Industrial Discipline: a Synthesis Approach

In view of the fact that industrial discipline is so intimately related to human element in the enterprise, its implications are of the utmost interest for the researcher in industrial relations. Traditionally severe and irresponsible, industrial discipline has been synonymous of dismissal as the solution to all sorts of offenses especially up until the last thirty years. This article serves as an introduction to the so called « Brown » system and should help evaluating it. Discipline is first discussed as being part of the managerial process, either at the motivation or control level. From the suggested analysis, two consequences are drawn which can be summed up as following: industrial discipline in its application must first be sufficiently systematized in order to comply with administrative coordination and to satisfy psychological needs of individual employees; second, when considered as a control device, it must aim at improving the future behavior of the individual in the enterprise.

The notion of industrial discipline is thenafter dissected. In its broad sense, discipline refers to a condition or attitude prevailing among the workers with respect to company rules and regulations. In a narrower but more commonly used sense, discipline is defined as action undertaken by management to correct faulty behavior on the part of subordinates. Thenafter three different theories on discipline are summarized: authoritarian, anachic and judicial, the latter being compared with the human approach.

The last part is devoted to company rules. International experience is considered and the problems of negotiating and consulting with union on discipline matters, especially in setting company rules, are discussed. The author then remarks that even if not negotiated, company rules are not necessarily arbitrary because employers must always be in a position to defend their decisions on the matter before a third party since those decisions may be questioned though regular grievance procedure provided for in the collective labour agreements.

A concluding remark amongs others suggest that a systematized approach as such does not ipso facto conduct to objective judgment. Nevertheless, a system like the « Brown » system is not without helping management and the local union leaders to adopt a standardized pattern of behavior towards similar cases when arguing over a grievance on discipline.