Labor and Employment Relations Association
Encyclopedia
The Labor and Employment Relations Association(LERA), founded in 1947, as the Industrial Relations Research Association, is an organization for professionals in industrial relations and human resources
. Headquartered at the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the national organization has more than 3,000 members. LERA is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that draws its members from the ranks of academia, management, labor and "neutrals" (arbitrators and mediators0. The organization uses the slogan "Advancing Workplace Relations."
LERA's constituencies are professionals in the areas of academic research and education, compensation and benefits, human resources, labor and employment law, labor and management resources, labor markets and economics, public policy, training and development, and union administration and organizing. The executive director of LERA is Paula Wells.
Past presidents of LERA include John T. Dunlop, Shultz, and Ray Marshall
, all of whom went on to serve as U.S. Secretary of Labor.
LERA holds an annual membership and professional development meeting in January each year, as part of the Allied Social Sciences Association
, and its National Policy Forum in alternate years in June in Washington, D.C.
In 2011, LERA held its 63rd annual meeting http://www.leraweb.org/meeting/63rd-lera-annual-meeting in Denver, Colo. The 2011 National Policy Forum (June 6-7, 2011)is entitled: Competition, Jobs, and Equity in the Economic Recovery.
EPRN received start-up funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and Sage Foundation. The EPRN principal investigator is Thomas A. Kochan
, George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management at MIT's Sloan School of Management and co-director of both the MIT Workplace Center and the Institute for Work and Employment Research.
EPRN is a employment research repository and virtual collaboration space whose mission is to replace ideology and partisan rhetoric with facts and objective, evidence-based research in discussions of U.S. employment, work and labor. EPRN's goal is to provide the data, research, policy proposals and reasoning to improve national and state employment laws, policies and practices. Ultimately, EPRN realizing its mission means to contribute to healthier and more productive lives of American workers and their families, to promote general economic prosperity and to enable the nation to compete successfully in the global economy. Like LERA, its parent organization, EPRN is non-profit and non-partisan.
UCLA's Lewin was the lead writer of the collective-bargaining paper "Getting It Right: Empirical Evidence and Policy Implications from Research on Public-Sector Unionism and Collective Bargaining"; Kochan was co-author. Also contributing to the writing and editing were University of Illinois' Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld; New School for Social Research's Teresa Ghilarducci
; Cornell's Harry Katz; Rutgers' Jeffrey Keefe; UCLA's Daniel J.B. Mitchell; Illinois' Craig Olson; Rutgers' Saul Rubinstein; and University of Massachusetts Boston's Christian Weller.
During and after the February and March 2011 standoff
over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
's bill to take away collective-bargaining rights from public-sector state and local and local public employees, including teachers, EPRN researchers served as expert media sources and contributed op-ed commentaries in Wisconsin media, to the EPRN web site and on public radio and television and satellite radio.
Organizational members in 2010 include (an abbreviated list):
Membership at both the individual and organizational levels includes subscriptions to a number of publications, advance information and discounts on meetings, and many other opportunities to meet the leaders in the field and share ideas through participating in industry councils and interest sections.
and employment research. A second award recognizes an academic for research that addresses an industrial relations/employment problem of national significance in the United States
. Other awards include:
. The LERA Labor and Employment Law Section publishes a monthly online newsletter that is posted on the LERA website and distributed through the main LERA listserve.
Human resources
Human resources is a term used to describe the individuals who make up the workforce of an organization, although it is also applied in labor economics to, for example, business sectors or even whole nations...
. Headquartered at the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the national organization has more than 3,000 members. LERA is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that draws its members from the ranks of academia, management, labor and "neutrals" (arbitrators and mediators0. The organization uses the slogan "Advancing Workplace Relations."
LERA's constituencies are professionals in the areas of academic research and education, compensation and benefits, human resources, labor and employment law, labor and management resources, labor markets and economics, public policy, training and development, and union administration and organizing. The executive director of LERA is Paula Wells.
Past presidents of LERA include John T. Dunlop, Shultz, and Ray Marshall
Ray Marshall
Freddie Ray Marshall is the Professor Emeritus of the Audre and Bernard Rapoport Centennial Chair in Economics and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin....
, all of whom went on to serve as U.S. Secretary of Labor.
LERA Organizational Members
LERA organizational members include unions, management schools, universities, academic schools and departments, law firms and institutes. Individual members come from the ranks of academe, labor, management and "neutrals." The organization provides professional development for human resource professionals, union members, corporate and non-profit managers; national, state and local government employees; arbitrators and mediators; labor attorneys and others.LERA holds an annual membership and professional development meeting in January each year, as part of the Allied Social Sciences Association
Allied Social Sciences Association
The Allied Social Science Association is a group of academic and professional organizations that are officially recognized by the and are related to the study of social sciences...
, and its National Policy Forum in alternate years in June in Washington, D.C.
In 2011, LERA held its 63rd annual meeting http://www.leraweb.org/meeting/63rd-lera-annual-meeting in Denver, Colo. The 2011 National Policy Forum (June 6-7, 2011)is entitled: Competition, Jobs, and Equity in the Economic Recovery.
Employment Policy Research Network
At the 2011 January annual meeting, LERA launched the Employment Policy Research Network Web site (EPRN). It originally consisted of about 100 researchers (economists; management, human resources, and labor relations researchers; attorneys, historians and sociologists) from 30 universities, including California-Berkeley, Columbia, Cornell, Illinois, Massachusetts (several campuses), MIT, Michigan, Michigan State, Northeastern, Rutgers, Stanford and UCLA, as well as universities in Canada and the United Kingdom. In March, 2011, the first cohort of doctoral students from MIT and Cornell joined EPRN as graduate student researchers who are sponsored by EPRN researchers. As of May 1, 2011, there were 125 EPRN researchers from 50 universities.EPRN received start-up funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and Sage Foundation. The EPRN principal investigator is Thomas A. Kochan
Thomas Anton Kochan
Thomas A. Kochan is a professor of industrial relations, work and employment. He is presently the George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he has been a faculty member since 1980....
, George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management at MIT's Sloan School of Management and co-director of both the MIT Workplace Center and the Institute for Work and Employment Research.
EPRN is a employment research repository and virtual collaboration space whose mission is to replace ideology and partisan rhetoric with facts and objective, evidence-based research in discussions of U.S. employment, work and labor. EPRN's goal is to provide the data, research, policy proposals and reasoning to improve national and state employment laws, policies and practices. Ultimately, EPRN realizing its mission means to contribute to healthier and more productive lives of American workers and their families, to promote general economic prosperity and to enable the nation to compete successfully in the global economy. Like LERA, its parent organization, EPRN is non-profit and non-partisan.
EPRN Steering Committee
In addition to Kochan, other members of the EPRN Steering Committee include:- Eileen Appelbaum, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy ResearchCenter for Economic and Policy ResearchThe Center for Economic and Policy Research is a progressive economic policy think-tank based in Washington, DC, founded in 1999. CEPR works on Social Security, the US housing bubble, developing country economies , and gaps in the social policy fabric of the US economy.According to its own...
, in Washington, D.C. - Lawrence Katz, Elisabeth Allison Professor of Economics at Harvard University's economics department.
- David Lewin, Neil H. Jacoby Chair in Management at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
- Lisa Lynch, dean and Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and ManagementHeller School for Social Policy and ManagementThe Heller School for Social Policy and Management is one of the four graduate schools of Brandeis University.Founded in 1959 as the University's first professional school, Heller is located on the Brandeis University main campus along with the Brandeis University Graduate School of Arts and...
, Brandeis University. - Daniel J.B. Mitchell, professor emeritus at the Anderson Graduate School of Management and the School of Public AffairsUCLA School of Public AffairsThe UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs is the public affairs/public service graduate school at UCLA. The school consists of three departments -- Public Policy, Social Welfare, and Urban Planning -- offering two undergraduate minors, three master's degrees, and two doctoral degrees...
, UCLA. - Andrew Sum, professor of labor economics and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.
Employment Policy Research Topics and Research Clusters
EPRN divides the large subject of employment and work into 15 topics and research clusters of 20-40 researchers:- Employment Regulations (David Weil, Boston University, topic leader)
- Equal Employment Opportunity (Fidan Ana Kurtulus, University of Massachusetts Amherst, topic leader)
- Globalization, Employment and Labor Standards (tba)
- Immigration (tba)
- Industry Studies/Strategies (Larry Hunter, University of Wisconsin, topic leader)
- Labor and Employment Law, Ellen DanninEllen DanninEllen Dannin is professor of law at the Dickinson School of Law at Penn State University, and an expert in the labor law of New Zealand and the United States.-Early life and education:Dannin was born in Michigan...
, Pennsylvania State University, Dickinson School of Law, topic leader) - Labor Force Demographics/Supply (Andrew M. Sum and Paul Harrington, Northeastern, topic leaders)
- Labor-Management Relations (Peter Berg, Michigan State, topic leader)
- Public-Sector Employment Issues (Jeffrey Keefe Rutgers, topic leader)
- Regional Economic Development/Adjustment (Peter B. Doeringer, Boston University, topic leader)
- Skills, Work and Technology (David Feingold, Rutgers; Stephen Barley, Stanford; topic leaders)
- Social Insurance (Christian Weller, University of Massachusetts Boston, topic leader)
- Unemployment - Jobs Deficit/Growth (Till von Wachter, Columbia University, topic leader)
- Wages-Compensation (Frank Levy, MIT, topic leader)
- Work-Family Policy (Nancy FolbreNancy FolbreNancy Folbre is a feminist economist who focuses on economics and the family, non-market work and the economics of care.She is currently an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst....
, University of Massachusetts Amherst, topic leader)
EPRN Research-Policy Briefs: Unemployment, Wage Stgnation, Collective Bargaining
EPRN researchers self post formal academic research, op-ed commentaries and blogs. During its first three months, EPRN researchers published three major in-depth research-policy briefs on unemployment, wage stagnation and public-sector collective bargaining. Columbia University economist Till von Wachter wrote the unemployment paper, "Jobs Deficit and Job Growth, Unemployment, and the Consequences for Workers." MIT's Frank Levy and Kochan wrote the wage-stagnation paper, "Addressing the Problem of Stagnant Wages."UCLA's Lewin was the lead writer of the collective-bargaining paper "Getting It Right: Empirical Evidence and Policy Implications from Research on Public-Sector Unionism and Collective Bargaining"; Kochan was co-author. Also contributing to the writing and editing were University of Illinois' Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld; New School for Social Research's Teresa Ghilarducci
Teresa Ghilarducci
Teresa Ghilarducci is the Irene and Bernard L. Schwartz Chair of Economic Policy Analysis and director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis in the Department of Economics at The New School's New School for Social Research...
; Cornell's Harry Katz; Rutgers' Jeffrey Keefe; UCLA's Daniel J.B. Mitchell; Illinois' Craig Olson; Rutgers' Saul Rubinstein; and University of Massachusetts Boston's Christian Weller.
During and after the February and March 2011 standoff
2011 Wisconsin protests
The 2011 Wisconsin protests were a series of demonstrations in the state of Wisconsin in the United States beginning in February involving at its zenith as many as 100,000 protestors opposing the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill. Subsequently, anti-tax activists and other conservatives, including tea...
over Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
Scott Walker (politician)
Scott Kevin Walker is an American Republican politician who began serving as the 45th Governor of Wisconsin on January 3, 2011, after defeating Democratic candidate Tom Barrett, 52 percent to 47 percent in the November 2010 general election...
's bill to take away collective-bargaining rights from public-sector state and local and local public employees, including teachers, EPRN researchers served as expert media sources and contributed op-ed commentaries in Wisconsin media, to the EPRN web site and on public radio and television and satellite radio.
LERA Membership
LERA is a "big-tent" organization that has both individual and organizational members drawn from the ranks of academe, labor, management and "neutrals" (mediators and arbitrators).Organizational members in 2010 include (an abbreviated list):
- AFL-CIOAFL-CIOThe American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
- American Federation of TeachersAmerican Federation of TeachersThe American Federation of Teachers is an American labor union founded in 1916 that represents teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel; local, state and federal employees; higher education faculty and staff, and nurses and other healthcare professionals...
- Boston University School of Management Human Policy Institute
- Communication Workers of America
- Cornell UniversityCornell UniversityCornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution - Cornell University, School of Industrial and Labor Relations
- Federal Mediation and Conciliation ServiceFederal Mediation and Conciliation ServiceThe Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service may refer to either:*Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service *Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service...
- Florida State University, College of Business
- Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
- International Association of Machinists and Aerospace WorkersInternational Association of Machinists and Aerospace WorkersThe International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers is an AFL-CIO/CLC trade union representing approx. 646,933 workers as of 2006 in more than 200 industries.-Formation and early history:...
- MIT Sloan School of ManagementMIT Sloan School of ManagementThe MIT Sloan School of Management is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Massachusetts....
|Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
, Sloan School of Management]] - Michelin North America, Inc.
- National Labor CollegeNational Labor CollegeThe National Labor College is the only accredited higher education institution in the United States devoted exclusively to educating union members, leaders and staff. It was established as a training center by the AFL-CIO in 1969 to strengthen union member education and organizing skills...
- New York State Nurses Association
- Parker, Milliken, Clark, O'Hara & Samuelian
- Pennsylvania State UniversityPennsylvania State UniversityThe Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...
- Rutgers University, School of Management and Labor Relations
- Seabury Group LLC
- Society for Human Resource ManagementSociety for Human Resource ManagementThe Society for Human Resource Management is a professional human resources association headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia. The largest such association in its field, SHRM promotes the role of HR as a profession and provides education, certification, and networking to its members while lobbying...
- Southwest Airlines Pilots' Association
- Tennessee Employment Relations Research Association
- University of California at Los Angeles, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment
- United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776
- United Steelworkers of America
- West Virginia University Department of Industrial Relations and Management
Membership at both the individual and organizational levels includes subscriptions to a number of publications, advance information and discounts on meetings, and many other opportunities to meet the leaders in the field and share ideas through participating in industry councils and interest sections.
LERA Awards
LERA offers a number of awards, recognitions and grants each year. Its most prestigious award is the John T. Dunlop Scholar Award. Two Dunlop Scholar Awards are given each year. One goes to an academic who makes the best contribution to international and/or comparative laborInternational comparisons of labor unions
Unions have been compared across countries by growth and decline patterns, by violence levels, and by kinds of political activity.-Union growth and decline comparisons:...
and employment research. A second award recognizes an academic for research that addresses an industrial relations/employment problem of national significance in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Other awards include:
- Thomas A. Kochan and Stephen R. Sleigh Best Dissertation Award
- Chapter Merit Awards
- Excellence in Education Awards
- LERA Fellows
- Lifetime Achievement Award
- James G.Scoville Best International Paper Award
- John T. Dunlop Scholar Awards
- Outstanding Practitioner Awards
- Susan C. Eaton Scholar-Practitioner Award
- Susan C. Eaton Scholar-Practitioner Grant
- Michael R. Losey Human Resource Research Award
- Sloan Industry Fellowships
- Woodrow Wilson Women's Studies Dissertation Grant
LERA Publications
LERA publishes a number of research reports and books, as well as an annual compendium of research, an annual proceedings, a newsletter and a membership director. It also publishes the biannual journal, Perspectives on WorkPerspectives on Work
Perspectives on Work is a publication of the Labor and Employment Relations Association . It contains news about LERA activities as well as scholarly articles on workplace law, economics and human resources from both an HR perspective as well as labor relations.The publication covers a variety of...
. The LERA Labor and Employment Law Section publishes a monthly online newsletter that is posted on the LERA website and distributed through the main LERA listserve.