Cliff Donn's
Professional Home Page
Welcome.
This page is largely devoted to my research interests with some items relating
to my teaching as well. You can send me an e-mail at donn@lemoyne.edu
The first section of this page
deals very briefly with my background. The rest of the sections deal with
my professional interests, in particular general issues related to industrial
relations, maritime industrial relations and labor relations among public
school teachers specifically, and Australia. You can skip directly to
any of those sections by clicking on the appropriate title just below.
Background
Industrial Relations
Maritime
Australia
Teacher Labor Relations
Cliff's
Background
My interest in labor issues
stems from my undergraduate education. I received a B.S. degree from the New
York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University in 1972 (having spent my
junior year at the London School of Economics and Political Science). I
continued my education by entering the Ph.D. program in Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where I
received my Ph.D. in 1980.
I attended M.I.T. from 1972 through 1975
taking classes and teaching introductory labor economics in my third
year. After the 1975 school year, I moved to
Sydney, Australia.
I lived in Sydney
for three years while I worked on my Ph.D. dissertation on the history of the
Australian Council of Trade Unions and taught at the University of New South
Wales as a tutor and th en at Macquarie University (1976-1978) as a lecturer
in Economics.
In 1978 I returned
to Boston where
I spent the year at M.I.T. completing my Ph.D.. From 1979 until 1982 I
was an assistant professor in the Department of
Economics at the University of Tennessee
in Knoxville.
Since 1982, I have been teaching at Le Moyne College. I
was hired as an Associate Professor but was promoted to Professor in
1987. I served as chair of this department (Industrial Relations and
Human Resource Management) from 1983 to 1995. I was
the first Director of the International Studies Program from 1987 until
1995. I served as the Director of the Le Moyne College's study abroad
program from1991 until 1998. In 2006 I joined the Department of Anthropology,
Criminology and Sociology and in 2007 I became the chair of that department.
The department of Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management was abolished
and in 2007 I became the director of its successor, an interdisciplinary
program called Work and Employment Relations If you would like to see a
complete list of my publications (books, articles,
notes and book reviews) you can do so from here.
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Industrial Relations
I majored in Industrial and
Labor Relations as an undergraduate at Cornell. While my Ph.D. from
M.I.T. is in Economics, I concentrated in labor economics and even within that
subfield was particularly interested in institutional issues related to unions
and collective bargaining. At Macquarie and the University of Tennessee
I taught in economics departments but I always taught at least partially in the
areas of labor economics and labor relations. Virtually all of my
published work has been related to these areas.
Below you will find a series of links to
unions and government agencies including data sources which may be of interest
to students of economics and industrial relations. There is also a set of
links to the home pages I have created for the classes I teach. If you
are interested in my classes, this is a good place to look.
US Labor Unions
This
is a selection of links to major
U.S. labor unions including the AFL-CIO.
AFL-CIO
American
Federation of State County and Municipal Employees
American
Federation of Teachers
American
Postal Workers
International
Association of Machinists
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
International
Brotherhood of Teamsters
New York State
United Teachers
Service
Employees International Union
Sheet Metal
Workers International Union
United Auto
Workers
United Food and
Commercial Workers
International Labor Bodies
This
is a set of links to international agencies and labor bodies.
Canadian
Industrial Relations Association: This is the leading Canadian professional
association.
International
Confederation of Free Trade Unions: Traditionally this was the
international federation of peak union bodies based largely on the
non-Communist countries and the non-Communist federations in the West but also
including Australia and Japan.
International Labour Organization: This tripartite body based in Geneva is a branch of the
United Nations.
Trades Union
Congress: This is the central trade union federation in Britain
International
Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers Unions: This is
what is called an International Trade Secretariat. It is a grouping of
unions from around the world in a particular industry or set of
industries. There is a link to another of these, the International
Transport Federation, below in the Maritime section.
Universities, Professional and Academic
Organizations
These
are links to the home pages of university departments and schools of industrial
relations and closely related fields. There are also links to academic
and professional organizations.
American
Arbitration Association: This is the leading dispute resolution body in the
field. It maintains panels of arbitrators and produces a wide variety of
publications.
Labor and
Employment Relations Association: This is the leading professional
association in the field. It includes large numbers of academics but it also
includes a sizable contingent of practitioners.
School
of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University:
This site contains a very large number of useful links to organizations and data
sources.
University of California,
Berkeley, This site has a very large number of useful links to
organizations and data sources.
Government Agencies and Data Sources
Bureau of the Census: An excellent source of
general and demographic data
Bureau of Labor
Statistics: An agency of the U.S. Department of Labor. The best source for a wide variety of data on industrial relations
and the economy.
Labourstart: This is a source of world-wide trade union
news. It also has a link to Labor's Online Bookstore where you can see
the latest available books on industrial relations and related topics.
National Labor
Relations Board: The agency of the federal government entrusted with
enforcing the rights of American workers with regard to unionization and
collective bargaining.
Occupational
Safety and Health Administration: Another agency of the U.S. Department of
Labor
Unionstats is a page maintained by Barry Hirsch and
David Macpherson based on government data. It is the easiest way to access
comprehensive statistics on union membership and collective bargaining coverage
in the United States.
The data are organized by industry, by occupation, by state and by metropolitan
area.
Cliff's Course Home Pages
These are all links to pages
for courses I regularly teach (or regularly taught in the past) at Le Moyne College. These include both undergraduate and graduate classes (graduate classes are numbered 500 or higher).
IRL 101 is Introduction
to Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management
IRL 201 is History
of American Labor and Management
WER 401 is Collective
Bargaining
IRL 402 is Arbitration
IRL 420 and IRL 421 are Comparative Industrial Relations Systems I
and II. The first course covers Canada
and Western Europe. The second covers Japan, Australia,
several less-developed countries, Israel, China
and South Africa.
ECO 313 is Labor
Economics
HRM 470 is Alternative
Dispute Resolution
HRM 702 is Conflict
Resolution
EDL 502 is Leadership
for Human Resource Development in Schools
EDL 510 is Labor
Relations in the School Setting
SOC 345 is Conflict
Resolution
SOC 311 is Sociology
of Work
SOC/CJS 321 Law,
Society and Social Science
CJS 101 Introduction to Criminology
CJS 220 The Criminal Justice System
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Maritime Labor Relations
1986 until about 2003, my
primary research interest was in the area of labor relations in the maritime
industry, and specifically among the seafarers themselves (as opposed to
shore-side workers in the maritime industry). I have a number of articles
published in that area as well as some related to Australian maritime labor
relations (or which compare the Australian maritime experience with that in the
USA) which have been written with Richard Morris (University of Western Sydney)
and/or Gerry Phelan (Macquarie University).
I am currently working on a book-length
manuscript on maritime labor relations. I have a contract to write the
book with MacMillan Press in London.
The most important agency regulati
ng maritime programs in the USA is
the US Department of Transport Maritime Administration, MARAD. MARAD's
home page contains descriptions of a variety of programs and is an excellent
source of data.
The International Transport Workers
Federation, the ITF, brings together
maritime unions from around the world. The ITF has a long-standing
campaign against flag-of-conveni ence
vessel operators. That campaign effectively involves one of the rare
examples of international collective bargaining.
A general reference on the merchant marine
(in large part devoted to honoring merchant mariners who have served in
U.S.-fought wars) can be found at the American
Merchant Marine homepage. This has lots of wonderful links.
Maritime Unions and Employers
American Presidents Line
Crowley
Maritime Corporation
International Organization of Masters, Mates
and Pilots
Seafarers
International Union
SeaLand Services
Sailors
Union of the Pacific
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Australia
I developed an
interest in Australian industrial relations and later in Australia more generally beginning during my
senior year at Cornell
University. While
in graduate school, I decided to write my Ph.D. dissertation on a topic related
to the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the central union federation in Australia.
I left for Australia in
1975. Over the next three years I lived in various locations on Sydney's north
shore. I remained there for three years, returning to the United States
in July 1978. I returned to spend part of my first sabbatical leave
visiting at the University
of New South Wales in the
first half of 1989. In 1992 I was invited to give a paper at the Congress
of the International Industrial Relations Association so I returned for a brief
visit at that time. In 1996, I spent a brief portion of his next sabbatical
visiting at the University
of Western Sydney. I
spent the second half of 2003 teaching and doing research as a visiting
professor at the University of Western Sydney's School of Management.
I have a number of publications
relating to Australian trade unions and industrial relations as well as a
couple relating more specifically to Australian maritime industrial relations.
Australian Web Sites
What follows is a
brief set of links to Australian World Wide Web Home Pages. Most relate
specifically to Industrial Relations issues.
Australian
Council of Trade Unions: This is the central union confederation in Australia.
I wrote my Ph.D. thesis about its history and economic policy.
Universities
University of New South Wales: Located
in Sydney's
Eastern Suburbs. This link is to the School of Industrial
Relations and Organizational Behavior at the
university.
University
of Western Sydney: Located in Sydney's
Western Suburbs, this is a multi-campus university. I taught there as a visiting professor during the
second half of 2003.
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page
Teacher Labor
Relations
My most recent research interest involves
unionization and collective bargaining among public school teachers. While the
popular press is full of assertions about teachers and educational quality
("Incompetent teachers can't be fired" "Teachers aren't motivated
because they earn the same amount whether they do a good job or not"
"Collective bargaining agreements base teacher assignments on seniority so
the most problematic schools end up with the worst and with the least
experienced teachers") there is very little reference to careful scholarly
examination of these issues and even much of the scholarly literature is based
principally on assertion. I am trying to look at teacher collective bargaining
agreements to examine the extent to which these assertions have validity.
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These links will help you find resources
with regard to education, teacher unions, government agencies, etc.
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The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is a union primarily of teachers (but
organizing other school personnel as well. It has long been an advocate of
collective bargaining for teachers. The New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) is the New
York State branch
of the AFT and the union to which most teachers belong in the Central New York region.
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The Empire
Center for New York State Policy is a public interest group that seems to
promote open government. Its web page contains links (look under contracts)
to almost every teacher collective bargaining agreement in New York State.
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The home page of the National Council on Teacher Quality has
a new database that allows you to look at and download collective bargaining
agreements and to search them for particular topics. At the moment the only
one included for New York State is New
York City.
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The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest organization of teachers
(administrators can join too) in the United States. It initially
opposed collective bargaining for teachers but now actively engages in bargaining
in districts where it represents teachers or other school employees.
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The New York
State Education Department is the place to look for a variety of laws and
regulations governing human resource issues in public schools.
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The New
York State Public Employment Relations Board is the agency responsible
for overseeing union organization and collective bargaining in New York State's public agencies (state and
local) including its school districts. This agency supervises union election
and representation procedures, provides assistance in negotiating impasses,
rules on improper practices, and in other ways administers and enforces the
Taylor Law.
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The New
York State School Boards Association provides a wide range of services to
public school boards and school districts throughout the state. Lobbying with
regard to labor relations law and advice on collective bargaining are two of
those services.
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The School Administrators Association of
New York State (SAANYS) represents the
interests of school administrators in collective bargaining and other
contexts.
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The United States Department of Education is the
place to look for information on a variety of policies and issues that affect
public schools as well as private and religious schools.
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