowitz, and Katz in their book, The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America. DuPont's generosity to its workers was the ma! in reason no international