Peter Rachleff

Reviews: Featured Title

Sanford Jacoby is one of the leading practitioners of both business and labor history writing today. His latest book, The Embedded Corporation, examines human resource (HR) practices in large US and Japanese corporations to ascertain whether globalization is creating convergence among different varieties of capitalism. In recognition of the importance of this book, Labor History presents the following two reviews.

Globalization and Union Democracy

The author explores the loss of union democracy within neoliberal globalization, highlighting the role that unions themselves have played in this process. The author focuses on two specific struggles, fifteen years apart but eerily similar, one in the United States and one in South Africa, as further illustration of the dynamics with which he is concerned.

On the Ground with the South African Labor Movement

Inspired by a trip to the Rainbow Nation, the author analyzes the South African labor movements role in the fall of apartheid.

The Origins & Evolution of the Field of Industrial Relations in the United States

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS (IR) developed as a distinct academic subject and field of study nearly three-quarters of a century ago. This book provides a historical survey of the origins and development of the field in the United States and an analysis of the factors that contributed both to the fields ascendancy in the decade after World War II and to its sharp decline in the 1980s. The book has three objectives. The first is to provide a detailed account of the intellectual history of the field of industrial relations, its relationship to personnel management (and related fields such as organizational behavior), and the historical development of the major institutions of industrial relations in American academe, including university degree programs and professional associations. The second objective is to assess the reasons for the marked decline in the fields intellectual and organizational for, tunes over the last two decades, a decline that has proceeded to the point that the continued existence of industrial relations programs at a number of universities is threatened. Finally, the third objective is to develop a strategy for change that will preserve and strengthen industrial relations as a field of study, if not in name then in intellectual spirit.