IN DECEMBER, 1950, the Industrial Relations Research Association
devoted a major session of its annual meeting to the topic "Theory of
the Labor Movement--a Reappraisal." The enthusiastic discussions
which characterized and followed this session sparked a realization
that the time had come for a "new look" at this vital institution of
American life. The works of John R. Commons, Robert Hoxie, Selig
Perlman, and others which had dealt with the labor movement of the
pre-New Deal era still provided important insights into the nature of
the labor movement that emerged out of the New Deal. But a revolu-
tion had occurred. It was not only that organized labor had expanded
more than five-fold, that collective bargaining determined the condi-
tions of employment in most of the major industries of the nation out-
side of agriculture and trade, and that the right of free organization
was firmly established in the law. Underlying all of these was the
fact that the labor movement had become engrained in the basic fabric
of American culture, had become a major force in the political and
social as well as economic life of America.

The growth of organized labor, of course, has not been ignored by
students of contemporary American history. On the contrary, a vast
and steadily growing volume of books, pamphlets, and articles have
described and analyzed numerous phases of organized labor's rela-
tions with management, government, and the local community. But
few studies of a theoretical character have been produced to illuminate
the nature of the labor movement as a whole. The gaps and inade-
quacies of the older theories have remained largely unchallenged. It
was this fact which prompted the executive board of the IRRA first to
institute a formal discussion of the Commons-Perlman theories and
then to direct the preparation of a brief series of essays on various
aspects of American labor from the point of view of general theory.

The present volume was designed to stimulate new thinking about
labor theory, not to provide a definitive and integrated theoretical
structure. The size of the volume was deliberately limited in advance
to approximately 200 pages. This immediately imposed a limitation
on the number of topics to be covered and the comprehensiveness of
the treatment of any topic. Many important topics had to be omitted
and none could be dealt with exhaustively. Each author was given a
free hand to approch his subject in any way that he wished, with the
sole understanding that the emphasis should be on theory and analysis,

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