For Mr. Rajan, the General manager of a textile manufacturing company, personal success have come as through they had been programmed by a computer.
During long career at the company, which he had joined as an humble assistant, promotions came one after another culminating in his elevation to the present post.
But no sooner had Mr. Rajan taken over the new job then problems began to pile up for him. The most upsetting of these was a threatened strike by the workers of the company on the question of bonus. The workers demanded five months bonus as against months bonus conceded by the company which, even as it was, was more than any identical unit in the industry had given for a year.
Though the proposed strike did not materialize as a result of intervention by the local administration, the workers were not convinced of the rightness of the company’s stand. The had a feeling that the management deliberately understated profits so as to deny the workers their legitimate due. Many other stories had been circulating about an alleged wickedness on the part of management in that it spent lavishly on the maintenance of the managerial staff, but was very stingy when it came to providing benefits to workers. As one labour leader put it ‘’ Let the management not gloat over it’s victory. They do not know how terribly they are harming the interest of the company by alienating workers. Secretiveness in management is all right to some extent. But it should not be practiced so as to render the workers, who are no less important members of the organization, strangers in their own work place.’’...