Current Students
LER Courses
The School of Labor and Employment Relations is a freestanding graduate program that offers an excellent interdisciplinary education in employment relations. We interact with faculty in psychology, law, business administration, human resource education, and economics with regard to classes and professional resources. Many of our professors have joint appointments in these departments. This allows for flexibility in our curriculum and it gives the students the ability to individually tailor their program of study.
To receive a Master's in human resources and industrial relations (M.H.R.I.R.), students must complete a 48 hour program. Many of the classes available to ILIR students are cross-listed with other programs. Our students graduate from our program with a well-rounded education that has exposed them to a variety of ideas and disciplines. Additionally, many of our classes require the students to work in teams and make presentations. Our students gain not only knowledge in our program, but also the skills necessary to make them valuable additions to your organization.
Below is a listing of courses that fall under each of the different subject distribution areas. Scroll down to find a numerically ordered list of course descriptions of our required and elective classes. Students usually take 4 courses per semester. Additionally, most students find an internship during the summer to utilize the knowledge and skills that they have learned in the classroom. Among the 48 hours of course work, there are three required courses:
- LIR 591-Employment Relations Systems
- LIR 592-Research Methods
- LIR 593-Quantitative Methods (statistics)
Additionally, one course in each subject distribution
area is required. The four subject distribution areas below
are: Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior,
Union Management and Labor Relations Policy, Labor Markets
and Employment and International Human Resource Management.
The five remaining electives can be tailored to suit the
student's particular interests and career aspirations.
Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior
- LIR 522 Government Regulation
- LIR 530 Foundations of Industrial-Organizational Psychology
- LIR 535 Motivation and Morale in Industry
- LIR 548 Topics in Personnel Management
- LIR 561 Compensation Systems
- LIR 562 Human Resources Planning and Staffing
- LIR 563 Human Resource Information Systems
- LIR 564 Human Resource Training and Development
- LIR 565 Human Resources Management and Strategy
- LIR 567 Negotiation in Human Resource Decisions
- LIR 568 Firm Performance and Human Resource Management
- LIR 598 Designing High-Involvement Workplaces
Labor Markets and Employment
- LIR 440 Economics of Labor Markets
- LIR 545 Economics of Human Resources
- LIR 590N Health, Savings and Family Issues in the Workplace
Unions, Management, and Labor Relations Policy
- LIR 542 Collective Bargaining
- LIR 543 Workplace Dispute Resolution
- LIR 551 Labor Law and Public Policy
- LIR 590CB Collective Bargaining in Sports and Entertainment
International Human Resource Management
- LIR 554 Comparative Employment Relations Systems
- LIR 566 International Human Resources Management
- LIR 595 Managing Diversity Globally
Other LIR Courses
- LIR 337 U.S. Work Class History: Since 1780
- LIR 412 Economics of Poverty
- LIR 434 Employee Benefits Plans
- LIR 450 European Work Class History
- LIR 540 Labor Economics
- LIR 541 Labor Economics
- LIR 547 Labor Law I
- LIR 556 Industrial Relations Theory, I
- LIR 557 Industrial Relations Theory, II
- LIR 559 Micro Research Methods & Processes
- LIR 569 Power and Influence for HRM
- LIR 590CM Change Management in HR Organizations
- LIR 590E Government Regulation and Employment Law
- LIR 590EL HR, Employment Law and the Multicultural Corporation
- LIR 590EO Strategic HRM and the Entrepreneurial Organization
- LIR 590I Compensation & Employment Incentives
- LIR 590FW SocioTechncial Systems Fieldwork
- LIR 590ST SocioTechnical Systems Theory
- LIR 597 Managing Employee Performance
LER Course Descriptions
412. ECONOMICS OF POVERTY. Same as Economics 412. Analysis of the nature and causes of poverty with special emphasis on critical evaluation of programs to combat poverty in the United States. Prerequisite: Economics 102 and 103 or equivalent. 3 undergrad hours; 2 or 4 grad hours.
434. EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS. Same as Finance 434. Studies the structure and financial issues involved in employee benefit plans, specifically group life, disability medical care plans, qualified pensions and profit-sharing plans. Prerequisite: Finance 230, Economics 340, or Business Administration 313, or graduate standing. 3 undergrad hours; 3 or 4 grad hours.
440. ECONOMICS OF LABOR MARKETS. Same as Economics 440. A study of the microeconomic determinants of labor demand and supply, economic effects of unions, and macroeconomic labor market problems. Prerequisite: Economics 302 or equivalent. 3 undergrad hours; 2 to 4 grad hours.
450. EUROPEAN WORKING CLASS HISTORY, 1750 TO THE PRESENT. Same as History 450 and Sociology 422. Comparative study of the rise of the working class in European countries; formation, culture and daily life; stratification with the working class; workers in organized labor and revolutionary movements. Prerequisite: One year of college history or consent of the instructor. 3 undergrad hours; 2 or 4 grad hours.
480. U.S.WORK CLASS HISTORY SINCE 1780. Same as History 480. Focuses on working class formation, culture, ideas, and organization; examines daily experience of work and community life; special emphasis on race, ethnicity, and gender in the process of class formation; labor relations and the changing patterns of working class protest and accommodation. Prerequisite: One year of college level history or consent of instructor. 3 undergrad hours; 2 or 5 grad hours.
522. GOVERNMENT REGULATION. Focuses on federal and state legislation, court and agency rulings, and executive orders that regulate a wide range of private and public employment practices including: Title VII and Affirmative Action Compliance; American with Disabilities Act; drug-, HIV-, and genetic testing; Fair Labor Standards Act; Civil Service procedures; Equal Pay Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, and employment-at-will; constitutional protection for employees, job-applicants, and others. Prerequisite: Labor and Industrial Relations 547 or 591, or consent of instructor. 4 grad hours.
530. FOUNDATIONS OF INDUSTRIAL-ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. Same as Psychology 530. Theoretical and empirical foundations of various content areas in industrial-organizational psychology; sample topics include employee selection and placement, training, human factors engineering, work motivation, employee attitudes, leadership, and organizational theory. Prerequisite: Twelve hours of psychology or consent of instructor. 4 grad hours.
535. MOTIVATION AND MORALE IN INDUSTRY. Same as Psychology 535. Concepts and methods in the study of motivation of employees; determinants of employee attitudes and job satisfaction; and modification of attitudes and morale. Prerequisite: 16 hours of graduate credit in Psychology or consent of instructor. 4 hours.
540. LABOR ECONOMICS. Same as Economics 440. Survey of recent trends in the labor force, of real and money earnings, and of the distribution of national income used as the basis for a critical economic analysis of contemporary English and American wage theory. Prerequisite: Economics 302 and 303. 4 hours.
541. LABOR ECONOMICS. Same as Economics 541. Economic issues and implications involved in hours of work, employment and unemployment, and trade union institutionalism (the impact of the trade union upon the basic institution of a free enterprise economy); emphasis in all cases on the development of appropriate public policy. Prerequisite: Economics 302 and 303. 4 hours.
542. COLLECTIVE BARGAINING. Same as Economics 542. Examination of: social values and social science concepts to develop a framework for explaining the basis and shape of collective bargaining as it has been practiced in the United States; government and law, unions, and employers as part of the development of this framework; the environment of collective bargaining with respect to the role of economics and bargaining structure; the negotiating process as the interactive basis for union-management relations; conflict and conflict resolution as part of the negotiating process; wage and other effects of collective bargaining as bargaining outcomes; contemporary changes in union management relations. Case materials and exercises may be used to supplement course materials. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor. 4 hours. Graduate credit is not given for both Economics 343 and LIR 542.
543. WORKPLACE DISPUTE RESOLUTION. Same as Economics 543 and Law 665. Examination of the use of procedures to resolve employment disputes in both union and nonunion workplaces; comparative analysis of grievance arbitration, interest arbitration, mediation, fact-finding, and combinations of these procedures; special emphasis given to the role of third party intervention. 3 professional hours; 4 grad hours. Professional credit only applicable to Law 665.
545. ECONOMICS OF HUMAN RESOURCES. Same as Human Resource Education 534. A study of the economics of personnel with the modern corporation. Topics include hiring, promotion, evaluation, discrimination, raiding, job definition, pay schemes, benefits, and design of work. Prerequisite: LIR 593 or equivalent or consent of the instructor. 4 hours.
547. LABOR LAW I. Same as Law 662. A study of the National Labor Relations Act as amended, the pre-act history of the labor movement, and the judiciary's response thereto, with emphasis on understanding the problems, experiments, and forces leading to the enactment; includes the negotiation and administration of the collective bargaining agreement, especially the grievance arbitration procedure, its operation and place in national labor policy; and explores the relationship of the individual and the union. Prerequisite: Graduate standing or completion of first year of Law curriculum. 3 or 4 professional hours or 4 grad hours.
548. TOPICS IN PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT. Same as Business Administration 511. Examines the organization and administration of the personnel function in management; the relations of personnel administration to operating departments and the scope of business and industrial personnel services; analytical appraisal of policies and practices in selected areas of personnel administration, such as selection and training, carried out through case studies and direct industrial contracts; and specific consideration given to problems up to and including placing the person on a job. Prerequisite: Consent of the instructor. 4 hours.
551. LABOR LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY. Same as Law 360. Analyzes current major policy issues in labor relations and employment law through the concepts and techniques of the lawyer and the labor relations specialist. Prerequisite: For law students, LAW 662 or consent of instructor; for LIR students: one semester of LIR course work or consent of instructor. 3 professional hours; 4 grad hours.
554. COMPARATIVE EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS SYSTEMS. Same as Law 666. Examines employment systems in selected developed, newly industrialized, and developing economies. Explores employment systems in the context of regional and political integration. Topics include the organization and policies of unions and employers, as well as management-labor relations, and the roles of firms, national governments, and international organizations in shaping employment systems. Emphasis will be placed on the analytical tools needed to make multi-country comparisons, to link theory and practice, and to understand the reasons for major changes in the nature of employment relations. 3 professional hours; 4 grad hours. Professional credit only applicable to Law 666.
556. INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS THEORY, I. An integrated analysis of the principles of labor and industrial relations through the study of the works of the major theorists and their critics. Prerequisite: Consent of instructor. 4 credit hours.
557. INDUSTRIAL REALTIONS THEORY, II. Continuation of LIR 556. Focuses on contemporary research in human research management and related fields. 4 grad hours.
558. STUDENT-FACULTY WORKSHOP. Training and experience for Ph.D. students in the application of social science and industrial relations theory and research methodology to contemporary industrial relations problems through presentation and discussion of faculty and student research. Ph.D. students are required to make presentations and to participate in workshop discussions during the entire period of their campus residency. 4 hours. Approved for both letter and S/U grading.
559. MICRO RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCESSES. The purpose of this course is to provide doctoral students a foundation for conducting independent, scholarly micro research (i.e., individuals or small groups as the primary unit of analysis) by addressing the components of the research process. This foundation for conducting independent research is based on the research process as an open system of interconnected choices that unfold sequentially: (1) Choosing and Framing a Research Question, (2) Choosing an Hypothesis to Address the Research Question, (3) Choosing a Strategy and Design, (4) Choosing Modes for Treating Constructs, (5) Choosing Forms for Converting Data into Observations, (6) Choosing Procedures to Analyze Data, and (7) Choosing Conclusions for Interpreting Results. 4 grad hours.
561. COMPENSATION SYSTEMS. Compensation theory and practice. This course addresses the theoretical and practical issues associated with the design of effective compensation systems. The design phases include establishing internal equity, external equity, and individual equity. Budgeting and administration are also addressed. Case analyses and computer simulations may be used to supplement course materials. 4 grad hours.
562. HUMAN RESOURCES PLANNING AND STAFFING. Examines conceptual issues, policies and practices relating to the attraction, selection, development, and planning for the most effective utilization of human resources. 4 grad hours.
563. HUMAN RESOURCE INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND COMPUTER APPLICATIONS IN INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS. Design, implementation, and evaluation of human resource information systems (HRIS). Topics to be covered include fundamental database characteristics, information systems and management processes, systems analysis and needs assessment in Human Resources and Industrial Relations departments, implementing HRI systems, the use of HRI systems to solve organizational problems, information systems and labor relations. A series of cases and computer exercises, which will play a major role in determining the course grade, will be used. Regular seminars and some laboratory sessions will be scheduled throughout the semester. Prerequisite: Graduate standing in Labor and Industrial Relations or consent of instructor. 4 hours.
564. HUMAN RESOURCE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT. Examination of: theories of behavioral change; application of these theories to training needs, especially with reference to the internationalization of business, changes in labor demand, demographic trends in the United States, and increasing work force diversification; advantages and disadvantages of the various training and development techniques; relation of training to organizational strategies; methods of training evaluation. Special attention is given to the need for and methods of cross-cultural training. Students develop training exercises for class presentation and participation. 2 grad hours.
565. HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT AND STRATEGY. Same as Business Administration 512. Designed to provide integration across the specific functional areas of the human resources management (HRM) field, while at the same time demonstrating the linkages horizontally within HRM and vertically with strategic management of the firm. This case-focused course places emphasis on human resources issues of strategic importance to the organization. Prerequisite: One prior course from the Organizational Behavior and Personnel Management distribution subject area list (in the M.H.R.I.R. degree requirements for the graduate degree in LIR). 4 grad hours.
566. INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT. Human Resource management issues examined from the perspective of the multinational firm. Topics include globalization and human resource strategy, management and the structure of multinational firms, dealing with intercultural differences, selecting employees for foreign assignments, training and developing expatriate employees, evaluation and compensation of employees in international assignments. Individual and group projects. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. 4 grad hours.
567. NEGOTIATION IN HUMAN RESOURCE DECISIONS. General survey course concerning the strategies and tactics of bargaining and negotiation, with special emphasis on application in human resource management contexts. Topics covered will include: the structure of negotiated outcomes; integrative bargaining tactics; distributive bargaining tactics; negotiation planning; power, persuasion and influence; communication; negotiating in teams and groups; negotiating using 3rd parties (arbitrators, mediators, agents); cross-cultural negotiations. Students will discuss negotiation issues and build negotiation skills through a series of experiential exercises and cases. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. An introductory course in social psychology or organizational behavior is preferred but not required. 4 grad hours. Students may not receive credit for both this course and Master of B ADM 505 (Section J: Managerial Negotiations.).
568. FIRM PERFORMANCE AND HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT. The purpose of this course is to enable student to understand some basic ideas about and measures of firm performance with heavy emphasis on the role of human resource managers. Students will gain an understanding of how human resource professionals fit into the organization, structure, and function of business firms. Many basic ideas from the field of finance will be studied. The course covers theoretical ideas and has many empirical, policy, and practitioner-relevant applications, all with the goal of providing human resource managers fundamental financial analysis tools to enable them to function effectively in their post-graduate corporate workplaces. 4 grad hours.
569. POWER AND INFLUENCE FOR HRM. This course explores what HR managers need to know to overcome resistance to change, deal with the inevitable stresses associated with change, and implement appropriate change strategies. Topics covered include: (1) assessing bases of power and influence; (2) practicing diagnostic skills to understand behavior in an organizational context; (3) building effective work relationships, both in groups and on a one-to-one basis; and (4) leadership, in terms of alignment, organizational change, and learning to lead. 4 grad hours.
590A. INDIVIDUAL TOPICS. Students in labor and industrial relations may register for this unit with the consent of their curriculum adviser and the adviser under whom the student will perform individual study of research. Such individual work may include special study in a subject matter for which no course is available or an individual research project, including on-the-job research in industry, which is not being undertaken for a thesis. 0 to 8 grad hours.
590CB. COLLECTIVE BARGAINING IN SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT. The course examines collective bargaining in the context of professional sports and entertainment. Collective bargaining laws and public policies will serve as a backdrop for understanding terms and conditions of employment for professional athletes and entertainers. Topics will include antitrust law, the National Labor Relations Act as it pertains to the duty to bargain, strikes, and lockouts; current issues in testing for steroids and performance enhancers; “baseball arbitration”; the Writers’ Guild Strike of 2007-08, and others. Simulations of mediation and arbitration will be included, and will be part of a series of weekly writing assignments. The course complements, but does not substantially overlap with, Collective Bargaining. Students who have taken that course are welcomed; and students with no prior background in collective bargaining are also encouraged to enroll. 4 grad hours.
590CM. CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN HR ORGANIZATIONS. The course will be taught by two senior-level HR officers, Jill Smart (Accenture) and Jim Schultz (recently retired from Walgreen’s), as well as guest speakers. Topics will include HR Strategy (meshing HR planning with business planning— e.g., mission, vision, values, environmental scanning, SWOT analysis; strategic imperatives, and metrics); Human Behavior as It Relates to Implementing Change; HR in a Multi-Polar World: Utilizing Research About Workers; the Employee Value Proposition; Talent Management: What Does It Really Mean and How Do We Do It?; Strategies for Managing Workforce Diversity: Race, Disability, Immigration, Age and Gender; and other, related topics. The class will likely have an intensive group project, with the expectation that teams will make a presentation near the end of the semester. Prof. LeRoy will be the resident coordinator for the course. 4 grad hours.
590E. GOVERNMENT REGULATION AND EMPLOYMENT LAW. Focus is on employment law. Topics covered include employee benefits with special emphasis on health insurance; occupational health and safety issues and various employment contractual obligations, statutory exceptions to employment at will; retirement issues including mandatory retirement, ERISA, private pensions and pension benefit discrimination. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. 4 grad hours.
590EL. HR, EMPLOYMENT LAW AND THE MULTICULTURAL CORPORATION. Multinational corporations face the challenge of operating across multiple legal jurisdictions, which pose particularly complicated situations for human resource management. Employees in these different jurisdictions may be doing work that is highly interdependent, but they are subject to widely varying employment law. This seminar will feature a series of special topics in employment law ranging from fair dismissal to privacy to employee involvement, with guest corporate executives discussing the specific challenges of simultaneously operating across legal jurisdictions. Underlying principles from comparative employment law will provide a context for the sessions. 2 grad hours.
590EO. STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND THE ENTREPRENEURIAL ORGANIZATION. Using the case method, this course will apply human resource principles and practices to entrepreneurial firms throughout their various developmental stages. The course will center around three stages in the life cycle of an entrepreneurial firm: organizational infancy (1-10 employees); growth and institutionalization (50- 150 employees); going global or being acquired by a much larger company (over 500 employees). Employing class lectures, case material analysis and discussion and guest speakers, the course will provide students with the understanding of the specific human resource needs at each of these organizational phases. In doing so, the course will illustrate the important strategic role of human resource management and its potential contribution to the sustainability and competitive advantage of entrepreneurial firms. 4 grad hours.
590I. COMPENSATION AND PERFORMANCE INCENTIVES. The purpose of this course is to provide an in-depth understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different performance incentive plans. The first part of the course will focus on several theoretical issues that are useful in evaluating different performance incentive plans. Following the theoretical framework, each type of performance incentive plan will be studied in depth. This will include details regarding the design and administration of the plan and identifying situations where each plan is most appropriate. This will be accomplished through the discussion of the cases and evaluation of the plan's features using the theoretical models discussed in the first part of the class. Major topics include: (1) Theoretical issues that encompass the objectives of performance incentive plans: firm v. worker perspective, the role of risk-sharing and risk aversion in the design of incentive plans, aligning individual performance measures with firm objectives, trade-off between "objective" and "subjective" performance measures, free-riding in group compensation systems, and organizational change & the implementation of incentive performance plans; (2) Gainsharing plans; (3) Bonus & profit-sharing plans; (4) Stock & stock option plans; (5) Linking pension & incentive performance plans. Graduate standing. 4 grad hours.
590N. HEALTH, SAVINGS AND FAMILY ISSUES IN THE WORKPLACE. A substantial part of employees' compensation comes in the form on non-wage benefits, such as health insurance, retirement plans, paid time-off from work. The goal of this course is to introduce students to some of the major features of employee benefits and work-family issues, including what choices are available to firms in the provision of benefits, what choices firms can offer their employees, and what are the incentives and consequences created by these different choices. The course will also discuss timely public policy issues, such as rising health care costs, Social Security and pension reform, and the Family and Medical Leave Act. 4 grad hours.
591. EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS SYSTEMS. A general framework for the analysis of employment relationships. Topics include industrial relations theory, the American system of collective bargaining, inter-country system differences, and human resource management strategies and practices. Prerequisite: Graduate standing. 4 grad hours.
592. RESEARCH METHODS IN LABOR AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS. Systematic analysis of theories and procedures of the various social and physical sciences bearing on research in labor and industrial relations; primary emphasis on the process of integrating the approaches and techniques of the various social sciences with respect to the study of problems in labor and industrial relations as met in practice in management, the union, and government service, as well as in teaching and research in the field. Prerequisite: Major in social sciences or consent of instructor. 4 grad hours.
593. QUANTITATIVE METHODS IN LABOR AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS. Application of statistical methods to problems in human resources and industrial relations. Analysis and presentation of results using computer software. Covers statistical techniques through analysis of variance and multiple regression. Prerequisite: Any elementary statistics course. 4 grad hours.
595. MANAGING DIVERSITY GLOBALLY. Over the past four decades organizational approaches to managing workforce diversity have evolved from meeting the requirements of Title VII law to nurturing effective and diverse work groups as a business necessity. The challenge for managers is to understand the various aspects of diversity and its consequences in organizations. The purpose of this course is to provide an in-depth understanding of how the Human Resource Management function can contribute to leveraging diversity as a competitive advantage. Each week we will examine various HR functions in relation to diversity management practices. By the end of this course students will have a holistic appreciation of the HR tools necessary to implement effective diversity management practices. 4 grad hours.
597. MANAGING EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE. Managing employee performance effectively is one of the most complex and challenging issues facing companies today. To quote a famous professor - "The appraisal of performance appraisal is not good". The purpose of this course is to provide students with an understanding of the challenges, opportunities, and pitfalls that govern the implementation of these systems in the present business context. The course also aims at providing students with practical and conceptual tools that will aid them in future endeavors to design and implement performance management systems. The course format includes, in-class discussions, case studies, and individual assignments and papers. 4 grad hours.
598. DESIGNING HIGH-INVOLVEMENT WORKPLACES. Intensive analysis of strategies for enhancing the involvement and commitment of employees in work organizations. Focus is on the design of jobs, work teams, feedback programs, and reward systems that contribute to employee well being and to organizational effectiveness. 4 grad hours.
599. THESIS SEMINAR. For all students writing theses in labor and industrial relations at the M.H.R.I.R. and Ph.D. levels. 0 to 16 hours. May be repeated. Approved for S/U grading only.