Title: California Labor Relations: BACKGROUND AND DEVELOPMENTS THROUGH MID-2002
Abstract: relations-has become a neglected topic nationally.To the extent that employment issues are covered at all in academic settings, the focus is on (predominantly nonunion) human resource management.And even in that context, the topic is more likely to be managers dealing with other managers and related issues of "leadership," rather than with the employment concerns of ordinary nonsupervisory workers. 1 Statistical agencies of the federal government, such as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), have also curtailed their coverage of labor relations.In the mid-1990s, for example, BLS dropped its longstanding series on major union pay settlements.And since the early 1980s, work stoppage data from BLS refer only to situations involving 1,000 or more workers, omitting many smaller events.Until recently, California state agencies exhibited a similar tendency.California was one of the early states to establish a labor statistics program, beginning with a state Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1883.But the state's data collection on union contract settlements and similar information stopped in the late 1980s, a little over a century after California's initial pioneering efforts in the field of labor statistics.This chapter reviews significant developments involving California workers, their employers, and relations between the two in recent years, drawing on available data from various state and federal sources, such as the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).Among the key findings are the following: