Assingment 1 -Week 1 -Popular Press Article

Las Vegas Sun Article       please click on the link to view the article

 

 

This week the readings introduced several concepts and theories related to the development of management.  I used sections of a newspaper article to help illustrate similarities and differences between the concepts set forth by Frederick W. Taylor, Henri Fayol, and Max Weber.  The article in the Las Vegas Sun by Tovin Lapan (2012, September 2) includes interviews with a number of union workers in Las Vegas.  Through their testimony the workers in the article show a unique perspective of the role of unions in the midst of the city’s downturn economy.  Several decades later the concepts of management by the three aforementioned scholars are still applicable to methods in today’s workforce.   

“I’m very frustrated with the union. They do many good things, but when I go to the office in the mornings to see if there are jobs, they seem disorganized and I never get work, but others do.”

This quote by Pedro Lizaola, who has been a union worker since 1988 according to the article, shows his frustration with the system.  Nevertheless Lizaola still believes the union is a group worth investing in, by indicating that they in fact “do many good things.”  In contrast, Frederick Taylor, who was at the forefront of the concept of “scientific management,” failed to see the value in unions.  While most unions are created in order to establish equal treatment amongst employees, Taylor indicated this concept failed to promote individuals to work to the best of their ability.  For Taylor, this prevented union members from fulfilling their personal ambitions (Wren & Bedeian, 2009, p. 128).  Taylor was a proponent of identifying the highest performance standards for workers in order to determine wages; therefore employees who work harder and faster, would also receive a higher pay.

Lizaola also points out in his quote that the unions “seem disorganized.”  In reference to our readings, the concept of Organizing was one of the elements of management introduced by Henri Fayol.  For Fayol, organizing meant providing a firm with everything it needed to achieve its objectives (Wren & Bedeian, 2009, p. 223).  Thus according to Lizaola this is a practice the union lacks and it creates dissatisfaction for workers.        

Later in the article Derrick Stowell, another union worker, shares his sentiments about the current employment situation for unions.  It is near the end of the article that he states:

 

“Unions were needed back in the day to combat exploitation, and they are still needed today.” 

 

This testimony speaks directly to a section of our reading about Taylor’s methods.  Labor leaders characterized Taylor’s piece-rate pay plan as a return to “sweat shop” exploitation (Wren & Bedeian, 2009, p. 141).  The exploitation that Stowell speaks of in the article is the same tactic that was criticized in Taylor’s the task management approach.  Unfortunately in the current economy it is likely that nonunion workers will work for less pay, leaving union workers with an even smaller pool of job opportunities to choose from.

Another piece of information gathered from Lapan’s article is that a number of unions have decreased their membership, some even by half.  Given that union workers are protected by the same laws and follow the same guidelines, many of them have left work for less than the prevailing wage.  This concept of equality in the workplace resonates with the concept of bureaucracy introduced by Max Weber.  Bureaucracy, with its emphasis on legal authority, was intended to put an end to the exploitation of employees and to ensure equal opportunity and treatment for all (Wren & Bedeian, 2009, p. 230).  Weber regarded the bureaucratic method as the most effective management system that had been developed at the time.  However the facts in Lapan’s article show that bureaucracy was not a method that worked for many union workers who decided to part ways with their groups and seek other employment options.

 

In summary, Lapan's article illustrates a few examples of how the management theories of Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol, and Max Weber are still applicable to the way organizations conduct business today.