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Industrial Relations

Industrial relations (IR), also called labor relations, refers to the relationships between employers and employees within an organization. Historically, the term was intended to cover all aspects of work; however, the field has narrowed its focus to collective bargaining, becoming largely orientated to management-union relations in general and collective bargaining in particular. In the minds of the general public, it has unfortunately been associated with conflicts between employers and employees. Contributing disciplines to industrial relations include sociology, history, law, political science, psychology, and economics.

Conceptual Overview

The origins of the field of industrial relations began with the industrial revolution to deal with the problems of labor and the threat posed to the fabric of society. The industrial relations community developed a reformist agenda to save capitalism by improving the quality of work life, with the United States as its original home, from where IR developed as a distinct subject. The reformist agenda had a focus on rulemaking institutions, examining wage drift, procedural issues, unofficial strikes, labor utilization, and other labor issues, covering both procedural and substantive issues. IR developed a strong normative commitment to pluralism and trade unionism.

While there is no single disciplinary core, the IR paradigm emerged within the research subjects of organized labor and collective bargaining. The interpretative framework was based on institutional rule making with a focus on practical policy orientation. Research methods tended to be historical descriptions and case studies of institutions with an implicit epistemology and ontology of unreflective pragmatism and realism geared toward the discovery of critical but useful knowledge. In recent years, there has been a more quantitative bent as scholars look to measure outcomes and the contributions of labor economics. The field is genuinely interdisciplinary, relatively open to influences from the broader social sciences.

Critical Commentary and Future Directions

The golden age of industrial relations was in the two decades after World War II, when collective bargaining was the centerpiece, offering workers a voice to raise their concerns and grievances in the workplace. Trade unions were also seen as having a wider role in society. However, by the 1970s trade unions began to be identified as a contributor to economic malaise and were seen as contributing to inflation and low productivity because of restrictive practices and industrial action. By the 1980s, a deregulation and foreign competition in the United States and the United Kingdom helped legitimize an attack on unions. Collective institutions were seen as interfering with the market and inhibiting the development of an enterprise culture. As a result, much of the institutional structures of IR was dismantled. In addition, wider changes in society and the economy, particularly the decline of manufacturing and the changing demographics of the labor force (gender, atypical work, and so on) meant that the IR tools of previous times began to seem less relevant. As unions declined in influence and union density plummeted across much of the industrialized world with the labor problem apparently solved, the IR field was seen as rather outdated in its focus and assumptions. The traditional IR system was called into question as its boundaries were eroded. Even the label industrial relations came under threat, with employment relations seen as a more appropriate, modern alternative.

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