Note: Below is selected text from my LERA Presidential Address delivered at the 78th Annual Meeting in Minneapolis (May 30, 2026). You can watch the full address in this LERA presidential address video
The 1930s ushered in a new era of labor policy in the United States under the banner of “The New Deal.” Many pieces are likely familiar to you, such as social security, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and for private sector labor relations, the National Labor Relations Act that was passed in 1935. But of course new federal legislation and policies didn’t emerge from a vacuum. The passage of the NLRA was the culmination of various twists and turns, including a number of important strikes in 1934. This includes the West Coast longshore and San Francisco general strikes, the southern textile strikes, and the Minneapolis Teamsters strike (Bernstein 1970; Millikan 2001).
If you went to the Lynx game on Wednesday night, or have had dinner in the warehouse district, you’ve been walking in the shadows of armed battles from the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike. I found this really cool map where someone overlaid existing Minneapolis landmarks onto the 1935 neighborhoods. We’re in the central business district, which a University of Minnesota sociology professor labeled as including “shady hotels” in 1935 (Schmid 1937, p. 361).
As best as I can determine, during the intense Teamsters Strike, The “Battle of Deputies’ Run” in May 1934 occurred just next to where the Target Center is now located, just a couple blocks from here (Minneapolis Tribune, May 22, 1934). Two months later, Bloody Friday occurred a few blocks north, in what’s still known as the warehouse district (Minneapolis Tribune, July 21, 1934). The Citizens Alliance, which is what the employers called their anti-union open shop organization, reportedly planned this attack in the original Radisson Hotel that stood where we are today (The Organizer, July 21, 1934).
I think it’s fair to say that these events helped usher in the National Labor Relations Act a year later, which provides the foundation for private sector U.S. labor relations, and the model, later on, for public sector labor relations, too (Budd 2025). I think it’s important to appreciate that this system is not just a set of laws and practices. It’s also the embodiment of essential, foundational ideas that are different from, for example, the belief in unregulated competition that characterized policy-making before the New Deal. In industrial relations lingo, these foundational ideas are called “pluralism” (Budd 2025; Budd, Kammeyer-Mueller, and Pohler 2026).
Pluralism believes that labor markets favor employers, who typically have deeper pockets than individual workers. Pluralism believes that labor is more than a commodity, and that worker dignity and workers’ rights are essential. So pluralism embraces the need for labor standards, like minimum wage laws or laws regulating AI and work, and the need for institutions like labor unions to give workers collective voice.
But in some respects, pluralism is conservative. It mostly draws a circle around the work sphere and doesn’t pay deep attention to interconnected social inequalities. It doesn’t reject capitalism, and instead, in the words of John R. Commons, seeks to “save Capitalism by making it good” (Commons 1934, p. 143; Kaufman 2003). So pluralism sees both employers and employees as having legitimate interests in the employment relationship. This is where the “pluralism” label comes from: the employment relationship includes multiple stakeholders whose interests are legitimate, even when they conflict with the goals of others—akin to a pluralist political system.
I love this illustration’s representation of pluralism (Survey Magazine, February 7, 1914). The employment relationship is a bargaining relationship, as captured by the pendulum. But this isn’t a radical portrayal of a value system that prioritizes capital or labor. Negative outcomes are portrayed when either is too strong. And the best outcomes result when the pendulum is close to the middle, and both sides benefit.
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| Source: Survey (February 7, 1914) |
Balancing the power and interests of employers and employees is central in pluralist thought. That is, the system should try to strike a BALANCE (Budd 2025). Because both sides have legitimacy. So labor law, for example, tries to balance property rights and labor rights, even if both sides are often unhappy with where the lines are drawn. More generally some might even say we’re trying to balance efficiency, equity, and voice. Or maybe just one person says that (Budd 2004).
So now we’re going to skip over my entire career and jump to “The End of Pluralism” today. I see at least two dimensions to this: 1) Destruction of pluralist institutions, and 2) Confronting deeply-embedded inequalities.
Let’s start with the first one. Of course, there has always been resistance to recognizing unions and bargaining with them. The original Radisson hotel that Curt Carlson purchased was right where we are today, and though torn down and rebuilt in 1982, this property was a Radisson hotel until just five years ago. Until 2013 it was owned by Curt Carlson’s company, not franchised.
In 1989, Local 17 of the Hotel Employees union—the union still representing workers here today—filed charges accusing this Radisson of surface bargaining. An Administrative Law Judge ruled against Radisson (Radisson Plaza Minneapolis, George F. McInerny, Administrative Law Judge, 1990). The NLRB ruled against Radisson (Radisson Plaza Minneapolis, 307 NLRB No. 10, 1992). Rather than bargaining with Local 17, Radisson challenged the previous rulings but lost in Federal Appeals court (Radisson Plaza Minneapolis v. NLRB, 987 F.2d 1376, 1993). That’s still not the end. After more refusals to comply, the NLRB General Counsel filed a petition for contempt penalties against Radisson, more than five years after the initial charges were filed by Local 17.
There were a number of union rallies, including a sit down demonstration in the driveway of Curt Carlson’s home. I appeared in a 1994 video supporting the workers (Labor Education Service 1994, starting at 18:48), and given that I’m giving this presidential address in the very same hotel, I can’t resist showing 20 seconds of it.
I heard later on that Curt Carlson wasn’t pleased that a professor—actually, an untenured assistant professor, contrary to what it says in the video—in the business school with his name on it, appeared in this video.
Clearly there’s a long history of employer resistance to the pluralist bargaining system. But I think today is different. Extreme lawbreaking used to be refusing to bargain like Curt Carlson, or prompting a strike to hire replacements. Now employers are challenging the constitutionality and legitimacy of the NLRB just like it was 1935 (Meyerson 2025). President Reagan fired 11,000 air traffic controllers who were illegally striking. The Trump administration has tried to strip bargaining rights from a million federal workers (Glass, 2025). The hollowing out of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) is another attack on pluralist values and a dismantling of a core pluralist institution.
Let’s turn to the second dimension of my “End of Pluralism” claim: Confronting deeply-embedded inequalities. Again, pluralism isn’t radical, even if it’s attacked as such by some. A pluralist approach to industrial relations largely tries to fix bargaining power imbalances by giving workers the opportunity to choose collective voice…in their workplaces. Inequality is seen as labor market inequality, so a better wage and just cause protections through collective bargaining will solve workers’ problems. This is different from more radical, critical, and heterodox schools of thought that see inequalities as deeply embedded in interlocking societal systems – not just the labor market, but the political arena, the legal system, housing, education, voting, and more (Lee and Tapia 2021; Rubery and Hebson 2018).
After the murder of George Floyd just 3 miles from here, I spent several years developing and launching a new required core course for all undergraduates in my business school – 1,000 a year. It’s called “Race, Power, and Justice in Business.” I’m embarrassed to admit that I had never really thought about race very deeply in my work before then. A pluralist approach to understanding racial inequality focuses on labor market imbalances, and thus looks to anti-discrimination laws and collective power to redress this. That might, emphasis on “might”, be sufficient if racial inequality was purely a labor market phenomenon. But of course it’s not.
The more I read about systemic inequality and its roots in ideas as well as practices, and its reproduction through interlinkages involving housing, education, health care, voting, work, and more (Darity. and Mullen 2020; McGhee 2021; Trotter 2019)…well, it was hard for me to remain a pluralist. Yes, me, the author of multiple books grounded in pluralism, if not making the case for it (Budd 2004), questioning my own belief system.
And many unions aren’t remaining pluralist either. It’s well known that labor unions have a complicated history when it comes to racial and gender equality (Zieger 2007; Milkman 2026). But I think it’s safe to say that the U.S. labor movement has made great strides becoming more inclusive and becoming stronger champions of social justice, including beyond the boundaries of the workplace.
For example, the labor movement was active in Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd. The “bargaining for the common good” initiative is a movement away from pluralism as it seeks to integrate collective bargaining with community alliances to push for structural changes beyond the workplace, such as affordable housing, community-owned banks, and criminal justice reform. “Whole worker organizing” is another trend away from pluralism’s workplace focus (McAlevey 2016).
And now we get to the winter of 2026 here in Minnesota. As highlighted at yesterday's labor breakfast, the labor movement was a key participant in the anti-ICE actions. The Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation and many local unions endorsed and provided extensive support for the January 23rd Day of Truth and Freedom protests. The national presidents of SEIU, AFT, and the CWA all spoke at the Target Center rally that day. Local unions and federations supported their members and the community throughout this occupation. The hotel employees union that represents workers here at the Royal Sonesta created an emergency food distribution network, which included delivering food to members who were afraid to leave their homes.
And these weren’t “labor actions” narrowly defined—they were community actions, done with faith organizations, community organizations, and neighbors. In fact, while Minnesota’s largest corporations could only muster a weak PR statement, many small businesses in affected neighborhoods also participated in community and worker support actions during Operation Metro Surge.
So at the risk of oversimplifying complicated stories, perhaps we could see the era of pluralism in U.S. labor relations as ushered in by the Teamsters Strike in 1934, and ushered out by anti-ICE actions 92 years later.
But what happens next? Predictions are hard. The only previous LERA president from the University of Minnesota, Dale Yoder, in 1959 predicted that “By 1990, the 35-hour week should be well established, and many employees may enjoy a 4-day, 32-hour week” (Yoder 1959, p. 4) Even if we give Professor Yoder an additional 36 years for this to emerge, his predictions have obviously not come true. But I think Professor Yoder got the most important prediction correct:
“What actually happens in wages, hours, productivity, union membership and public regulation will depend largely on what happens to our ideas about employment and working relationships. Changes in our ideas and ideals are the real determinants of our future in industrial relations” (Yoder 1959, p. 5).
Unfortunately, the two trends I’ve identified push ideas and ideals in opposite directions. The destruction of pluralist institutions is animated by the ideals of unfettered capitalism and individualism, or things even less principled. In sharp contrast, the confronting of deeply-embedded inequalities pushes in a sharply contrasting direction towards ideals associated with social democracy.
I’m not sure where things will go, but given these clashing forces, it’s likely to be tumultuous. And it might bring on difficult times for LERA if it’s harder to bring different stakeholder groups together. But I’m grateful for everyone working hard to push things in directions that are consistent with the fundamental values of our field, and to develop new ideas and new understandings. My granddaughter, and a few billion other young people, are counting on it.
References
Bernstein, Irving (1970) Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933–1941 (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin).
Budd, John W. (1991). Pattern Bargaining, Wage Uniformity, and the United Auto Workers: An Empirical Analysis. PhD dissertation, Princeton University.
Budd, John W. (2004) Employment with a Human Face: Balancing Efficiency, Equity, and Voice (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).
Budd, John W. (2011) The Thought of Work (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).
Budd, John W. (2025) Labor Relations: Striking a Balance, 2025 release (New York: McGraw Hill).
Budd, John W., John Kammeyer-Mueller, and Dionne Pohler (2026) “Competing Frames of Reference on the Employment Relationship and Their Importance for the Study of Work,” in Jonathan Lavelle, Tony Dobbins, Tony Dundon, and Dionne Pohler, eds., New Frontiers and Trajectories in Labor-Management Relations (SIOP Organizational Frontiers Book Series) (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Carlson, Curtis L. (1994) Good as Gold: The Story of the Carlson Companies (Minneapolis, MN: Carlson Companies, Inc.).
Commons, John R. (1934) Myself (New York, NY: Macmillian).
Darity Jr., William A. and A. Kirsten Mullen (2020) From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century (Chapel Hill: UNC Press).
Glass, Aurelia (2025) “The Trump Administration Ended Collective Bargaining for 1 Million Federal Workers,” Center for American Progress (May 22).
Kaufman, Bruce E. (2023) “John R. Commons and the Wisconsin School on Industrial Relations Strategy and Policy.” ILR Review 57, no. 1: 3-30.
Labor Education Service (1994) “Turning Up the Heat: The Struggle at the Radisson Hotel,” video produced and directed by Howard Kling and Randy Croce (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, Industrial Relations Center). Available at https://youtu.be/bi_rKJKhe9w?si=ehpNtvpYPODjD5rX
Lee, Tamara L., and Maite Tapia (2021) “Confronting Race and Other Social Identity Erasures: The Case for Critical Industrial Relations Theory.” ILR Review 74, no. 3: 637-662.
McAlevey, Jane (2016) No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age (New York: Oxford University Press).
McGhee, Heather (2021) The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together (New York: One World).
Meyerson, Harold (2025) “A Federal Appellate Court Finds the NLRB to Be Unconstitutional,” The American Prospect (August 25).
Milkman, Ruth (2016) On Gender, Labor, and Inequality (Urbana: University of Illinois Press).
Millikan, William (2001) A Union against Unions: The Minneapolis Citizens Alliance and Its Fight against Organized Labor, 1903–1947 (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society).
Rubery, Jill, and Gail Hebson (2018) “Applying a Gender Lens to Employment Relations: Revitalisation, Resistance and Risks.” Journal of Industrial Relations 60, no. 3: 414-436.
Schmid, Calvin F. (1937) Social Saga of Two Cities: An Ecological and Statistical Study of Social Trends in Minneapolis and St. Paul (Minneapolis: MN: Minneapolis Council of Social Agencies).
Trotter, Jr., Joe William (2019) Workers on Arrival: Black Labor in the Making of America (Oakland: University of California Press).
Yoder, Dale (1959) The Outlook in Industrial Relations (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, Industrial Relations Center).
Zieger, Robert H. (2007) For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America since 1865 (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky).
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