BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE HISTORY
Business Roundtable was established in 1972 through the merger of three existing organizations. One was the March Group - made up of chief executive officers - which had been meeting informally to consider public policy issues. John Harper, then chief executive of Alcoa, and Fred Borch, the chief executive of General Electric, were notable among the leaders. Another of the founding groups was the Construction Users Anti-Inflation Roundtable, an organization devoted to containing construction costs and headed by Roger Blough, then chief executive of U.S. Steel. The third was the Labor Law Study Committee, made up largely of labor relations executives of major companies.
These groups founded Business Roundtable in the belief that the business sector should play an active and effective role in the formation of public policy. They wanted an organization where the CEOs of leading enterprises would get together, study issues, try to develop a consensus, formulate positions and advocate those views. The Roundtable was therefore formed with two major goals: (1) to enable chief executives from different corporations to work together to analyze specific issues affecting the economy and business, and (2) to present government and the public with knowledgeable, timely information, and with practical, positive proposals for action.
The executives who created the Roundtable believed that the U.S. economy would be healthier, there would be less unwarranted intrusion by government into business affairs, and the interest of the public would be better served if there were more cooperation and less antagonism. It was decided that one way business could be a more constructive force and have more impact on government policymaking was to bring the CEOs directly into the picture.
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