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 1980 
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 1983 
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 L161— O-10<>6 
 

 INSTITUTE F 
 
 LABOR AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS 
 70U 3. Sixth Street 
 Champaign, Illinois 
 
 THE MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT 
 LOOKS AT THE LABOR PRESS 
 
 BY ROBERT NEWCOMB AND 
 MARG SALMONS 
 
 Newcomb and Sammons, Management and 
 Public Relations Consultants 
 
 LECTURE SERIES NO. 19 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 

3%/./ 
 
 THE MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT LOOKS AT THE LABOR PRESS 
 
 by 
 
 Robert Newcomb and Marg Sammons 
 Newcomb and Sammons, Management & Public Relations Consultants, Chicago 
 
 (Talk given at a conference sponsored by the Midwest Labor Press 
 Association and the University of Illinois Institute of Labor and 
 Industrial Relations and Division of University Extension, 
 May 6-7, i960, at the LaSalle Hotel, Chicago.) 
 
 From Bob Newcomb: 
 
 Before I tell you anything else, I want to tell you that we feel 
 that it is both a pleasure and a privilege to be invited to come here 
 and talk with you editors. As a result of this association, we expect 
 to go away with some constructive thoughts; in turn I hope we will be 
 able to leave a few constructive thoughts with you. We are all in the 
 same journalistic boat, and even though we all run into some rough seas 
 now and then, I have a hunch that you wouldn 't want to swap for another 
 boat any more than we would. 
 
 Just for a second of historical background that has an application 
 to the remarks we're going to make to you: During World War II Marg and 
 I were assigned, as part of our small contribution to the war effort, to 
 the copper mines of Montana. The War Department and the War Production 
 Board jointly sent us there, mindful of the fact that copper was an 
 essential metal and that copper management had leagued it up with the 
 CIO and AFL there to form a labor-management committee. Our job was 
 to help along the committee and turn out a labor-management newspaper. 
 

 
 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/managementconsul18newc 
 
I'm not going to bore you with the details of this excursion into 
 rawhide journalism. Let it only be said that it was a wild, wonderful, 
 eye-opening experience — one we wouldn't have missed for the whole wide 
 world. Our newspaper, as I said, was a joint labor-management effort — 
 we had on our editorial board representatives from both AFL and CIO 
 (you hadn't merged yet, of course) from the mines, the smelter, and 
 the refinery. 
 
 Union representatives outnumbered management on the editorial 
 board. If they had been so inclined, they could have made our assign- 
 ment miserable, simply by exercising vigorously their right of censor- 
 ship. But they never did. They worked hand-in-glove with the whole 
 effort and every labor man on that board — and management man, too — 
 gave the project sincere and continuous help. I grant you there was 
 a war on and it was patriotic to cooperate, but the fact remains that 
 we formed during that four-year period a respect for the journalistic 
 capacities of our labor friends that we have never lost. A few of 
 those editorial board members from the labor side still get to Chicago, 
 and when they do, we always get together. These may not have been 
 professional journalists, but all I can say is that they were born with 
 a whale of an instinct for what makes news. 
 
 I mentioned that, as editors, we're all in the same boat. We 
 were reminded of this only a few years ago when we listened to Doc 
 Lewis, that fireball editor of the United Rubber Worker , now retired. 
 In a speech before a group of management editors, he took his hair 
 down. He confessed that he had problems, too— like meeting deadlines 
 and being certain of his readership, of staying within the budget and 
 of trying to keep everybody happy. I think all of us in the room sat 
 
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back and said, "Man, this fellow talks the editing language . He's got 
 the same headaches we have." You can count on itj we've got a lot in 
 c ommon . 
 
 His talk was so interesting, and so much to the point for the 
 editors of management publications, that Marg and I took notes on it 
 and later incorporated them in a talk we made before the Silver Bay- 
 industrial relations conference at Lake George. You might like to hear 
 briefly what Doc Lewis had to say about management — and union — 
 publication work: 
 
 1. The union publication must keep "selling" its readers on 
 the union : In this respect, it has precisely the same problems 
 
 as management's press. But the labor press problem is less, exacting 
 'because it can talk unionism in broad, national terms and be 
 effective. The management press is effective chiefly when its 
 messages have a local application. 
 
 2. The company publication for employees lacks an objective : 
 The union publication has a clear purpose. But many company 
 managements have not agreed on a purpose or objective for their 
 own employee papers. Dr. Lewis implied that a company publication 
 could be a strong influence in management's behalf, but that 
 management refuses to recognize the power of one of its own tools. 
 
 3. Communications in companies have too many managers : It 
 takes too long to reach the people, presumably because too many 
 people in management must approve what is being said. 
 
 iu If you want to reach the people, go where they are : The 
 copy handed out at the gate probably isn't readj at least it isn't 
 read to the extent it would be if the copy were mailed home. The 
 
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Rubber Workers ' union mails its copies to the members' homes and 
 he estimated that 90 per cent of union papers are mailed to the 
 homes, on the basis that distribution at the gate is a poor 
 economy. 
 
 5>. Management doesn't promote its own communications : This 
 point is best made by an example. At the editors' conference, Dr. 
 Lewis (a) described in detail the contents of a typical issue of 
 the union's paper; (b) submitted to all sorts of questioning about 
 it; (c) provided an individual copy for every delegate; (d) volun- 
 teered to have sent to every delegate's office, for a period of 
 four months, a free copy; (e) invited every delegate to write in 
 questions to him and to drop in and visit him at his office in 
 Akron. 
 
 6. Management editors do not get out among their own people ; 
 Dr. Lewis said he spends more than 5>0 per cent of his time in the 
 field. 
 Those were the Lewis comments. 
 
 # # & # # 
 
 I don't think any informed communications man in management has 
 anything but respect for the strides the labor press itself has made 
 in the past ten years. A lot of real professionalism has come into 
 your labor journalism — good, level-headed, competent editorial crafts- 
 manship, and don't think this has gone unnoticed by your fraternity 
 brothers in management's journalistic circles. The communications men 
 and women of management have a deep and healthy respect for you labor 
 editors; I don't say that to flatter you — I say it to you because I 
 have heard that tribute paid to you many times by the professionals 
 
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of management communication. Just so you won't let this go to your 
 heads — I have also heard, from time to time, comments on your product 
 that could never appropriately be published under the heading of "Fan 
 Mall." 
 
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 I said we thought labor journalism had come far in ten years, and 
 that is very true. I also feel that management— in its communication 
 with employees — has come far in an equal period of time. In respect 
 to management journalism, however, I think we have all noted that a 
 certain amount of major surgery has taken place. 
 
 Ten years actually isn't too long a time. Ten years ago Alger Hiss 
 was convicted of perjury and Sen, McCarthy said £7 Communists were 
 working in the State Department. Truman was president and in July he 
 named MacArthur commander of the U. N. forces in Korea. Soon afterward 
 the Reds captured Seoul. And ten years ago management publications 
 were called "house organs" by practically everybody, and they talked 
 almost exclusively of the social comings-and-goings of folks in the 
 plant. 
 
 Today the company whose employee publication talks exclusively of 
 social comings-and-goings is far behind the times — as much as ten years 
 behind the times, and possibly even twenty. 
 
 A decade ago, most communications programs in companies were 
 loose, ill-fitting semi-systems of relaying employer thoughts and 
 opinions to employees* Today, at least in the more progressive concerns, 
 employee communication has form and substance, consistency and 
 continuity. 
 
 Any basic guide to employee communications programs must 
 
acknowledge the sharp changes that have occurred in the field of 
 employee communication. The text book of a decade ago doesn't apply 
 too much today; even the article on techniques of a year or so ago may 
 show some rust spots. One of the characteristics of modem employee 
 communication is that it is in a state of constant change, development, 
 improvement. 
 
 Employee communication today no longer depends upon a single 
 medium of expression. It isn't altogether oral, nor completely written; 
 it's a blending of the two. It's the management round table; the 
 supervisory meeting; the group gathering of employees^ it's individual 
 counseling. It's the printed employee magazine, but it is also the 
 employee newsletter, the bulletin board, the employee annual report, 
 the payroll envelope insert, the recruitment manual, the plant tour and 
 the open house. I believe that, as the field broadens, the quality 
 tends to improve, 
 
 .*'«. ,&JL 4£ -*'- -K. 
 
 From Marg Sammons: 
 
 Here are nine suggestions for "selling" a communications program: 
 
 1. If you have a plan, try to relate it to a program, 
 
 2. Show how the union benefits, and forget how you benefit 
 as an individual. 
 
 3. Develop fully the information about your idea. 
 
 U. Give your boss documented case studies to support the 
 worth of your own suggestions. 
 
 5>. Respect the chain of command, and enlist the cooperation 
 of others. 
 
 6. Put the proposal in writing. 
 
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7. Suggest means for checking the effectiveness of your 
 program. 
 
 8. Figure out the right channels to the boss. 
 
 9. Forget the personal credit, don't gripe at delays, and 
 don't be discouraged by a refusal. 
 
 *- 4? * # # 
 Ask yourself these questions concerning your own communications 
 program: 
 
 1. Is the publication actually a medium of communication 
 between the union and the members, or is it solely a recorder of 
 syndicated material and chit-chat? 
 
 2. Does the publication announce, interpret, and explain 
 policy-and programs— or does it let members' find out* about these 
 things through rumor and hearsay? 
 
 3. Does the publication earnestly discuss the financial 
 structure and operation of the union, so that members can 
 understand— or does it wait until public sentiment smokes out 
 the answers? 
 
 lw Is the publication based on a sound editorial policy, 
 planned and programmed in advance — or is it put together on a 
 hit-or-miss basis? 
 
 5. Is the publication modern in appearance and editorial 
 treatment— or does it fail to stand up favorably in competition 
 with the publications your members read by choice? 
 
 6. Is the publication adequately meshed in with the 
 activities of the various departments of the union — or is it 
 expected to go its own way as an orphan? 
 
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7. Is the editor competent? Is he given the time to do 
 his job well? Does he measure his personal importance by the 
 size of the union he works for, or is he humble in the face of 
 the big job he has to do? 
 
 8. Does the publication make it a point to link the member 
 to his union, and the union to the democratic system — or does the 
 union blindly take the members ' love of the democratic system for 
 granted? 
 
 9. Has the publication been efficiently set up, so that it 
 appears regularly — or do confusions over policy, budget, copy 
 approvals, and jurisdictions keep it in constant turmoil? 
 
 10. Last but far from least: Is the publication produced 
 primarily to satisfy the union leaders — or are the interests, 
 tastes, and concerns of the membership sincerely taken into 
 account? 
 
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 We are all in the business of communication. We are trying— all 
 of us — to help build a better country and a better world to live in. 
 Sometimes we may not agree as to method, and that's both natural and 
 healthy. But we all agree as to objective. If we continue to main- 
 tain a real respect for the views of the other, and I f m sure we will, 
 we can all go a long way together. Thank you. 
 
 :bd 
 
 ILIR 55 (59-60) 
 
 5/31/60 
 
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