Ronald W. Schatz
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780252043628
- eISBN:
- 9780252052507
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252043628.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
Ronald W. Schatz tells the story of the team of young economists and lawyers recruited to the National War Labor Board to resolve union-management conflicts during the Second World War. The crew ...
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Ronald W. Schatz tells the story of the team of young economists and lawyers recruited to the National War Labor Board to resolve union-management conflicts during the Second World War. The crew (including Clark Kerr, John Dunlop, Jean McKelvey, and Marvin Miller) exerted broad influence on the U.S. economy and society for the next forty years. They handled thousands of grievances and strikes. They founded academic industrial relations programs. When the 1960s student movement erupted, universities appointed them as top administrators charged with quelling the conflicts. In the 1970s, they developed systems that advanced public sector unionization and revolutionized employment conditions in Major League Baseball.
Schatz argues that the Labor Board vets, who saw themselves as disinterested technocrats, were in truth utopian reformers aiming to transform the world. Beginning in the 1970s stagflation era, they faced unforeseen opposition, and the cooperative relationships they had fostered withered. Yet their protégé George Shultz used mediation techniques learned from his mentors to assist in the integration of Southern public schools, institute affirmative action in industry, and conduct Cold War negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev.Less
Ronald W. Schatz tells the story of the team of young economists and lawyers recruited to the National War Labor Board to resolve union-management conflicts during the Second World War. The crew (including Clark Kerr, John Dunlop, Jean McKelvey, and Marvin Miller) exerted broad influence on the U.S. economy and society for the next forty years. They handled thousands of grievances and strikes. They founded academic industrial relations programs. When the 1960s student movement erupted, universities appointed them as top administrators charged with quelling the conflicts. In the 1970s, they developed systems that advanced public sector unionization and revolutionized employment conditions in Major League Baseball.
Schatz argues that the Labor Board vets, who saw themselves as disinterested technocrats, were in truth utopian reformers aiming to transform the world. Beginning in the 1970s stagflation era, they faced unforeseen opposition, and the cooperative relationships they had fostered withered. Yet their protégé George Shultz used mediation techniques learned from his mentors to assist in the integration of Southern public schools, institute affirmative action in industry, and conduct Cold War negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev.
Ronald W. Schatz
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780252043628
- eISBN:
- 9780252052507
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252043628.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
In January 1942, President Roosevelt set up the National War Labor Board to reduce strikes, control wage inflation, develop national policies for union-management relations, and resolve disputes ...
More
In January 1942, President Roosevelt set up the National War Labor Board to reduce strikes, control wage inflation, develop national policies for union-management relations, and resolve disputes between labor and companies for the duration for the war. This chapter explains the dire situation facing the United States and its allies in the winter of 1941-42, how the NWLB came into being, the board’s members, and the backgrounds and outlook of the young economists and attorneys who did the bulk of the board’s work. Philip Murray, the president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the Steelworkers union, called the staffers “the Labor Board boys.”Less
In January 1942, President Roosevelt set up the National War Labor Board to reduce strikes, control wage inflation, develop national policies for union-management relations, and resolve disputes between labor and companies for the duration for the war. This chapter explains the dire situation facing the United States and its allies in the winter of 1941-42, how the NWLB came into being, the board’s members, and the backgrounds and outlook of the young economists and attorneys who did the bulk of the board’s work. Philip Murray, the president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the Steelworkers union, called the staffers “the Labor Board boys.”
Ronald W. Schatz
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780252043628
- eISBN:
- 9780252052507
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252043628.003.0010
- Subject:
- Sociology, Occupations, Professions, and Work
Unlike most elderly workers, the Labor Board vets continued to work to the end of their lives. They had a mission in life. This chapter explores their work in their latter years. After briefly ...
More
Unlike most elderly workers, the Labor Board vets continued to work to the end of their lives. They had a mission in life. This chapter explores their work in their latter years. After briefly discussing Jean McKelvey, Clark Kerr, Ben Aaron, Robben Fleming, and George Shultz, it focuses on John Dunlop’s work with the clerical workers union at Harvard University, his work with the farmworkers union in Ohio and Michigan, and the commission he chaired at the request of President Bill Clinton to improve worker, union, and management relations in the United States. The first two efforts were successful, the latter a complete failure. The world overwhelmed the reformersLess
Unlike most elderly workers, the Labor Board vets continued to work to the end of their lives. They had a mission in life. This chapter explores their work in their latter years. After briefly discussing Jean McKelvey, Clark Kerr, Ben Aaron, Robben Fleming, and George Shultz, it focuses on John Dunlop’s work with the clerical workers union at Harvard University, his work with the farmworkers union in Ohio and Michigan, and the commission he chaired at the request of President Bill Clinton to improve worker, union, and management relations in the United States. The first two efforts were successful, the latter a complete failure. The world overwhelmed the reformers
