Lecture Title: Trade Union Decline and the Scientific Management of Macro-Economic Stability

Lecture Introduction:

This lecture will delve into the issue of trade union decline in Western free-market countries. Current academic analyses often fail to adequately emphasize the role governments and enterprises expect unions to play in stabilizing macroeconomic conditions when making decisions. This study begins by examining how U.S. trade unions strengthened their ability to curb employers’ monopoly power over wage-setting during the era of rapid productivity growth from 1925 to 1975, illustrating their significant role in socio-economic development. As collective organizations of workers, unions’ ability to limit employers’ wage-setting monopoly contributed to balancing social productivity growth with social consumption, maintaining overall economic stability, and easing tensions between unions, the state, and employers. However, following the end of the high-productivity growth era, dense trade unions were increasingly seen as a cause of inflation and macroeconomic instability. In response, policymakers reinforced employers’ monopolistic positions, which severely impacted unions.

Speaker: Christopher Nyland

Speaker Biography:

Chris Nyland is a professor in the Department of Management at Monash University. His teaching areas include international business regulation, diplomacy and statecraft, and the management of market economies. His research spans several fields, including the history and evolution of business and economic ideas. Key areas he has explored include the development of management thought and practice in the United States in the early 20th century and classical political economists’ perspectives on gender roles. Another focus of his research is globalization and education, particularly the evolution and regulation of international education markets and the Chinese government’s efforts to build a workforce suitable for a knowledge-intensive economy.

Lecture Language: English

Lecture Time: Wednesday, November 27, 2024, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Venue: Room 343, Qiushi Building, Renmin University of China

Moderator: Huang Wei, Associate Professor, School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China