Fall 2008 & Spring 2009 Semester Courses Offerings
These courses are available to full-students enrolled at Cornell. For courses designed for working professionals, please see our listing of workshops.
For additional ILR Fall Courses - ILR Course Descriptions and Schedules
2008 Fall
ILRCB 2050: Collective Bargaining 3.0 HRS LET ONLY
4935 LEC 001 MW 1010-1125A IVS 111 D. Lipsky
4936 LEC 002 TR 1010-1125A IVS 111 R. Givan
Comprehensive introduction to industrial relations and collective bargaining in the United States; the negotiation, scope, and day-to-day administration of contracts; the major substantive issues in bargaining, including their implication for public policy; industrial conflict; the major challenges facing unions and employers today; U.S. industrial relations in international and comparative perspective.
ILRCB 2075: Values, Rights and Justice in Labor Relations WRITING 3.0 HRS LET ONLY
12229 LEC 001 MW 0125-0240P IVS 109 J. Gross
Examination of the often hidden values and assumptions that underlie the contemporary U.S. systems of employment law, work and business, and industrial relations. Classroom discussions and student research projects use novels and short stories (as well as the literature of industrial and labor relations) to focus on issues such as discrimination; labor law; economics and the state; work and business; power, conflict, and protest; and rights and justice.
ILRCB 4030: The Economics of Collective Bargaining in Sports 4.0 HRS LET ONLY
7729 LEC 001 TR 1010-1125A IVS 112 L. Kahn
Surveys economic and industrial issues in the sports industry. Topics include salary determination, including free agency, salary caps, salary arbitration; competitive balance and financial health of sports leagues; antitrust issues in sports; labor disputes, union history, and contract administration issues in sports leagues; discrimination in sports; and performance incentives.
ILRCB 4070: Contemporary Trade Union Movement 4.0 HRS LET ONLY
7728 LEC 001 T 0125-0425P IVS 109 R. Hurd
Examination of contemporary trade union issues, including union power, political action, collective bargaining approaches, and organizing efforts. Covers structural, functional, and strategic aspects of contemporary unions. Speakers from the union movement address the class.
ILRCB 6011: Negotiation: Theory & Practice 4.0 HRS LET ONLY
1304 LEC 001 MW 0125-0240P IVS 111 R. Seeber
Prerequisities: background in economics and social sciences, or permission of instructor. Deals with negotiation and bargaining, focusing on process, practice, and procedures. Concentrates on the use of negotiation and bargaining to resolve conflicts and disputes between organizations and groups. Discusses various theories of negotiation, including conventional, “Positional” bargaining, interest-based bargaining, the use of power in negotiation, and game theoretic approaches to bargaining. Examples, cases, and exercised are used to illustrate general principles. This is a generic negotiation course and thus does not deal with labor relations nor does it focus on any particular type of negotiation. Rather, it examines negotiation and bargaining generally, using examples drawn from several contexts, including employment relations, environmental disputes, real estate transactions, and other settings.
ILRCB 6012: Managing and Resolving Conflict 4.0 HRS LET ONLY
4428 LEC 001 MW 0255-0410P IVS 111 D. Lipsky
Prerequisite: background in economics and social sciences, or permission of instructor. Deals with managing and resolving workplace conflicts and examines dispute resolution and conflict management in both union and nonunion settings. The course covers two related topics: (1) third-party dispute resolution, including alternative dispute resolution (ADR). It focuses primarily on the use of mediation and arbitration but also deals with other dispute resolution techniques, such as fact-finding, facilitation, mini-trials, early neutral evaluation, peer review, and the ombuds function; (2) conflict management in organizations, including the recent development of conflict management systems, and it provides instruction on the design, implementation, and evaluation of such systems.
ILRCB 6018: Public Policy and Public Sector Employment Relations 4.0 HRS LET ONLY
1286 LEC 003 TR 0125-0240P IVS 217 L. Adler/S. Kingel
This course will highlight the unique aspects of public sector employment relations with an emphasis on the role of dispute resolution professionals such as mediators, arbitrators and collective bargaining negotiators. We’ll examine the particular nature of disputes, legal and otherwise, that arise in the public sector, the mechanisms for resolving them, and the role that various dispute resolution professionals play. Using NYS as our primary focus, we will study conflicts created by taxation, education, fiscal failings, transportation, pensions, health care, and related collective bargaining issues. Our understanding of these problems will be helped by assessing the conflict resolution value of litigation, interest based bargaining, whistle-blowing, traditional collective bargaining, and alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. Students will receive their understandings about these issues by significant interaction and participation with dispute resolution professionals, on and off campus.
ILRCB 6080: CB Negotiations Simulation (Limited to 18 students) 4.0 HRS LET ONLY
1287 LEC 006 M 0700-1000P IVS 215 H. Kramer
Prerequisite: junior, senior, or graduate standing. Recommended: previous or concurrent enrollment in collective bargaining theory and labor law course. Attendance at first class mandatory. Up to two required evening extended bargaining sessions. Students prepare for and participate in a simulated negotiation between a hypothetical corporation and a hypothetical union in a typical big company with mid-size single site bargaining unit context. Students are assigned, usually in line with preferences, to either a management or union bargaining team. The course stresses the negotiation process over settlement or substantive outcomes. Negotiation problems are as real life as possible, constrained by student time needs and with attention given to dynamic legal, political, economic, and communications concerns as well as power, information, and time factors. Participants plan for negotiations, reach agreements in principle and negotiate language, bargain wages, pensions, health care and noneconomic items in the context of a company and union with an established contract, policies, and culture. This is a hands-on program with active participation essential.
ILRCB 7070: Seminar on Conflict and Dispute Resolution 3.0 HRS LET ONLY
12581 SEM 001 R 0125-0425P IVS 215 A. Colvin
Examines past and present research on conflict and dispute resolution. This seminar will cover a variety of perspectives on conflict and its resolution. Readings will include a mixture of classic works on conflict and dispute resolution in work and employment relations, as well as recent conceptual and empirical studies in this area.
2009 Spring:
ILRCB 2050: Collective Bargaining 3.0 HRS LET ONLY
8372 LEC 001 MW 1 140A-1255P IVS 105 H. Katz
8373 LEC 002 TR 1140A-1255P IVS 105 A. Colvin
Comprehensive introduction to industrial relations and collective bargaining in the United States; the negotiation, scope, and day-to-day administration of contracts; the major substantive issues in bargaining, including their implication for public policy; industrial conflict; the major challenges facing unions and employers today; U.S. industrial relations in international andcomparative perspective.
ILRCB 4860: Collective Bargaining in the Public Sector WRITING 4.0 HRS LET ONLY
11302 LEC 001 TR 0125-0240P IVS 112 L. Adler
Prerequisites: ILRCB 2010 and 2050/5000. Examines the history of public employees’ collective bargaining and other workplace rights. Emphasis is placed on the current trade-offs between municipal and state governments and their unionized employees in New York City and state, although trends in other states, the federal sector, and in certain EU countries are also examined. Topics include representation rights, public sector workers ability to leverage their power, unfair labor practices, impasse procedures, the scope of collective bargaining, and a limited treatment of the U.S. constitution in the public workplace. Examination of the
development, practice, and extent of collective bargaining between federal, state, and local governments and their employees. Throughout, we are mindful of how the exercise of public employee rights impacts municipal, state, and federal public policy labor market considerations. There are several prominent guest speakers.
ILRCB 5000: Collective Bargaining 3.0 HRS LET ONLY
10906 LEC 001 MW 1010-1125A IVS 217 S. Kuruvilla
Prerequisite: graduate standing. Recommended: previous or concurrent enrollment in ILRCB 5010. Comprehensive introduction to the industrial relations system of the United States. Covers the negotiation, scope, and day-to-day administration of contracts; union and employer bargaining structures; implications of industrial relations issues for U.S. competitiveness and public policy; industrial conflict; and U.S. industrial relations in international and comparative perspective.
ILRCB 6011: Negotiation: Theory & Practice 4.0 HRS LET ONLY
10911 LEC 001 MW 0255-0410P IVS 111 D. Lipsky
Prerequisities: background in economics and social sciences, or permission of instructor. Deals with negotiation and bargaining, focusing on process, practice, and procedures. Concentrates on the use of negotiation and bargaining to resolve conflicts and disputes between organizations and groups. Discusses various theories of negotiation, including conventional, “Positional” bargaining, interest-based bargaining, the use of power in negotiation, and game theoretic approaches to bargaining. Examples, cases, and exercised are used to illustrate general principles. This is a generic negotiation course and thus does not deal with
labor relations nor does it focus on any particular type of negotiation. Rather, it examines negotiation and bargaining generally, using examples drawn from several contexts, including employment relations, environmental disputes, real estate transactions, and other settings.
ILRCB 6012: Managing and Resolving Conflict 4.0 HRS LET ONLY
10912 LEC 001 TR 0255-0410P IVS 108 A. Colvin
Prerequisite: background in economics and social sciences, or permission of instructor. Deals with managing and resolving workplace conflicts and examines dispute resolution and conflict management in both union and nonunion settings. The course covers two related topics: (1) third-party dispute resolution, including alternative dispute resolution (ADR). It focuses primarily on the use of mediation and arbitration but also deals with other dispute resolution techniques, such as fact-finding, facilitation, mini-trials, early neutral evaluation, peer review, and the ombuds function; (2) conflict management in organizations, including the recent development of conflict management systems, and it provides instruction on the design, implementation, and evaluation of such systems.
ILRCB 6018: Current Issues in Collective Bargaining: Theory and Practice
4.0 HRS LET ONLY
11086 LEC 001 T 0125-0425P K. Bronfenbrenner
Designed to provide an in-depth examination the contemporary collective bargaining process from a strategic and theoretical perspective. This is achieved both through a review of recent literature on bargaining theory and practice and through the analysis and evaluation of a series of contract negotiations from a variety of industries, unions, strategic models, and outcomes. Subjects include: changing bargaining climate, bargaining theory, changes and variations in bargaining structures and practices, union and company power analysis, role of membership in bargaining, interest-based bargaining, strategic coordinated campaigns, strikes and lockouts, bargaining in a global economy, community labor coalitions, concessions and job security, and settlement and
defining victory.
ILRCB 6019: Dispute Resolution Practicum 2.0 HRS LET ONLY
10913 LEC 001 W 0730-1030P IVS 112 D. Lipsky, R. Scanza, R. Seeber
Limited to 20. Purpose is to link classroom discussion and analysis of arbitration and mediation with opportunities for students to observe actual arbitration and mediation cases. The course is designed to be an advanced seminar for graduate and undergraduate students who have a serious interest in pursuing a career in arbitration or mediation. Classroom discussions and readings will focus on both labor arbitration and mediation (i.e. the use of arbitration and mediation in unionized settings) and employment arbitration and mediation (i.e. the use of arbitration and mediation in cases involving nonunion employees).
ILRCB 6020: Arbitration 4.0 HRS LET ONLY
10908 SEM 001 T 0125-0425P IVS 109 M. Goldstein
Limited to 21 students. Prerequisites: ILRCB 2010, 2050; 5000, and 5010. Study of arbitration in the field of labor-management relations, including an analysis of principles and practices, the law of arbitration, the handling of materials in briefs or oral presentation, the conduct of a mock arbitration hearing, and the preparation of arbitration opinions and post-hearing briefs.
ILROB 5790: Negotiation and Conflict Resolution 2.0 HRS LET ONLY
11943 LEC 001 F 0125-0425P IVS 215 M. Williams
Course fee: $31, which includes cases for in-class simulations, online Negotiation Style Survey, and individualized assessment report. Provides understanding of the theory and the processes of negotiation as practiced in a variety of organizational settings. The course is designed for relevance to the broad spectrum of bargaining problems faced by the manager and the professional. It allows students the opportunity to develop negotiation skills experientially and to understand negotiation by using analytical frameworks. General topics include: distributive bargaining, integrative negotiations, psychological biases, sources of power, and multi-party negotiations. Advanced topics include: dispute resolution, emotionally intelligent negotiations, team on team negotiations (e.g., union-management, mergers). Simulations, exercises, role-playing, and cases are emphasized.
LAW 6892: Theory and Practice of Negotiated and Collaborative Decision-Making
Cynthia. Farina & Mary Newhart
Limited enrollment. This course focuses on both skills and underlying theory of collaborative inquiry, deliberation, and decision-making. Increasingly, systematic and collaborative techniques are being used both to address conflict and to reach decision in diverse settings, including the workplace, communities, and government. Students will examine the growth of alternatives to litigation for resolving disputes and to hierarchical decision-making for making complex policy decisions. Case studies and exercises will be used to develop critical thinking and reasoning abilities and to illustrate the collaborative, creative, and response methods for resolving disputes. The impact of culture and the use of facilitative technology will be examined throughout.