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Cornell ILR Dean, Professor Harry Katz visits UCD Smurfit School

Date: 27 Sep 2007

Work and employment patterns in the United States are becoming increasingly diverse, Professor Harry Katz, Dean of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, New York, told a large audience attending a public lecture at UCD Smurfit School on September 27th 2007.  Like many other advanced economies, including Ireland, Professor Katz said, there was evidence in the US of growing divergence in the ways in which organizations manage employees, as well as in the extent to which and the manner in which trade unions represent employees in their dealings with employers. Professor Katz explored four major trends in US industrial relations and human resource management. Unions continued to decline incrementally, but there were signs of innovation in union organizing activities and the possibility of new legislation favouring union organizing in the event that a Democratic presidential candidate is returned to the White House in next year’s election. Collective bargaining over pay and conditions had become increasingly decentralized, but there were areas where stability dominated, including the public sector and major manufacturing and auto companies. There appeared to be a growth in the use of ‘alternative dispute resolution’ processes within companies, particularly in the light of a US Supreme Court judgement that companies could develop arbitration systems to settle disputes concerning employees’ rights. The growth of what Prof Katz described as  ‘private justice’ was one of the most dramatic developments in the field in the US. Prof Katz also reflected on a turnaround in unions’ postures on US immigration policy. Traditionally cautious about a liberal immigration policy, US unions now formed a lobby with employers to seek a more open policy..

Professor Katz was at UCD School of Business to mark the commencement of a new ILR-UCD Programme. Currently 13 Cornell ILR under-graduates students are taking courses in industrial relations and human resource management and other business elective courses in UCD Quinn School of Business. Masters-level students are also being exchanged and there are plans for collaboration at the PhD level and involving faculty exchanges.