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Labor Law, Industrial Relations
and Employee Choice

The State of the Workplace in the 1990s

Hearings of the Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations

Richard N. Block, John Beck and Daniel H. Kruger, Michigan State University

Block, Beck and Kruger present detailed examples from the testimony given during the Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations (commonly called the Dunlop Commission) national and regional hearings. The Commission, by hearing from a wide range of stakeholders, sought to define the state of industrial relations and labor law in the U.S. during the 1990s. Because the Commission's final reports were concerned with policy matters, they only briefly summarized the testimony. This volume draws deeply from the testimony, citing many examples that clearly illustrate the wide variety of relationships between workers and management today. In addition, it shows how the interpretation of labor law has changed over the decades.

The authors begin with a retrospective of labor law in the U.S. dating back to the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act of 1935. Included is the impact of ensuing legislation, several key rulings by the National Labor Relations Board and the courts, and economic and societal factors that, together, helped industrial relations evolve into the complex system portrayed during the Dunlop Commission hearings.

Examples of union and nonunion firms cited during the testimony are presented next, beginning with firms that respect employees' right to choose. Unionized firms that honored the employees' right to choose are shown engaging in extensive innovative and cooperative relationships with unions, often soliciting the unions' input on important decisions. The testimony also shows firms whose employees chose not to unionize. These worker-management relationships were often characterized by employee relations systems that created objective or merit-based systems for making decisions regarding employee relations issues.

The authors also provide examples that reveal how some employers avoid unionization. Firms are shown taking advantage of the legal process by pyramiding their legal rights to either deter or rid themselves of unions. Threat, coercion and firings were among tactics used by management against employees seeking to organize or bargain collectively. Such tactics were used because firms realized that penalties for this illegal behavior could be delayed indeterminantly through appeals of NLRB decisions.

Finally, Block, Beck and Kruger argue that the state of labor law today points to the need for change. They explain that the nation's labor laws, beginning with the Wagner Act, were explicitly created to ensure a choice of representation for employees. It is ironic, they conclude, that the law now seems to preserve the right of the employer to choose instead.

"The review of labor laws and trends in the United States was both concise and accurate." Personnel Psychology

"This volume would fit well in labor law courses in labor studies programs. It also serves well as a quick entree to the whole discussion of the need for labor law reform." Labor Studies Journal

Related titles
  • Justice on the Job, Block, Friedman, Kaminski, and Levin, eds.
  • Labor Standards in the United States and Canada, Richard N. Block, Karen Roberts, and R. Oliver Clarke
  • Bargaining for Competitiveness, Richard N. Block, ed.
  • Pathways to Change: Case Studies of Strategic Negotiations, Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld, Robert B. McKersie, and Richard E. Walton
  • Labor-Management Cooperation: New Partnerships or Going in Circles?, William N. Cooke
    • 113 pp. 1996
    $40 cloth ISBN 0-88099-164-X / ISBN-13 978-0-88099-164-3
    $15 paper ISBN 0-88099-163-1 / ISBN-13 978-0-88099-163-6.

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