ABSTRACT

If one were to analyze the initiatives that grew out of the massacre at Ludlow, Colorado, in the context of just the surface forces at play at the time, it is possible to conclude that such efforts were designed and executed only to prevent the organization of workers by a union. However, by viewing these initiatives in the broader context of how they subsequently affected other developments, it is possible to conclude from the same set of facts that Ludlow was the first step toward the significant place that human resource management (HRM) now occupies in modem management. It is this latter conclusion that has both shaped my thinking and guided my leadership of the organizations spawned by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the work we have done with management during the last forty years of Industrial Relations Counselors, Inc.’s (IRC’s), seventy-five-year history.