An Introduction to U.S. Collective Bargaining and Labor Relations

This comprehensive textbook provides an introduction to collective bargaining and labor relations with a focus on developments in the United States. It is appropriate for students, policy analysts, and labor relations professionals including unionists, managers, and neutrals. A three-tiered strategic choice framework unifies the text, and the authors’ thorough grounding in labor history and labor law assists students in learning the basics. In addition to traditional labor relations, the authors address emerging forms of collective representation and movements that address income inequality in novel ways.

Harry C. Katz, Thomas A. Kochan, and Alexander J. S. Colvin provide numerous contemporary illustrations of business and union strategies. They consider the processes of contract negotiation and contract administration with frequent comparisons to nonunion practices and developments, and a full chapter is devoted to special aspects of the public sector. An Introduction to U.S. Collective Bargaining and Labor Relations has an international scope, covering labor rights issues associated with the global supply chain as well as the growing influence of NGOs and cross-national unionism. The authors also compare how labor relations systems in Germany, Japan, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa compare to practices in the United States.

The textbook is supplemented by a website (ilr.cornell.edu/scheinman-institute/research/introduction-us-collective-bargaining-and-labor-relations) that features an extensive Instructor’s Manual with a test bank, PowerPoint chapter outlines, mock bargaining exercises, organizing cases, grievance cases, and classroom-ready current events materials.

Harry C. Katz is Jack Sheinkman Professor and Director of the Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution at the ILR School, Cornell University. He is coauthor of The Transformation of American Industrial Relations and Converging Divergences and coeditor of Rekindling the Movement, all from Cornell, among many other books. Thomas A. Kochan is the George Maverick Bunker Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Co-Director of the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research. He is coauthor of Healing Together, Up in the Air, and The Transformation of American Industrial Relations, all from Cornell, and author or editor of many other books. Alexander J. S. Colvin is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Diversity, and Faculty Development and the Martin F. Scheinman Professor of Conflict Resolution at the ILR School, Cornell University.