John Thomas Dunlop - Impact in Washington

Impact in Washington

John Dunlop began his work in Washington during World War II. On January 12, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9017 reinstating President Wilson’s National War Labor Board (NWLB). Charged with settling labor / management disputes in exchange for a no-strike agreement, the NWLB arbitrated disputes across major industries. Because of its centrality in setting wages and benefits in a climate of military mobilization, limited resources, inflationary pressure, the NWLB’s staff and leadership received a rapid-fire introduction to the problems and challenges confronting hundreds of enterprises.

From 1943 to 1945, Dunlop held the post of Chief of the Research and Statistics Branch of the NWLB and the experience helped him develop his fact-finding approach to resolving disputes. Several other NWLB alumni became major figures in the field of Industrial Relations including Clark Kerr, the future Chancellor and President of the University of California, and Benjamin Aaron, director of the UCLA Institute of Industrial Relations from 1960 to 1975. Derek Bok, former President of Harvard University, commented in 2003 that Dunlop “…was the last surviving member of a small group of people who came of age during World War II who had the respect of both business and labor.”

In the war’s aftermath, President Harry Truman selected Dunlop for the Atomic Energy Labor Panel. Between 1948 and 1957, he chaired the National Joint Board for the Settlement of Jurisdictional Disputes in the Building and Construction Industry. He served on the Wage Stabilization Board from 1950 to 1952, experience that would decades later encourage the Nixon Administration to put him in charge of efforts to oversee setting wages and price controls. In 1973, Dunlop replaced Donald H. Rumsfeld as director of the Cost of Living Council. In March 1975, President Gerald Ford selected Dunlop as his first Secretary of Labor. Dunlop focused on a variety of efforts that sought to bring the idea of multi-party problem solving to the regulatory process, and in implementing labor policies. His views on the importance of government policy in fashioning agreements among parties rather than through direct regulatory authority were laid out in his article “The Limits of Legal Compulsion.” In that article, Dunlop notes:

"The country needs to acquire a more realistic understanding of the limitations on bringing about social change through legal compulsion. A great deal of government time needs to be devoted to improving understanding, persuasion, accommodation, mutual problem solving, and information mediation. Legislation, litigation, and regulations are useful means for some social and economic problems, but today government has more regulation on its plate than it can handle."

The desire to bring parties together to solve problems ironically led Dunlop to resign as Secretary of Labor. The construction industry remained an ongoing focus of Dunlop due to its important role in the US economy and particularly the potential of collective bargaining agreements in that industry to have inflationary pressures in the larger economies. Building trades unions sought changes in the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to reflect the distinctive problems of that sector in regard to rules regarding union recognition, organizing and the rights to picket. Through ongoing negotiations between trade union leaders and leading contractors and construction end users, Dunlop crafted an agreement between the parties that would amend the NLRA in ways sought by unions in exchange for their agreement along with management to longer term industry reforms, in a bill that would move in tandem through Congress. After brokering the deal and receiving support from Ford, the Common Situs legislation was passed by Congress. However, facing stiff opposition from a surging Ronald Reagan in the Republican primaries of 1976 and a more assertive Republican right wing, Ford decided to renege on Dunlop’s pledge, and vetoed the legislation. In January 1976, Dunlop resigned as Secretary of Labor.

Dunlop served subsequent administrations. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter appointed Dunlop the chair of the Pay Advisory Committee. Between 1981 and 1984, Dunlop belonged to President Ronald Reagan’s National Productivity Advisory Committee, while from 1989 to 1991 he served on President George H.W. Bush’s Social Security Advisory Council.

In 1993, the Clinton Administration named Dunlop the Chair of the Commission on the Future of Worker Management Relations (soon known as the Dunlop Commission). The Commission was established to examine the need for reform of the National Labor Relations Act and related federal laws regarding workplace representation and recommend changes to them. Differences among Commission members and the midterm election of 1994 that brought a Republican majority to the House of Representatives thwarted action on many of the Dunlop Commission’s recommendations. Dunlop nonetheless went on to work on promoting negotiated rulemaking for workplace health and safety and crafted an agreement between the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the National Association of Home Builders and the Building Trades Council (AFL-CIO) regarding health and safety standards for residential construction.