The History Corner: Remembering Senator Kennedy and His Attempts to Improve Work Satisfaction Among U.S. Workers
Mike Zickar
Bowling Green State University
Senator Ted Kennedy’s passing on August 25 brought about a long list of well-deserved tributes that emphasized his numerous legislative accomplishments, many of which were aimed at improving the lives of middle-class, blue-collar workers. Regardless of your political affiliation, it would be hard to deny that Senator Kennedy had an enormous impact on economic and workplace regulation, helping pass laws related to minimum wage, workplace safety standards, workplace disability laws, family medical leave, insurance transportability, and the like. Although these acts often impact our work as I-O psychologists in indirect ways, there was one episode in Senator Kennedy’s career in which he directly addressed an issue dearly important to most of us as I-O psychologists: job satisfaction.
On July 25 and 26, 1972, a sub
committee of the United States Senate’s Committee on Labor and Public Welfare held hearings on S. 3916, Worker Alienation Research and Technical Assistance Act of 1972. Senator Edward Kennedy convened the meeting, opening with prepared remarks discussing the nature and extent of worker alienation, discussing some high-profile cases and strikes related to worker dissatisfaction. He asked rhetorical questions such as “What is the extent of use of drugs and alcoholism among young workers?” “How many men and women could function more effectively as parents and citizens if they did not feel dissatisfied with their jobs?” “How much does [alienation] cost the economy in terms of lost time, in terms of retraining new workers, in terms of low productivity?” (U.S. Senate, 1972, pp. 8–9).
Over 2 days, the committee of senators, which included illustrious legislators such as Jacob Javits (NY) and Adlai Stevenson III (IL), heard testimony from labor leaders, think-tank directors, managers, and academics. In addition, statements and related articles were entered into the record.
Two members of UAW Local 1112 from Lordstown, Ohio discussed a recent strike where workers walked out, not because of pay and benefits but because of poor working conditions. The two labor members told the senators about the nature of the production work, where some workers had 36 seconds, on average, to perform an operation and that they spent the whole day doing that one particular task. They discussed poor working conditions, such as a time when the plant’s ventilation system stopped working but the management refused to open exit doors to increase air circulation because they were worried that employee theft would increase. The workers, along with Senator Kennedy, discussed alternative working solutions and programs implemented in Sweden and Japan that were designed to increase workers’ sense of well-being while maintaining or improving productivity.
Several academics spoke to the committee. Dr. John French from the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center presented survey research on the causes of work satisfaction and dissatisfaction, as well as the relation between job stresses and health, both physiological and mental health. Dr. Harold Sheppard, from the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, presented results from a study of blue-collar workers of the relationship between tasks performed on the job and job satisfaction. He examined how task variety and task rotation could be used to improve workers’ work experience.
Reading the proceedings of the hearing, it is clear the extent of Senator Kennedy’s interest in the well being of workers. At times, he cited research from Arthur Kornhauser’s classic study of the mental health of autoworkers (Kornhauser, 1965); other times, he requested additional analyses and statistical information from committee witnesses. S. 3916, introduced by Senator Kennedy on August 14, 1972, proposed that Congress appropriate $10,000,000 in 1973 and $10,000,000 in 1974 for the purposes of funding research designed to determine the extent of job discontent, to research methods on reducing workplace alienation, and to provide technical assistance to unions and companies desiring to humanize their workplace. The secretary of labor and the secretary of health, education, and welfare were to monitor the expenditure of these funds and to insure that federal agencies maximized their employees’ job satisfaction and considered relevant factors when designing new federal facilities.
S. 3916 never became law. It appears that, like many pieces of legislation, it died in committee, for some reason unknown to me. Senator Kennedy would continue his fight to improve the lives of working Americans by fighting for increases in minimum wage, for universal healthcare, for extended family medical leave, and in many other directions. It is unclear what the consequences would have been if S. 3916 had been enacted into law. It may have increased funding opportunities for I-O psychologists and brought us more into the congressional spotlight, providing us opportunities to shape federal employment policy and laws. Since that time, Congress has seemed relatively uninterested in issues that overlap strongly with I-O psychology. For 2 days in the summer of 1972, however, at least one hearing room in the U.S. Senate was full of discussion and research that seemed remarkably similar to what we would read in our journals and hear at our annual conference. Senator Kennedy’s dream of increased federal funding for job satisfaction research never got realized in his lifetime, though it is an event well worth remembering by I-O psychologists.
References
Kornhauser, A. (1965). Mental health of the industrial worker. New York: Wiley.
United States Senate (1972). Worker alienation: Hearings before the subcommittee on employment, manpower, and poverty. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.