PREFACE

     The 55th Annual Meeting of the Industrial Relations Research Association took place in Washington, D.C., on January 3-5, 2003. A busy pre-conference day on January 2 included committee, board, and interest section meetings; three full days of idea exchange through practitioner panel discussions; followed by paper presentations, poster sessions, refereed papers, and workshops. Distinguished guest speakers included John Monks of the Trade Union Congress in the United Kingdom and John J. Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO. IRRA president John Burton delivered the presidential address at the annual IRRA Luncheon.

     Chapter representatives from all over the country met and shared ideas with each other. Labor and management advocates who normally sit across the bargaining table from one another sat side by side at luncheons or on panels. Over five hundred people attended or participated in thirty-nine sessions and seventeen meetings over the four days, the largest number of participants since this administrator has been keeping records. Of those attendees, nearly 40 percent were practitioners--management, labor, neutral, and public. Together with academic members, they participated in discussions on new research, best practices, and current workplace topics.

     Organized around the theme Improving Policies and Approaches to Employment Relations, a sample of session topics in the program included alternative forms of employee representation, social capital and human resource practices, labor market institutions and economic outcomes, high-involvement work systems, and witness credibility. In this proceedings volume, we focus on papers from sessions on welfare capitalism, union revitalization in comparative perspective, employment relations for health care workers, the future for manufacturing, United States and United Kingdom comparisons of labor-management partnerships, and more.

     Especially appreciated are the efforts of Suzanne Millas of the national office for coordinating this volume with its ninety contributors. Thanks also to Joe Parsons and Meghan Krausch from the University of Illinois Press for their expert editing.

     For fifty-five years, we have met to exchange research, interpretations, perspectives, and beliefs to help shape our workplace; for as many years, this volume has represented a collection of the many ideas and dialogues presented there. You are invited to experience the meeting yourself. Join us in San Diego, January 2-5, 2004, for our 56th meeting on Industrial Relations and Democracy.

Paula Wells
IRRA Executive Director