What Is Management's Stand?Author(s): Julie RoweSource: Public Administration Review, Vol. 28, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 1968), p. 485Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Society for Public AdministrationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/973771 .

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COMMUNICATIONS 485

Administration and in ASPA seems to be to mount an inquiry into the programs and activi- ties of the schools of public administration. We know virtually all we need to know about them at present. What is required is to find out how the universities and the professions can be en- couraged more effectively to face and meet their responsibilities with respect to the public service.

The heart of the Report seems to have escaped Mr. Savage's attention. It must be added that such reports are written with obli- gations to sponsors and audience as well as to one's own conscience. If Mr. Savage is af- fronted by estimates of costs involved in under- taking some of the proposed studies, he should understand they were requested. All that is being bid for in the Report is the welfare of the Republic.

JOHN C. HONEY The Maxwell School

What Is Management's Stand?

TO THE EDITOR: Your publication, and others about unions

and public employees (and I could go farther than public employees), appears to present little of a case for management. Doesn't man- agement care to state its own views as to its responsibilities and duties? In one of your recent issues I find a general approval of militancy. One article states, "It is a hard fact that militant tactics alone seem to have a chance for success." Can this be so? Mili- tant tactics are a form of violence which would in turn breed even more violence, and surely cannot be encouraged, whatever the goal.

We are already experiencing too much mili- tancy in all quarters, and responsible writers might more constructively urge a reversal of this trend. Example: some college students demand a say in curricula and management, advocate elimination of all examinations, take over buildings, etc.-surely this should be put down rather than encouraged. Many would say school administration is derelict in its obli- gation to maintain orderly process and to be

SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 1968

accountable for its administrative responsibili- ties and the success of its finished product-the student ready for the labor market through adequate training.

Since a union, theoretically at least, repre- sents its members, whether they be teachers, firemen, riveters, welfare workers, or anything else, it can only be concluded that they speak for their members-the teachers, firemen, etc. Therefore these employees are in effect doing their speaking collectively, through their ap- pointed or elected representatives (they cannot all speak at once). A group of employees demanding a voice in management, or policy, or changes in administration, or general im- provements, should be told that they were hired to do their own jobs, be it teacher, fireman, etc. They knew what they were hired to do, the pay, the hours, and everything else per- tinent to their jobs. Had management wished to hire another manager, it would have con- sulted a different type of roster to find trained and experienced people to help manage.

Moreover, it is not these employees who are responsible for the success or failure of the organization for which they work. It is even the responsibility of management to see that they as teachers, firemen, etc., do their jobs efficiently. Were everyone permitted to pre- scribe "how" an organization should be run, there could result only an eventual chaos. This is the wisdom of the old "too many cooks" adage. Only management should have both the right and the responsibility for the opera- tion of any organization, and for making deci- sions affecting the organization's present and future effectiveness and the proper discharge of its mission. That is management's job.

Should an employee have a legitimate griev- ance within his own job-such as undue dis- crimination (real or imagined), or an inappro- priate assignment, or intolerable working con- ditions-then he has a duty to himself to protest to the person or persons responsible for correction.

This is not oversimplification, rather it is "under" statement due to lack of space. It is time management explained itself.

JULIE ROWE Government Secretary

Washington, D.C.

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