Swope, Gerard

(1872-1957)

   Gerard Swope was an engineer with the Western Electric Company in Chicago, Illinois, who served as an assistant to George W. Goethals during World War I. In 1919, he joined General Electric as president of its international operations and became chairman of General Electric itself in 1922. With Owen Young as chairman, Swope took control of day-to-day running of the company and with great attention to detail helped increase sales and production through increased efficiency and a reduced workforce. Swope, who had lived and worked at the Hull House settlement in the 1890s, was instrumental in the introduction of policies of “welfare capitalism” but was unsuccessful in gaining employee approval for an unemployment insurance plan.

   In response to the Wall Street Crash, Swope proposed the “Swope Plan” in 1931, which called upon companies to organize by industry and agree on codes of fair competition with agreed working hours and conditions in return for the suspension of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Elements of the plan were discernable in the New Deal’s National Recovery Administration (NRA). Swope chaired the Department of Commerce’s Business Advisory and Planning Council formed to advise the NRA in 1933. He later worked toward the implementation of social security and labor relations legislation and was a member of the National Labor Relations Board. He accepted union recognition within General Electric between 1936 and 1939, and after his retirement in 1939 he served as chair of the New York City Housing Authority. He briefly returned to General Electric during World War II. After the war, he chaired the Institute of Pacific Relations looking at U.S. foreign policy in the Far East.

   See also Trade Unions.