Tripartism—the national-level interaction among representatives of labor, management, and government—occurs infrequently in the United States. Based on the U.S.... » 

Tripartism—the national-level interaction among representatives of labor, management, and government—occurs infrequently in the United States. Based on the U.S. experience, then, such interactions might seem irrelevant to economic performance and policymaking. The essays in this volume reveal the falsity of that assumption.Contributors from eight industrialized countries (Australia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, and the United States) examine the changing nature of labor-management relations, with a particular focus on the role of tripartism and the decentralization of collective bargaining. Although nonexistent in the United States and on the decline in Japan and Australia, tripartism flourishes in Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands, expanding beyond traditional corporatist partners to include women's organizations, senior citizens, and other representatives of “civic society.” The vibrancy of the coordinating mechanisms that help shape employment conditions and labor policy contradicts the traditional belief that an overpowering unilateral decentralizing shift is underway in labor-management interactions. The contributors show that these mechanisms are in fact increasing in the face of intensified pressures, promoting greater flexibility in work organization and working time.Harry C. Katz is the Jack Sheinkman Professor of Collective Bargaining and Director of the Institute of Collective Bargaining in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. He is the coauthor of Converging Divergences and coeditor of Rekindling the Movement, both from Cornell. Wonduck Lee is President of the Korea Labor Institute. Joohee Lee is a Research Fellow at the Korea Labor Institute. «