In the year 2000 the AFL-CIO announced a historic change in its position on immigration. Reversing a decades-old stance by labor, the federation declared that it would no longer press to reduce high immigration levels or call for rigorous enforcement of immigration laws. Instead, it now supports the repeal of sanctions imposed against employers who hire illegal immigrants as well as a general amnesty for most such workers. In this timely book, Vernon M. Briggs, Jr., challenges labor's recent about-face, charting the disastrous effects that immigration has had on union membership over the course of U.S. history.Briggs explores the close relationship between immigration and employment trends beginning in the 1780s. Combining the history of labor and of immigration in a new and innovative way, he establishes that over time unionism has thrived when the numbers of newcomers have decreased, and faltered when those figures have risen.Briggs argues convincingly that the labor movement cannot be revived unless the following steps are taken: immigration levels are reduced, admission categories changed, labor law reformed, and the enforcement of labor protection standards at the worksite enhanced. The survival of American unionism, he asserts, does not rest with the movement's becoming a partner of the pro-immigration lobby. For to do so, organized labor would have to abandon its legacy as the champion of the American worker.

In this book, Walton and McKersie attempt to describe a comprehensive theory of labor negotiation. The authors abstract and analyze four sets of systems of activities which they believe account for much of the behavior found in labor negotiations. The first system of activities, termed "distributive bargaining," comprises competitive behaviors that are intended to influence the division of limited resources. The second system is made up of activities that increase the joint gain available to the negotiating parties, referred to as "integrative bargaining." They are problem-solving behaviors and other activities which identify, enlarge and act upon the common interests of the parties. The third system includes activities that influence the attitudes of the parties toward each other and affect the basic relationship bonds between the social units involved. This process is referred to as "attitudinal structuring." The fourth system of activities, which occurs as an integral aspect of the inter-party negotiations, comprises the behaviors of a negotiator that are meant to achieve consensus within one's own organizations. This fourth process is called "intra-organizational bargaining." Each sub process has its own set of instrumental acts or tactics. Therefore, each of the four model chapters is followed by a chapter on the tactics which implement the process. These chapters translate the model into tactical assignments and include an abundance of supporting illustrations from actual negotiations. This study should be of interest to several audiences, including students and teachers of industrial relations, social scientists interested in the general field of conflict resolution, as well as practitioners of collective bargaining and other individuals directly involved in international negotiations. The overall theoretical framework has been derived by a mixture of inductive and deductive reasoning. Extensive fieldwork and several dozen printed case studies have provided the bulk of the empirical data. In terms of meaning, the study has three touchstones: the field of collective bargaining; the field of conflict resolutions; and the underlying disciplines of economics, psychology, and sociology.

Since World War I, says Joseph McCartin, the central problem of American labor relations has been the struggle among workers, managers, and state officials to reconcile democracy and authority in the workplace. In his comprehensive look at labor issues during the decade of the Great War, McCartin explores the political, economic, and social forces that gave rise to this conflict and shows how rising labor militancy and the sudden erosion of managerial control in wartime workplaces combined to create an industrial crisis. The search for a resolution to this crisis led to the formation of an influential coalition of labor Democrats, AFL unionists, and Progressive activists on the eve of U.S. entry into the war. Though the coalition's efforts in pursuit of industrial democracy were eventually frustrated by powerful forces in business and government and by internal rifts within the movement itself, McCartin shows how the shared quest helped cement the ties between unionists and the Democratic Party that would subsequently shape much New Deal legislation and would continue to influence the course of American political and labor history to the present day.

Textbook on work economics and labour relations in the USA - covers trade union structure, union leadership and membership, collective bargaining, management attitudes, grievance procedure, the labour force force, labour supply, wage determination, income distribution, wage policy, employment security, unemployment, labour turnover, employment opportunity, etc., together with comments on relevant labour legislation. References.

This book examines industrial and employment relations in the emerging economies of Brazil, China, India, South Africa and Turkey, and assesses the contribution of industrial relations institutions to inclusive development. The book uses real-world examples to examine the evolution of industrial relations and of organised interest representation on labour issues. It reveals contested institutional pathways, despite a continuing demand for independent collective interest representation in labour relations.

In twenty-three original essays this book reviews the course of labor economics over the more than two centuries since the publication of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. It fully examines the contending theories, changing environmental contexts, evolving issues, and varied policies affecting labor's participation in the economy. While the intellectual framework of the book looks partly to the past--explaining the labor factor in classical and neoclassical systems--its emphasis is on contemporary problems that will figure prominently in future developments, such as the operation of internal labor markets, dispute resolution, concession bargaining, equal employment opportunity, and individual labor contracting.

Strategic Negotiations examines the current changes in labor-management relations. The authors identify & explain three key negotiating strategies: forcing change, fostering cooperative attitudes & solutions, & escaping the relationship. They illustrate how these strategies succeed or fail in real organizations by drawing on in-depth examples from 13 companies in 3 industries: pulp & paper, railroads, & auto supply. The resulting theory has broad implications for strategic negotiations in many settings.