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At the turn of the twentieth century, various Socialist parties vied for a place in the American political system, making alliances where possible and convenient with elements of organized labor. Robert Franklin Hoxie, an economist at the University of Chicago whose principle contributions lay in his writings on the labor movement, wrote a series of essays in which he scrutinized the activities of the Socialist Party of America as it appeared to be at the time poised to become a viable force in American politics. This essay examines Hoxie’s writings on the conventions of the Socialist Party within the context of the political dynamic of the period and reveals his interpretations of events based on contemporary accounts and first-hand observations.

The future of unions hangs in the balance. Labor unions face enormous challenges to overcome decades of decline and diminishing power. The authors examine the current status of unions with an eye toward identifying pathways to rejuvenation. Our analysis focuses on what the authors know about the decline of unions, how its compares historically, and what avenues are available to unions to change. Pathways to growth with undoubtedly require breaking old molds, which have proven ineffective. Unions need to explore new models of representation to take advantage of a changing workforce with new employment relationships typified by the “gig economy.” The authors present an agenda for fruitful research and discuss the implications of a weakened labor movement on the well-being of society.

Robert Franklin Hoxie was of the first generation of University of Chicago economists, a figure of significance in his own time. He is often heralded as the first of the Institutional economists and the impetus behind the field of labor economics. Yet today, his contributions appear as mere footnotes in the history of economic thought, when mentioned at all, despite the fact that in his professional and popular writings he tackled some of the most pressing problems of the day. The topics upon which he focused included bimetallism, price theory, methodology, the economics profession, socialism, syndicalism, scientific management, and trade unionism, the last being the field with which he is most closely associated. His work attracted the notice of some of the most famous economists of his time, including Frank Fetter, J. Laurence Laughlin, Thorstein Veblen, and John R. Commons. For all the promise, his suicide at the age of 48 ended what could have been a storied career. This paper is an attempt to resurrect Hoxie through a review of his life and work, placing him within the social and intellectual milieux of his time.

This paper examines the labor policies of the United Typothetae of America (UTA) from its birth in 1887 through the late 1920s and argues that labor policy differences among its members (personified by two prominent New York City-based printing employers, Theodore DeVinne and Charles Francis) created a “house divided” that not only prevented it from creating and maintaining a unified labor policy but also ultimately led to its demise as an employers' association and reconstitution primarily as a trade association. It will do so by analyzing key episodes in the UTA's labor history to show how the two competing labor philosophies – DeVinne's absolute authority & independence and Francis's stability & order – interacted with industry conditions – intense price competition, a decentralized industry structure, proprietor autonomy, the relative power of unions, and economic conditions – to impact the UTA's labor policies and its institutional survival. The UTA's experience reveals the diversity of American employers' experiences as well as the challenges that they have faced when attempting to act collectively in the industrial relations arena. Moreover, recent IR research on employers' associations around the world also reveals that, as unions have declined in power, many also are shifting their focus away from labor relations to other member services.

In this paper, we draw from our own empirical data on worker organizing and identify important concepts that bridge social movement (SM) and industrial relations (IR) theory. In a context of traditional union decline and a surge of alternative types of worker mobilization, we apply SM and IR concepts related to the mobilizing structures and culture to cases of labor organizing via worker centers and community–labor alliances in the United States and China. From an analytical perspective, we argue that the field of SMs and IR can both benefit from this type of cross-discipline theorization.

The growth of organized labor during the latter part of the nineteenth century triggered an organizational impulse on the part of employers across the country. Although some employers’ associations began as “negotiatory” bodies engaged in collective bargaining, the vast majority of them shifted toward a more “belligerent” approach. Academic scholarship has generally focused on the belligerents at the national level. Recently, some scholars have begun to study organized employers at the community level, but they continue to feature the more typical staunchly anti-union associations. This study of Columbus, Ohio's master printers’ association reveals a different pattern of local labor relations during the years between 1887 and 1960 – an association that had generally smooth bargaining relationships with craft unions. Columbus’ conservative and sheltered economy enabled the longstanding cooperative shared printing craft culture to thrive. But changes in Columbus’ economy, shifts in larger patterns of industrial relations, the hard-line influence of the national employers’ association, and technological changes altered the context of local labor relations. The result was that, by 1960, the Columbus association sought the upper hand in labor relations by becoming a more traditional and belligerent employers’ association. This story of “latecomers” adds to our understanding of organized employer behavior under different historical periods and circumstances.

The employment practices of major American companies underwent a marked transformation in the fifteen-year period dating roughly from the beginning of World War I to the oncoming of the Great Depression in late 1929 (Jacoby, 1985; Lescohier, 1935). At the start of World War I, the practice of personnel management was unknown in American industry. Instead, employment practices were largely informal, unscientific and administered in a decentralized, often heavy-handed and capricious manner by foremen and gang bosses. Labor was typically viewed as a commodity to be bought for as little possible and used for only as long as needed, leading to an employment relationship that was short-term and insecure. The prevailing methods of management were also highly autocratic and arbitrary, with workers expected to obey whatever orders were given and at risk of being fired for any offense real or imagined.