DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 



Submitted by Joan F. Anderson. Chief, Office of Technical Support, Assistant Secretary for Policy, 

 Evaluation and Research 



Labor Department Mission 



The Department of Labor is charged, among 

 other things, with administering and enforcing stat- 

 utes designed to advance the public interest by 

 promoting the welfare of the wage earners of the 

 United States, improving their working conditions, 

 and advancing their opportunities for profitable 

 employment. In carrying out its mission, the De- 

 partment performs a great deal of research and 

 evaluation on relevant issues, with most of the 

 research being of an applied nature rather than 

 basic research. 



There are two agencies within the Department of 

 Labor that perform basic research, as they define 

 it: the Labor-Management Services Administration 

 (LMSA) and the Occupational Safety and Health 

 Administration (OSHA). 



Labor-Management Services Administration 



LMSA administers three laws and major parts of 

 an Executive order. It also provides assistance to 

 collective bargaining negotiators and keeps the 

 Secretary posted on developments in labor manage- 

 ment disputes of national scope. LMSA provides 

 technical assistance to State and local governments 

 in matters concerning public employee labor-rela- 

 tions and pursues research and policy development 

 in the overall labor-management relations field. 



Basic research, as defined by LMSA, is system- 

 atic, intensive study directed toward fuller knowl- 

 edge and understanding of labor-management rela- 

 tions and collective bargaining. The Office of La- 

 bor-Management Policy Development (LMPD) is 

 specifically concerned with the laws the Assistant 

 Secretary for Labor-Management Relations must 

 administer, the legislation concerning labor-man- 

 agement relations and collective bargaining intro- 

 duced into the Congress or State and local legisla- 

 tures, and the development of new policy initia- 

 tives on labor-management relations and collective 

 bargaining. LMPD supports basic research that 

 relates to these operational objectives. 



Among the most significant projects involving 

 basic research carried out over the past 10 years 

 are the following; 



• Union trusteeships 



• Union constitutions and the election of local 

 union officers 



• Exclusive union work referral systems in the 

 building trades 



• Financial and administrative characteristics of 

 large local unions 



• Collective bargaining in public employment 

 and the merit system 



• Selected earnings and demographic character- 

 istics of union members, 1970 



• Final offer arbitration in the public sector 



• Labor-management relations in State and lo- 

 cal governments, 1974 



• Grievance and arbitration procedures in State 

 and local agreements 



• Public management's internal organizational 

 response to the demands of collective bar- 

 gaining in the 12 Midwestern States. 



Among the most interesting items of study in 

 their current program are the following: 



• Changing structure of collective bargaining 



• Collective bargaining in major industries in 

 the United States 



• Thesaurus for a computer information retriev- 

 al system on labor and industrial relations 

 research 



• The impact of union mergers on collective 

 bargaining 



• Current attempts to alter the bargaining struc- 

 ture in the construction industry. 



Over the next three years, research priorities 

 will be directed toward public employee labor rela- 

 tions, improving collective bargaining, and the 

 means for resolving labor disputes. Over the next 

 10 years, research in broad terms will focus on the 

 adoption of labor-management relations policies 

 and strategies and union structure to major exter- 

 nal stimuli (e.g., inflation, unemployment, the en- 

 ergy crisis, third-party interests), extra negotiating 

 means of resolving labor-management problems 

 not readily susceptible to collective bargaining set- 

 tlement (e.g., the development of tripartite or bilat- 

 eral industry committees and their impact on labor 

 relations), and an assessment of union democracy 

 after two decades of the Labor-Management Re- 

 porting and Disclosure Act of 1959. 



Promising areas of research not now supported 

 include an analysis of the nature of collective bar- 



150 



