Human resources are the people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, or economy. "Human capital" is sometimes used synonymously with "human resources", although human capital typically refers to a narrower effect. Likewise, other terms sometimes used include manpower, talent, labor, personnel, or simply people.
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 29 U.S.C. § 151–169 is a foundational statute of United States labor law which guarantees basic rights of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining for better terms and conditions at work, and take collective action including strike if necessary. The act also created the National Labor Relations Board, which conducts elections that can expect employers to engage in collective bargaining with labor unions. The Act does not apply to workers who are covered by the Railway Labor Act, agricultural employees, domestic employees, supervisors, federal, state or local government workers, independent contractors and some close relatives of individual employers.
Industrial relations or employment relations is the multidisciplinary academic field that studies the employment relationship; that is, the complex interrelations between employers and employees, labor/trade unions, employer organizations and the state.
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and rights for workers. The interests of the employees are commonly presented by representatives of a trade union to which the employees belong. The collective agreements reached by these negotiations usually set out wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms, and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs.
Employment is a relationship between two parties, usually based on a contract where work is paid for, where one party, which may be a corporation, for profit, not-for-profit organization, co-operative or other entity is the employer and the other is the employee. Employees work in return for payment, which may be in the form of an hourly wage, by piecework or an annual salary, depending on the type of work an employee does or which sector she or he is working in. Employees in some fields or sectors may receive gratuities, bonus payment or stock options. In some types of employment, employees may receive benefits in addition to payment. Benefits can include health insurance, housing, disability insurance or use of a gym. Employment is typically governed by employment laws, regulations or legal contracts.
Union busting is a range of activities undertaken to disrupt or prevent the formation of trade unions. Union busting tactics can refer to both legal and illegal activities, and can range anywhere from subtle to violent. Labor laws differ greatly from country to country in both level and type of regulations in respect to their protection of unions, their organizing activities, as well as other aspects. These laws can affect topics such as posting notices, organizing on or off employer property, solicitations, card signing, union dues, picketing, work stoppages, striking and strikebreaking, lockouts, termination of employment, permanent replacements, automatic recognition, derecognition, ballot elections, and employer-controlled trade unions. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) declares that everyone has a right to form and/or join a trade union. The provision is, however, not legally binding and has, in most jurisdictions, no horizontal effect in the legal relation between employer and employees or unions.
The Public Employees Fair Employment Act refers to Article 14 of the New York State Civil Service Law, which defines the rights and limitations of unions for public employees in New York.
Perspectives on Work is an annual publication of the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA).
Industrial and Labor Relations Review is a publication of the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. It is an interdisciplinary journal publishing original research on all aspects of industrial relations. The editors are Rosemary Batt and Lawrence M. Kahn. The target audience is composed of academics and practitioners in labor and employment relations.
The Berkeley Journal of Employment & Labor Law (BJELL) is a law journal that publishes articles focusing on current developments in labor and employment law. It was founded in 1975 as the Industrial Relations Law Journal. It changed its name to the current title in 1993. Articles in the journal cover legal issues dealing with employment discrimination, "traditional" labor law, public sector employment, international and comparative labor law, employee benefits, and the evolution of the doctrine of wrongful termination. In addition to scholarly articles, the journal includes student-authored comments, book reviews and essays. It is published twice a year by Berkeley Law.
The Hofstra Labor and Employment Law Journal is an American law journal which publishes articles in the field of labor and employment law.
The Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal is a law journal which publishes articles in the field of comparative and transnational labor and employment law.
The Journal of Labor Research is a peer-reviewed academic journal which publishes articles regarding labor relations in the United States. Its articles cover the nature of work, labor-management relations, welfare-to-work, flexible employment, labor policy, regulation of labor unions, dispute resolution, and workplace grievance resolution. One issue each year is devoted to emerging topics. The target audience for the journal is academics, students, employers, and human resources managers.
The Blue Eagle at Work: Reclaiming Democratic Rights in the American Workplace is a legal treatise written by Charles J. Morris which analyzes collective bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the federal statute governing most private sector labor relations in the United States. Published in 2005 by Cornell University Press, the text claims that the NLRA guarantees that employees under that Act have the right to bargain collectively through minority unions—but only on a members-only basis—in workplaces where there is not an established majority union, notwithstanding that the present practice and general understanding of the law is that only majority-union employees are entitled to engage in collective bargaining on an exclusivity basis. Contracts resulting from such minority-union bargaining would apply to union members only, not to other employees.
Labour in India refers to employment in the economy of India. In 2012, there were around 487 million workers in India, the second largest after China. Of these over 94 percent work in unincorporated, unorganised enterprises ranging from pushcart vendors to home-based diamond and gem polishing operations. The organised sector includes workers employed by the government, state-owned enterprises and private sector enterprises. In 2008, the organised sector employed 27.5 million workers, of which 17.3 million worked for government or government owned entities.
The International Society for Labour and Social Security Law is an international association whose purpose is to study labour and social security law at the national and international level, to promote the exchange of ideas and information from a comparative perspective, and to encourage collaboration among academics, lawyers, and other experts within the fields of labour and social security law.
Clyde Wilson Summers was an American lawyer and educator who is best known for his work in advocating more democratic procedures in labor unions. He helped write the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 and was highly influential in the field of labor law, authoring more than 150 publications on the issue of union democracy alone. He was considered the nation's leading expert on union democracy. "What Louis Brandeis was to the field of privacy law, Clyde Summers is to the field of union democracy," wrote Widener University School of Law professor Michael J. Goldberg in the summer of 2010. "Summers, like Brandeis, provided the theoretical foundation for an important new field of law."
The Journal of Workplace Rights is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering labor-management relations, employment discrimination, and employment law. It covers the theoretical and practical sides of employment issues such as record keeping, occupational safety and health, fair employment practices, addicted workers, AIDS in the workplace, medical screening, employee surveillance, wage and hour standards, union-management relations, employment contracts, and dispute and grievance resolution. The journal is edited by Joel Rudin.
The UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) is an interdisciplinary research unit within the College of Letters & Science, Division of Social Science, dedicated to research, teaching, and discussion of labor and employment issues. It was founded in 1945 as the UCLA Institute of Industrial Relations. It is one of the two research programs in the University of California system along with the UC Berkeley Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. The IRLE consists of four bodies: the IRLE Academic Unit, UCLA Labor Center, Human Resources Round Table, and the Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program.
