UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES
ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interview #681
MERICLE, KEN

MERICLE, Ken (1945- )
Graduate student; Professor; Director, School for Workers
At UW: 1969-1973; 1979-

First Interview
Interviewed: 8/27/2004	
Interviewer: W. Lee Hansen
Length: 1 hour

Educational background; Career; Intellectual climate; Teaching at MIT; Closing of the Industrial Relations Research Institute. 

Second Interview
Interviewed: 9/8/2004	
Interviewer: Maurice Better
Length: 3 hours

Graduate school; Work at MIT; Hiring by UW; Family background; Academic interests; Teaching; Manufacturing sector; New industrial relations; Joint labor-management programs; Budget issues; Prospects for labor education; Milwaukee office; AFL-CIO; Faculty governance; Industrial Relations Research Institute; Students.

First Interview (August 27, 2004)

00:00:00		Ken Mericle relates his educational background at Iowa State University and his interest in institutional economics and industrial relations.  He achieved his PhD at the University of Wisconsin.

00:02:10		He worked as an assistant professor at MIT from 1973-79 before returning to Madison to serve on the faculty of the School for Workers.  He served as director of the School from 1992-2002.

00:02:41		KM describes the academic and intellectual environment at UW when he arrived as a graduate student in 1969.  He considers the late 1960s the intellectual peak period for the School for Workers.

00:05:28		He cites Everett Kassalow, Jack Barbash, Tom Skidmore, and other professors whom he considered influential in his areas of study.

00:08:04		He discusses teaching industrial relations at the Sloan School at MIT.  He goes on to list some of his notable colleagues from MIT.

00:12:53		KM contrasts his teaching responsibilities at MIT with those for the School for Workers.  He was able to revive his interest in industrial engineering when he came to UW.

00:16:14		KM discusses his participation in the Industrial Relations Research Institute (IRRI).  He relates his committee service and teaching activities for the IRRI.

00:18:11		He traces the major changes in the IRRI from when he was a student to when he returned to Madison as a professor.  The economics department became less dominant in the IRRI as the Business School rose in importance.  Interest in the IRRI from the management department was less principled than was interest from the economists.
	
00:25:00		KM talks about his analysis of the crisis in Midwestern manufacturing in the early 1980s and his prescriptions for what the labor movement needed to do to cope.  

00:29:00		He thinks that the declining labor movement and an outdated academic agenda weakened the IRRI beginning in the early 1980s.

Tape 4/Side 2

00:30:42		Ken Mericle continues to discuss the decline of the Industrial Relations Research Institute (IRRI) and the lack of support he could find on campus to continue the program.

00:33:05		He discusses the ambivalence of the dean of Letters & Science toward the IRRI and accuses the administration of sabotaging Adrienne Eaton’s candidacy for the IRRI.  KM goes on to make the case for keeping the IRRI.

00:39:31		Lee Hansen chronicles several attempts to achieve department status for the IRRI.  He and KM go on to discuss the reasons for the paucity of faculty support for the Institute.

00:44:55		The School for Workers consented to turn over the IRRI to the Business School in order to save the Institute, but John Wiley and Katherine Lyle refused to remove the decision from the College of Letters & Science.  

00:50:50		KM talks about the transformation of American liberalism, which has severed middle-class liberals from the labor movement.  As a result, the university has become less responsive to the labor movement and to working-class people in general.

00:55:23		He discusses the status of other industrial relations programs in the US.

00:56:54		KM talks about the handling of IRRI trust funds.

00:58:30		Lee Hansen talks about his oral history of the IRRI.

01:01:40		End of side.  End of tape.  End of interview.

Second Interview (September 8, 2004): Tapes 1-3

Tape 1/Side 1

00:00:40	Ken Mericle completed his graduate work at the University of Wisconsin in 1973, after which he worked at MIT in the industrial relations section until 1979.  He recalls feeling strange at such an "elite institution" as MIT and thus found the prospect of working in labor education very appealing.

00:03:15	He describes the School for Workers hiring process as very casual.  He thinks that the School was interested in him because of his background in industrial engineering.

00:04:44	KM describes his working-class background and his family's involvement with labor unions.

00:05:30	KM explains how he became interested in industrial relations and his career as a student at Iowa State University.  Having become disenchanted with studying economic theory, he gravitated toward institutional economics.  He thinks that the radicalization of his political outlook in the 1960s also contributed to this shift in his academic interests.

00:08:25	From 1979-1984, he considers the School to have been in a "traditional" mode with a healthy clientele.  During these years, he taught time study courses (some at Ladysmith, WI), wage incentives courses, and basic steward training and contract administrations courses.  He felt well-prepared academically to teach these subjects, although he also benefitted from sitting in on colleagues' courses and using their exercises.  He mentions teaching courses in occupational safety and health.
	
00:11:39	He sensed a structural crisis in Midwestern manufacturing in the mid-1980s and became aware of a paradigm shift in models of production.  He discusses the impact of his Marxist outlook on interpreting this structural shift as being prompted by developments in global capitalism.  KM also mentions that this economic change brought about a shift in his intellectual interests.

00:15:05	He talks about how the School for Workers evaluated these changes in the manufacturing sector.  Many union leaders were pessimistic because employers had been very aggressive in the 1980s, but he thinks that employers were not out to destroy the labor movement.

00:19:56	KM describes the evolution of his interest in new topics such as pay systems and job evaluation systems.  He also developed skills in arbitration and bargaining.

00:23:20	He held classes for labor officers that tried to explain how shifts in the manufacturing sector impacted issues such as quality and productivity.

00:25:28	He delineates structural reasons for a shift toward increased labor-management cooperation:  chief among these is the weakening of the labor movement in terms of strike power and bargaining power.  Another reason was that new production systems created processes that were susceptible to disruption (as a result of which management desired more stability and were willing to work with unions).  Unions also promoted high-performance work organizations at the national level.

00:30:30	Local unions requested that they be able to bring in management people to School for Workers programs.  KM also taught programs on-site for high-performance work organization; these were often initiated by the unions.

Tape 1/Side 2

00:31:40		Ken Mericle continues to discuss his participation in joint labor-management redesign projects, which typically addressed gains sharing, skill-based pay, and job evaluation.  He describes at length his responsibilities in serving as both a consultant and a facilitator for these programs. 

00:39:52		KM thinks that competitive pressures, most notably from Japanese firms, provided the impetus for management in America to change worker performance.  He argues management has been successful in transforming their production processes but not in reclaiming their market share.

00:44:25		Other firms that do not experience significant international competition or supply problems have nevertheless adopted new production systems because of their efficiency and prospects for increasing profits.  

00:46:53		KM describes the leadership succession to Bob Ozanne.  He thinks some faculty in the School for Workers were skeptical of the transitional strategies he supported to modernize labor. 

00:51:31		Overall, faculty in the department were supportive of KM's interest in joint labor-management programs.

00:52:32		KM traces the fortunes of joint labor-management programs in the School for Workers and concludes that they were tied to generational change in the department.  Older faculty such as Mil Lieberthal and Norris Tibbetts thought KM's programs were unimportant, although George Hagglund was more enthusiastic in his support.  The arrival of younger faculty brought about more participation:  John Lund and Neill DeClercq became involved.  He mentions hiring Frank Emspak because of his expertise in the role of technology in high performance systems.

00:58:11		As director of the School for Workers from 1992-2002, KM classified as "new industrial relations" the programs in pay systems and work systems; some of these were union-only while others were joint labor-management programs.  He thinks that the joint programs comprise roughly a fifth of all programs.  However, the joint programs are longer-term and take up more faculty time; they also generate more revenue at a lower cost than did other programs.  

01:00:06		He recalls feeling that the department was over-exposed in its commitments to joint programs, particularly because in terms of revenue traditional programs could not compensate if demand for joint programs dried up.  As a result, the department tried unsuccessfully to develop relationships with the AFL-CIO because there was little organizing going on in Wisconsin.

414	End of side.  End of tape.

Tape 2/Side 1

01:03:06		Ken Mericle continues to talk about the School for Workers' attempt to balance the "new industrial relations" with more traditional programs.  He notes a drastic decline in demand for traditional leadership programs since he first came to the department in the late 1970s.  One reason for this decline is the decrease in union membership.

01:05:20		He discusses the decline in School for Workers community classes.  Not only is there declining union membership, but there are fewer grievances and arbitration cases.  For this reason, he argues, steward training needs to change.

01:08:00		The School for Workers pursued two responses to the decline in demand for traditional programs:  first, it developed demand for "new industrial relations" programs, and second, it attempted to reassess continuing demand in traditional topics such as organizing.  The latter response proved unsuccessful.

01:12:02		KM describes the department's new ideas about organizing labor and training activists.

01:14:54		He addresses the economic imperatives facing the department of labor education and notes that the department is more dependent on its own revenues than on state tax dollars.  For this reason--and also because of shrinking demand for traditional programs--continuing demand for programs in "new industrial relations" is crucial to maintaining the department.

01:19:27		The twin dilemmas of shrinking demand for programs and decreasing funding from the state forced the department to implement strategic planning.  KM discusses funding faculty pay raises.  He thinks that the reorganization of Extension limited its ability to reallocate resources among Extension programs.

01:22:14		He characterizes Bob Ozanne's budgetary strategy as "management by anxiety."  Extension mandated that the department implement strategic planning.  KM goes on to discuss the fruits of strategic planning.

01:29:38		KM evaluates the prospects for both traditional and "new industrial relations" programs.  Union downsizing and the decline in competition among labor education programs, he thinks, provide opportunity for the department to step in and provide services that unions no longer provide.  He thinks there is a large, untapped demand for steward training and collective bargaining in the areas of health care and pension bargaining.

Tape 2/Side 2

01:34:35		Ken Mericle continues to discuss the prospects for labor education; he thinks there will be great demand for training in issues on unions' financial accountability.  He also sees opportunities for training in basic leadership and bargaining as a result of union cutbacks in staff.  KM goes on to talk at length about the School for Workers' relationships with community colleges.

01:41:40		KM discusses the fortunes of residency and general leadership programs.  These have been replaced by specialized programming in gains sharing, pension bargaining, and staff training.  The School has also developed relationships with individual unions.

01:48:00		He talks about administering the budget as chair of the department of labor education.  He faced the specific challenge of compensating for falling revenue from state taxes and relates mobilizing against budget cuts.

01:57:16		KM describes the department's budgetary reforms, including a concession that enabled the department to keep 80 percent of its annual surplus.

02:01:06		KM discusses the Milwaukee program and its fortunes after the retirement of Irving Brotslaw.  He talks about hiring Robert Wright, who was ultimately unsuccessful in increasing programming in the Milwaukee area.

Tape 3/Side 1

02:05:55		Ken Mericle continues to talk about the School for Workers program in Milwaukee.  He discusses hiring Corliss Olson and the events that led to closing the Milwaukee office.  He suggests moving the entire School for Workers operation to Milwaukee because it has the highest concentration of organized labor.

02:12:49		KM describes the "organic" relationship between the School for Workers and various AFL-CIO affiliates.  He goes on to talk at length about the School's collaboration with the AFL-CIO in recruiting and advisory committees.

02:28:52		KM evaluates the effectiveness of faculty governance for the School for Workers. 

Tape 3/Side 2

02:37:15		Ken Mericle talks about the reorganization of UW Extension c. 1980 and the possibility of the School for Workers being assigned to the Madison campus.

02:42:07		He discusses at length the School's reasons for wanting to keep the Industrial Relations Research Institute on the Madison campus.  He thinks that there is a strong ideological component to Phil Certain's decision to eliminate the program:  namely, hindering working-class access to the university.

02:49:00		He talks about the relationship between the School for Workers and other labor education departments/organizations.  He also addresses criticisms of joint labor-management programs and win/win bargaining; he considers attempts to define acceptable labor education courses to be "Stalinism."

03:05:49		KM comments on students in School for Workers residency programs; the biggest change is that students are older.

03:08:53		End of side.  End of tape.  End of interview.