Description
Wayne Alderson was a coal miner’s son who became a corporate executive, a soldier who became a peacemaker, a Christian idealist who lived as a hard-core pragmatist, and the founder of the widespread Value of the Person movement to reestablish labor/management relations on a positive basis. Stronger Than Steel recounts the life and work of the amazing man who created “Operation Turnaround” and brought about the “Miracle of Pittron.” Wayne’s work in defusing a potentially explosive strike at this Pennsylvania steel foundry provided the model for ending confrontational negotiations, brought union leaders and management into constructive agreements, and turned the steel plant into one of the country’s most productive and profitable. During World War II, Wayne was an advance scout for U.S. forces in Europe – putting his life on the line as he probed enemy territory. Though the Siegfriend Line had been replaced by the picket line, Wayne was always placing himself in the forefront, taking immense risks for faith in the work world. His stance had garnered him hostility as well as praise, had cost him a job, and had tried his faith; but Wayne Alderson had never sacrificed his commitment to his role of Christian peacemaker. No ordinary biography, Stronger Than Steel is the story of Wayne Alderson’s movement to create an atmosphere of trust and responsiveness among workers and company heads, develop new ways of problem-solving and personal interaction, and achieve labor stability, job security, productivity, and moral and human dignity in the workplace. At the heart of Stronger Than Steel is Wayne Alderson, a man of vision and faith who took his values to the marketplace, the board room, and the shop floor in a novel experiment that produced dramatic results and guidelines for those seeking fruitful solutions to frequently complex and difficult labor/management problems. As author R.C. Sproul points out, “Wayne Alderson’s challenge is one we dare not ignore.”
