Management and labor have been adversaries in American and Canadian workplaces since the time of colonial settlement. Labor lacked full legal legitimacy in Canada and the United States until the mid-1930s and the passage of laws that granted collective bargaining rights and protection from dismissal due to union activity. The US National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act) became the model for labor laws in both countries. Organized labor began to decline in the United States in the late 1960s due to a variety of factors including electoral politics, internal social and cultural differences, and economic change. Canadian unions fared better in comparison to their American counterparts, but still engaged in significant struggles. This analysis focuses on management and labor interaction in the United States and Canada from the 1930s to the turn of the second decade of the twenty-first century. It also includes a short overview of employer and worker interaction from the time of European colonization to the 1920s. The book addresses two overall questions: In what forms did management and labor conflict occur and how was labor-management interaction different between the two countries? It pays particular attention to key events and practices where the United States and Canada diverged when it came to labor-management conflict including labor law, electoral politics, social and economic change, and unionization patterns in the public and private sectors. This book shows that there were key points of convergence and divergence in the past between the United States and Canada that explain current differences in labor-management conflict and interaction in the two countries. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of management and labor history, employment and labor relations, and industrial relations.

Labor dispute or labor conflict refers to a disagreement between an employer and a labor association, or between a federation of employers and a federation of employees. Conflicts and grievances are an unavoidable part of the employment relationship. Public policies aim to manage conflict and promote sound labor relations. Labor administration's primary objective is to establish labor dispute procedures in national legislation. Labor disputes can be resolved using a consensus-based process such as conciliation and mediation before choosing to resolve issues using arbitration and/or adjudication, or through a tribunal or labor court. Mediation is a structured and interactive process whereby a third party assists the parties in a dispute through the course of negotiations. Arbitration in case of labor conflicts involves resolution or settlement of a conflict through an independent party whose decision is final and binding upon both the parties. Taking the conflict to the court of law is the last option that can be used to resolve a labor dispute. This book examines labor conflicts and their management. It aims to serve as a resource guide for policy makers, scholars and practitioners in industrial relations and human resources management.

New ways of managing conflict are important features of work & employment in organizations. World's leading scholars examine range of innovative alternative dispute resolution practices, drawing on international research, scholarship, covering case studies of major exemplars & developments in different parts of global economy. Aust & NZ content.

Volume 22 of Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations focuses on new approaches to managing resolving workplace disputes and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) from both theoretical and empirical perspectives and includes contributions from leading international scholars, including J. Ryan Lamare, William K Roche and Paul L. Latreille.

This volume contains a selection of the most notable contributions delivered at the research conference "Industrial Relations and Conflict Management: Different Ways of Managing Conflict," which was hosted by the Nether lands School of Business in July 1980. Held at Nijenrode Castle, the confer ence brought together an international gathering of thirty-five of the most distinguished scholars in these fields to present research papers and to en gage in round-table discussions. One of the principal aims of the conference was to explore cross-links and differences between the areas of conflict management and industrial relations in an international context. The book opens with a chapter by George Strauss, who provides an in troduction to and an overall view of the subject matter covered. The chap ters that follow in Part I deal with differing conflict conditions and defini tions and their implications for managing conflict. The manifestations of conflict and different modes of conflict management are the subject of the chapters in Part II. In Part III, three empirical studies of conflict are dis cussed. Part IV is concerned with comparative industrial relations, while value issues and conflict are the focus of Part V. Finally, in the Epilogue the participant feedback regarding the conference is reviewed.