US Labor Institutionalism's Rise and Decline and the Death of US Industrial Relations

This article presents a short history on the rise and fall of US labor institutionalism as advanced by the Wisconsin school labor history and industrial relations scholars. US labor institutionalism's development occurred as industrial relations emerged and matured as a field of study. Nevertheless, the paradigm declined as industrial relations became marginalized with human resource management courses replacing those in industrial relations in US universities. Although US labor history's origins also emerged from labor institutionalism, challenges to the theoretical framework in labor history accelerated in the 1960 and 1970s. However, labor institutionalism remained the foundation for US industrial relations research through the early 1980s until falling union density resulted in fewer qualitative studies of trade unionism. Additionally, declining union density led to US industrial relations programs moving coursework away from collective bargaining, trade union administration, labor law, etc., courses taught by the labor institutionalists, to human resource management courses which focused on nonunion employee relations.