Employers' Association of Greater Chicago - Human Resources and Other Initiatives, 1950-1980

Human Resources and Other Initiatives, 1950-1980

The Employers' Association had engaged in its first human resources consulting in 1918. That year, it undertook a very successful campaign to encourage local businesses to hire middle-age managers with experience rather than discharge them.

The EA did little in this field, however, until the 1940s. As its anti-union campaigns flagged, the organization began to become more of a human resources consulting agency for its members. In 1941, it released its first survey of workforce needs. Some of its human resources educational efforts remained linked to its traditional anti-unionism, however. In 1942, it campaigned for a longer workweek—ostensibly to meet wartime production demands, but which also violated union demands for shorter work periods. In 1949, the group denounced fringe benefits such as health insurance, pensions, and life insurance as "unnecessary" and "unwise" and exorbitantly expensive. It also declared unemployment insurance to be too costly and unnecessary, and demanded dismantling of public welfare programs.

The EA also became involved in broader social issues. Its leadership, always concerned with the spread of collectivist ideals, denounced President Harry S. Truman as a socialist and demanded that Congress rein in the president's economic policies. The organization also attacked the publishers of elementary and junior high school textbooks for allowing "communist" influences.

Long-time Association executive director (now president) Gordon L. Hostetter died in 1962, depriving the Employers' Association of its most active leadership. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the organization quietly worked with its members to improve their human resources capacities. It defended employers when they were accused of racial bias in the administration of employment tests. But the EA abandoned most of its anti-union programs. The organization's membership, which had hovered at the 1,000-member mark for 60 years, remained stable. But the Association became less and less of an important political and workplace player in Chicago. In 1971, EA president Roland E. Fulton was elected president of the Employer Association Group of the National Association of Manufacturers. But this was the last major role the EA played in either local or national labor relations.

In 1981, the Employers' Association of Greater Chicago (as the group was now known) merged with the Midwest Industrial Management Association. In 1989, MIMA changed its name to become the Management Association of Illinois. The group still has about 1,000 member companies, roughly half of which are in manufacturing and half in the service sector.