ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses a decline in collective bargaining and a coincidental rise in government regulatory agencies with jurisdiction over labor relations. It explores that automation presents a fundamental conflict between the most crucial of labor and management interests. The book describes federal fiscal and monetary policies, as well as trade deficits and other international events, as setting in motion inflationary reactions that are impossible to anticipate or take into account. It shows that the political system as disruptive of orderly labor relations, which require that the roles of manager and union leader be clearly defined and played with equal vigor. The book also describes the geographic dispersion of his industry and the expansion of foreign competition as independent developments motivated by a common interest in obtaining cheap labor with the common result of disorganizing the labor market.