Psychological Conservatism of Administrative Negotiators as a Factor in the Level of Labor Relations Conflict in Selected Public School Districts.

Abstract

This study sought to determine if there was a significant relationship between the level of labor relations conflict in a school district and the level of conservatism of the administrators involved in negotiations for that school district. The study was limited to the thirty-six public school districts in Wayne County, Michigan. In order to obtain a current perception of the degree of labor relations conflict in these districts, a survey was made of the perceptions of the members of the Wayne County Negotiators Association. The members of this group were asked to categorize each of the Wayne County school districts as high conflict, medium conflict, or low conflict. Analysis of the data in this survey gave the current perceptions of a group of experts as to the level of labor relations conflict in each of the public school districts in Wayne County. The level of conservatism, or resistance to change, of the administrators involved in negotiations in a sample of these school districts was then measured. The sample consisted of eighteen school districts; six rated high in labor relations conflict, six rated medium, and six rated low. A total of eighty-two responses were received from the administrators in these districts. The measuring instrument used was the Wilson-Patterson Attitude Inventory, a fifty item, short answer scale based on the assumption that conservatism is a generalized factor underlying all social attitudes. This test provides an overall conservatism score and five sub-scale scores. The scores achieved by respondents from high conflict and low conflict districts were used to compare the relative levels of conservatism found in administrators from those districts. First a series comparison was made of the scores of the respondents from the six high conflict districts and the six low conflict districts. A second series of comparisons was made using the scores of respondents from the two highest and the two lowest conflict districts to test for the differences between the very extreme ends of the high conflict-low conflict continuum. Independent t-tests were used to determine if significant differences existed between the means of the scores of the respondents from high districts and those from low conflict districts. High conflict districts were postulated to score higher, and low conflict districts lower, on the Wilson-Patterson Attitude Inventory so a one-tail t-test was used to determine if significant differences existed. Analysis of the data indicated that negotiations in both high and low conflict districts were typically carried out by males about fifty years of age who had worked in that district for ten or more years and had less than ten years of negotiating experience. When responses on the Conservatism Scale of the Wilson-Patterson Attitude Inventory were compared: (1) For the six high and six low conflict districts, the difference was significant at the .05 level. (2) For the two highest and two lowest conflict districts, the difference was significant at the .01 level. This study thus indicated that school districts which were rated high in labor relations conflict used administrative negotiators who showed higher levels of conservatism than did school districts rated low in labor relations conflict. Further research is recommended, including: (1) Duplication of the present study in other locations. (2) Similar studies involving school board members and /or union negotiators as subjects. (3) Studies utilizing other personality tests such as the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale. (4) A longitudinal study of those districts rated as medium conflict districts in this study.