Excerpt from Dispute Resolution and the Transformation of U. S. Industrial Relations: A Negotiations Perspective

The industry has been heavily unionized by one dominant union, the United Paper Workers, and remains heavily unionized. The primary approach to change over the past several years has been via what we would term necessity bargaining, aimed at lowering labor costs. In this context, management becomes the driving force in bargaining as it demands to eliminate cold days (when the mills are shut down for major holidays), to reduce Sunday premium pay, and to develop more flexibility via the elimination of work rules. While imports have not been a major factor in this industry, many companies find their overall rates of return to be unsatisfactory and they realize that their compensation costs are typically far above market rates for the (mostly rural) communities within which their facilities are located.

The strong desire on the part of the companies to lower labor costs has met substantial resistance on the part of the workers involved. For example, long, drawn out strikes have occurred at mills owned by boise-cascade and International Paper. The strong resistance is explained primarily by the fact that the financial pressure on the industry is not so severe as to make the demands of the company compellingly persuasive. Walton (1988) notes that economic pressure needs to be severe enough to capture the attention of the workforce, but not so severe as to make any adaptation seem fruitless. Thus, we would conclude that economic pressure in the paper industry is on the low side of what would be considered a motivating level of economic stress.

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