Book Description
Labor Relations, the most accurate, readable, timely, and valuable book of its kind on the market, provides readers with a basic understanding of unionism in its natural habitat and a fundamental appreciation of the union-management process. It focuses on the negotiation and administration of labor agreements, and emphasizes the more significant bargaining issues. The 11th edition includes much new material and an extensively revised and updated bibliography. For vice-presidents and directors of labor relations, union presidents, and others who are full-time labor-management professionals for either managements or unions.


Book Info
(Pearson Education) A broad and balanced overview of labor relations, including historical, legal and structural environments, arbitration cases, and an examination of the negotiation, administration, and major contents of the labor agreement itself. Also offers a new glossary and revised bibliography. Previous edition: c1997. DLC: Industrial relations--United States.


From the Back Cover
Arthur A. Sloane and Fred Witney's LABOR RELATIONS has for many years and by some margin been the most popular textbook in its field. Adopted by over six hundred colleges and universities, it is widely viewed as the definitive volume on labor relations, consistently providing a broad and balanced overview of the subject with accuracy, readability, and timeliness.


About the Author
Arthur A. Sloane, Professor of Labor Relations at the University of Delaware, holds a bachelor's degree and doctorate from Harvard University. Formerly a personnel administrator for Sylvania Electric Products, Inc., he also taught at Indiana University. He has written several books, including a 19)1 biography of Jimmy Hoffa, Hoffa; is a member of both the National Roster of Labor Arbitration of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and the National Labor Panel of the American Arbitration Association; and has been Chairperson of the Delaware Public Employment Relations Board and permanent impartial arbitrator under the DaimlerChrysler-UAW labor contract. He has been honored many times for his excellence in teaching, both by his university and by such outside institutions as the Danforth Foundation of St. Louis. The late Fred Whitney, all three of whose academic degrees were awarded by the University of Illinois, spent his entire professional career as a Professor of Economics at Indiana University. A member of the National Academy of Arbitrators, he similarly served as an active arbitrator under the authorities of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and the American Arbitration Association. He authored many articles that were published in leading professional journals and wrote five books in the field of labor, including seven editions of Labor Relations Law (coauthored with Benjamin J. Taylor), Government and Collective Bargaining, and Labor Relations in Spain. A legendary teacher, his university also honored him with a variety of awards for his classroom performance.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
There are no prerequisites to this book beyond an interest in labor-management relations. It has been designed to serve as an aid to all readers—whether undergraduate students, graduate students, or practitioners—who desire a basic understanding of unionism in its natural habitat. With such a thrust, however, the volume focuses on certain areas, necessarily minimizing the treatment of others. Labor Relations brings in, for example, sufficient economic material to allow a fundamental appreciation of the union-management process and stops at that point. Throughout, it has tried to make the various topic treatments short enough to be interesting while at the same time long enough to do justice to the subject. On the other hand, it in no way restricts itself to what is commonly described as collective bargaining. Its focus is on the negotiation and administration of labor agreements, with emphasis on the more significant bargaining issues as they now appear between the covers of the contracts. And these topics cannot profitably be studied in isolation. Labor relations can best be viewed as an interaction between two organizations—management and the labor union—and the parties to this interaction are always subject to various, often complex, environmental influences. Only after the reader gains an understanding of the evolving management and labor institutions, and only after the environment surrounding their interactional process has been appreciated, can he or she attempt to understand bargaining itself in any satisfactory way. The book consequently begins with a broad overview of the general nature of the labor-management relationship as it currently exists in the United States (Part I). It then moves to a survey of the historical, legal, and structural environments that so greatly influence contractual contents and labor relations behavior (Part II). Finally, it presents a close examination of the negotiation, administration, and major contents of the labor agreement itself (Part III). Through description, analysis, discussion questions, minicases (many of them with ethical dimensions) and selected arbitration cases drawn from the authors' own experiences, understanding of all these aspects of labor relations will, hopefully, be imparted. This eleventh edition, the second one written since Fred Witney's 1999 death, is marked by many changes. These are mainly additions, although all of the chapters have been given some streamlining and the new volume is essentially the same in size as its predecessors. Even in the three years since the tenth edition, developments in the field have called for the inclusion of new material on such topics as labor's increased emphasis on both organizing the unorganized and political action, George W. Bush and labor, unions and cyberspace, the remuneration of labor leaders, the U.S. Supreme Court and labor arbitration, collective bargaining in major league sports, and a host of other subjects. I have also enlarged upon the book's prior treatment of white collar unionism, unions and public opinion, union finances, national emergency strikes, and the merger of AFL-CIO affiliates, to cite only a few other recipients of greater journalistic attention. And the discussion of many additional topics has, of course, been given a significant updating. A multitude of new visual aids are included also, as are several new arbitration cases, an extensively revised bibliography, an amended mock negotiation problem, and quite a few added discussion questions. Nonetheless, I have exercised self-restraint in the rewriting. Only changes that can be defended on the grounds of general improvement of Labor Relations have been incorporated. I have always firmly believed in the old Puritan dictum that "nothing should ever be said that doesn't improve upon silence," and also share with the late Calvin Coolidge the conviction that "if you don't say anything, no one will ever call upon you to repeat it."

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A time-tested classic, Sloane and Witney's tenth edition provides a broad and balanced overview that includes: