Will the New Industrial Relations Last? Implications for the American Labor Movement

This article reviews changes occurring in the U.S. industrial relations system at the work place, in collective bargaining, and at the level of strategic decision making within business and labor organizations. By relating these current developments to longer-term pressures on the post-New Deal industrial relations system, we suggest that the system is undergoing fundamental transformation. To adapt to these changes unions will need to redefine their roles at the work place by reorganizing work and fostering worker participation, adjust their wage bargaining objectives to promote employment continuity and compensation systems that are more closely tied to firm performance, and play a more direct and central role in business strategy decisions within the firm. These changes at the micro level of industrial relations are likely to be successful only if macroeconomic policies are reformed to provide a more supportive role for the labor movement in society.