Abstract
As we write in the midst of the tragic and tumultuous summer of 2020, we are marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the field of Industrial Relations. While many things have changed, many have not. The “labor question” remains central: important before the COVID-19 pandemic, and more important since. We are calling on the IR community to undertake innovative, empirical research to tackle difficult labor questions and inform current policy debates.
One hundred years ago, the labor question was at the heart of public debates over economic stability and social justice, as real-world problems in people’s lives—poverty, unemployment, inequality—had led to waves of labor strikes and mass mobilizations, including the Great Steel Strike of 1919, the Seattle General Strike of 1919, and many before and after. Efforts to quell labor ranged from violent suppression to social reform movements to the establishment of corporate welfare departments. The first corporate IR function (by that name) was created in 1918 at Standard Oil. The first books dedicated to the subject of IR were Industry and Humanity by William L. Mackenzie King in 1918 and Industrial Goodwill by John R. Commons in 1919. The International Labor Organization was founded in 1919, and the first university course called Industrial Relations was created at the University of Wisconsin in 1920.
In the subsequent decades of policy debates and political battles, punctuated by the Great Depression and the New Deal, the field of industrial relations emerged and particularly flourished in the post–World War II period with the founding of IR institutes in major unionized states in the United States. But in subsequent decades, some of those institutions faced marginalization, similar to that of labor organizations, and the government’s regulatory capacity to enforce labor and employment rights eroded.
Today, as levels of inequality reflect those of 100 years ago, solving the labor question is central to creating and sustaining a democratic society based on broad-based prosperity. Heightened inequality and institutionalized racism, exacerbated by the financial crisis of a decade ago, have reignited labor militancy and mass mobilizations. Although approximately only 10% of wage and salary workers were union members in 2019 (down from 20% in 1983), 50% of non-union workers would vote for a union, and public support for unions is higher than it has been in decades. 1 Some workers with no union experience have joined unions or engaged in large wildcat strikes for the first time in their lives. 2
But unlike 1920, when scholars largely addressed the labor question through the lens of economic class status, today industrial relations research must address the intersection of class, race, gender, ethnicity, and immigrant status.
These dimensions are especially salient in the COVID-19 crisis. For example, frontline service workers in the occupations most exposed to the pandemic are disproportionately female and people of color. Rates of COVID-related illness are disproportionately higher among racial and ethnic minority groups. 3 Job loss due to the coronavirus is highest among those making less than the median annual earnings of $31,000 in the United States—disproportionately women and people of color—while higher-income individuals are able to retain their jobs, income security, and health care coverage by working safely from home. 4
The explosion of mass protests over racial injustice in the United States in the summer of 2020 is the culmination of many social movements that express frustration over the lack of progress in reaching greater equality and social justice, including Black Lives Matter, the Fight for Fifteen, the #MeToo Movement, living wage campaigns, the immigrant rights movement, and more. New generations of young people have cut their teeth on these movements, and even gig workers in COVID-exposed delivery and frontline service jobs have launched wildcat strikes over unsafe conditions. 5
In this time of great upheaval and uncertainty, labor research is more important than ever. We are calling on our community to use our best resources to help solve real-world problems, in the United States and around the world.
At the ILR Review, we are calling for papers that are timely and address pressing problems in labor markets and labor relations—and we will work to expedite the review process for time-sensitive papers. (See call for papers that follows this letter.)
As scholars with expertise in a wide range of labor and management-related specialties, we have the opportunity to produce evidence-based research to inform theory and public policy.
We encourage scholars from all disciplines to contribute their unique perspectives, from anthropology, sociology, political science, and psychology to history, industrial relations, law, and economics.
We also welcome research using a broad range of methods—ethnographic, experimental, archival, legal, qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods—as no one method is sufficient to document the widespread changes that are occurring.
As we move the ILR Review forward into the next decade, we are calling for the next generation of leading research to address the most pressing labor issues across the world. These include such issues as productivity and living standards; migration, trade, outsourcing, and employment outcomes; employer concentration and monopsony power; inequality in labor markets and organizations; the intersection of race, gender, and class; social movements and labor militancy; new technology, work, and employment relations; democratic rights at work; and new forms of labor market regulation.
We are confident that our research can contribute to advancing theory, solving real-world problems, and providing the basis for a democratic society and an equitable economy in the future.