Early life and education
John Dunlop the eldest of his seven siblings was born on the 5th July 1914 in Placerville, northern California, USA. Here in fertile lands of California His parents, John Wallace and the former Antonia Forni, Presbyterian missionaries owned a pear ranch. In due course of time however, his parents migrated to the distant island of Cebu in the Philippines situated in the western Pacific Ocean, with Taiwan to its north, Vietnam to the west, Indonesia to the south and the open North Pacific Ocean to the east. Here he was raised and educated until he graduated from high school. After finishing high school there, Dunlop and his brother soon after returned to the USA to further their education, he entered Marin Community College in California in 1931 because prestigious four-year universities were reluctant to take a student from such a little known high school.1 He transferred to the University of California at Berkeley, where he received a degree with highest honors in 1935 in northern California. He later transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, the same University which turned down his application for enrolment and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1935 with highest honors. It was during his studies at Berkeley, that he met his fiancé’ Dorothy Emily Webb. The two got married on 6th July 1937. Dunlop continued studies at the University where he earned his PhD in Economics in 1939, delivering the dissertation “Movements of wage-rates in the business cycle”.2
In 1937, he went to Cambridge University, England, to study under the British economist John Maynard Keynes whose ideas were so influential and revolutionary; that a school of thought was developed called Keynesian economics which serves as a sort of benchmark that defined virtually all economists who came after him. During their stay there, Dunlop and his wife shared a small house with John Kenneth Galbraith and his wife. Dunlop and Galbraith were both colleagues and dear friends. The both of them earned their PhD’s in 1939 from the University of California, Berkeley, and remained close friends till the time of Dunlop’s death. It was during that period Dunlop published a major paper in the Economic Journal in September 1938 that identified a problem in Keynes’ wage rigidity schema in Keynes seminal work The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (1936). Dunlop identified specifically, that real wages fall in recessions not in booms, contrary to simple marginal productivity analysis. With the publication of Dunlop’s paper appeared an annotation by Keynes expressing praise and commendation acknowledging the correction and the contribution of the paper to the field. Regarding this scholarly coup, Galbraith later commented: "Keynes not only conceded his error but thanked Dunlop for the correction. One thought of a graduate student in physics who successfully amended Einstein."3
Soon after, Dunlop was offered a position in economics department at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA in 1938. He became associate professor of economics in 1945 and full professor in 1950. He chaired the Economics Department from 1961 to 1966. He retained his position on the Harvard faculty throughout the rest of his life. In the late 1960s he served as dean of the faculty of arts and sciences from 1969-1973.
Dr. John Thomas Dunlop was a man of exceptional qualifications, Steven Greenhouse in his 2003 New York Times obituary of Dunlop quotes Thomas A. Kochan of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who served on the Dunlop Commission and was co-chair of the John T. Dunlop Public Policy Fund, as saying: “[Dunlop] had an unparalleled ability to move across the worlds of academic theory, policymaking and mediation. He had big ideas and translated them into practical results.4 Due to his special aptitude Dr. Dunlop was a man who wore many hats and quite comfortably at that! During World War II, as a young Harvard professor, Dunlop served on the National War Labor Board and counseled the Office of Economic Stabilization and the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion. He went on to advise every U.S. President from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton on labor and economics issues, almost certainly a nonpareil record of presidential service. These roles included post-war stints as chairman of the National Commission on Productivity and the Construction Industry Stabilization Committee. Dunlop served as director of President Richard Nixon’s Cost of Living Council. In 1974, he was named by President Ford as U.S. Secretary of Labor. In 1995, Dunlop agreed to chair President Clinton’s White House Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations, known eponymously as the Dunlop Commission.5
In addition, Dunlop acted as both a mediator and arbitrator from his early years on the Harvard faculty until the time of his death. He served as the impartial umpire in many major federal construction projects. He also created innovative dispute-resolution mechanisms to resolve particularly intractable problems among police and firefighters in Massachusetts; among food processors, farmers, and migrant farmworkers in Ohio and Michigan; and administer an agreement with clerical and technical workers at his own university. With all of his accomplishments and skills, Dunlop took particular pride in mentoring and developing generations of students and practitioners — offering insight, assistance, and guidance throughout their careers. The list of individuals who proudly trace to Dunlop important elements of their understanding and appreciation of workplace and economic issues easily numbers in the hundreds.
Dr. Dunlop also wrote extensively and produced a number of books and articles, including "Wage Determination Under Trade Unions" (1944); "Collective Bargaining: Principles and Cases" (1949); "Labor in the Twentieth Century" (ed., 1978); "Dispute Resolution, Negotiation and Consensus Building" (1984); and "A Stitch in Time: Lessons from the Apparel and Textile Industries" (with Abernathy, Hammond, and Weil, 1999).
Dr. Dunlop had a keen interest in wage determination and the role that markets and institutions play in their determination. As a result penned a quite a number of articles in many economic journals regarding the role of unions in wage setting, putting forth the argument that unions concentrated on balancing wage gains in collective bargaining against their employment effects. He also explored the impact of product market forces on the level of wages, arguing that neoclassical models of wage determination underplayed the important (and sometimes idiosyncratic) role of product markets.
In 1958, he brought together his scholarly work on wage determination with applied experience in dispute resolution in his seminal book Industrial Relations Systems which was revised by the author in 1993 and printed by Harvard Business School Press. The book provided the fundamental analytical framework for the industrial relations field. There is a consensus in the literature about the enormous influence exerted by the IRS in the tradition of studies of industrial relations (IR), this work is considered the first systematic attempt to construct a theoretical framework in the field of labor relations (Müller-Jentsch , 2004) 6. Industrial Relations Systems also served as the “basic text for industrial and labor relations classes in the United States, Europe and Japan,” wrote labor reporter Steven Greenhouse in his 2003 New York Times obituary of Dunlop. “It explained the distinctive nature of industrial relations in various industries, examining the interplay of technology, market forces and organized labor.” 7
Although there has been scholarly critique of the book, there is no doubt as to the consequences of the IRS in determining a research agenda and the scientific formulation of the field in the second half of the twentieth century. Kaufman (2004), in in his masterful history of industrial relations entitled: The Origins and Evolution of the Field of Industrial Relations in the United States says “ the book is widely regarded as one of the most influential pieces ever written in the academic field and consider the various work seminal theory of labor relations” (ibid.: 250).8
The book proposed a model of how an "industrial relations system" brings together product market, regulatory, and technological factors with the institutional practices of labor and business to produce wages, benefits, and other workplace outcomes. Several decades of scholarly debate followed its publication. He subsequently collaborated with Clark Kerr, Frederick Harbison, and Charles Myers on cross-national studies of the evolution of industrial relations systems, resulting in the book: Industrialism and Industrial Man in 1960.
All that has been alluded to before is a just a taste of the achievements of this exceptional and illustrious man. John T. Dunlop died on a Thursday 2nd October 2003 at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He was 89.Dorothy Emily Webb who died February of the same year. They had three children, John Barrett of Palo Alto, Calif.; Beverly Claire Donohue of New York; and Thomas Frederick of Belmont, who survive him, along with six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Purpose and Composition of the Work: Industrial Relations Systems

Dunlop’s fundamental objective is clear in the opening pages of the preface of his book, which is to present a general theory of labor relations, to provide analysis tools to interpret and understand the broader range of facts and practices in labor relations” (Dunlop, 1993).9 The relationships that are the focal object of the theory constitute a complex of interactions of three agents: workers and formal/informal ways they are organized, management organizations, and government agencies. To Dunlop the best way to understand the operation of labour and management relations is to think of it as a system that involves actors (workers, management and the government) interacting with an environment characterized by market structures, technology, political arrangements, values and ideology. The output of the system can be observed in the contact terms or web of rules that govern day to day relationship among the parties. Dunlop believed that the theory could be useful for interpreting the experience of labor relations: 1. In companies and economic sectors, as well as comparisons between them;

2. In countries and for international comparisons;

3. Over time, in the course of economic development. By doing so, should have as its central task to explain why certain rules governing the employment relationship and other relationships in the world of work are established in certain systems of labor relations, and how and why the rules change in the face of pressures on the system (Dunlop, 1993: xi).
Dunlop maintained that the object of a theory of labor relations should be the determination of standards, but also mentions the practice of labor relations: “the analytical focus of this the [labor relations] is what developed in the Industrial Relations Systems: the rules and practices of the workplace are developed through the interaction of managers, workers and their organizations, and government agencies in the context of technology, markets labor and product, and government regulations "(Dunlop, 1993:page 8).
Industrial Relations Systems is composed of nine chapters. The first four intended to clarify what is a system of labor relations and what is its structure, with a primary focus on relations between the contexts of conformity and system rules. The Chapters 5 and 6 provide an illustration of the analytical power of the system concept when applied to working relationships with certain standards in the different sectors. In chapters 7 and 8, the author uses the concept of a system for dealing with labor relations in a nation and based on a longitudinal cut plan in dealing with the factors affecting the development of national systems of relations work and how economic development affects the regulation of the employment relationship. The book ends with a summary in Chapter 9, under the heading "General Theory of Labor Relations." 10
Labour Relations System: Concept and Structure
Dunlop's own theory is based on four elements which appear in various constellations in the above quotation: actors, contexts, ideologies, and rules. The separate existence or „autonomy of industrial relations systems is shaped by these four elements. Dunlop discusses them separately in his theoretical outline, in which he characterizes the elements as follows: the three main actors are management, workers and government agencies; contexts consist of technology, market constraints, and the power distribution in society; and the ideologies of the actors must resume around a common set of ideas that guides the allocation of acceptable roles to the actors. The last, and most crucial „element“ in Dunlop's theory of autonomous industrial relations, is the concept of rules governing the relations of industrial actors. This body of rules, which includes rules on procedures for the establishment and administration of substantive rules, constitutes „the center of attention in an industrial-relations system (Dunlop 1958: page 13). In Dunlop's view, the specific character of industrial relations systems derives from rule making independent of decision-making in the economic system.11
According to Dunlop (1958), industrial relations at any time in its development involves certain actors, environments, the ideologies that hold the system together and the body of rules created to govern the actors at the place of work and work community. The actors interact under the influence of certain contexts - including technology, markets and distribution of power in society in general, and this relationship also involves an ideology that, according to the author, helps define their roles, and to integrate the system. The product of a system of labor relations constitutes a network of rules that governs the employment relationship and other relationships between actors in the world of work. Changes in the environment, the relationship between the actors and the shared understandings they may affect the rules of the system or even the system itself. The actors according to him are: a hierarchy of managers and their representatives, a hierarchy of non-managerial workers and their spokespersons, and specialized governmental agencies. The actors operate within the constraint, and is influenced and limited by the technology of the workplace and work community, the market and budgetary constraints, a complex web of rules, and the locus and distribution of power in the larger society.
The hierarchy of employees consists of formally established rivals or complementary organizations such as unions, associations, clubs, councils and political organizations, in which workers can collectively negotiate their interests. Dunlop (1993:14, 47) points out that in any permanent productive enterprise, workers are never entirely disorganized. When a group of employees work together for a certain time, some kind of informal organization tends to arise between them. Even among "poorly organized" or "unorganized" employees, the author mentions, by way of illustration, quality circles, committees accident prevention, programs for the participation of employees, community groups and groups formed spontaneously deal with specific problems or to react against certain developments in the workplace (Dunlop 1993: pages 14-15).
The hierarchy of administrators, in turn, is not necessarily the owner of the capital asset. Administrators can be public or private, or a combination of both, that is, this hierarchy can include a wide range of institutions. According to the author, in one extreme are individual private employers and family business structures; on the other, large multinational companies and international agencies (Dunlop 1993. page14). Thus, the hierarchy can be, among others, a private company, public corporation or association (or union) employer. Essentially, the relevant actors within that group are those associations or groupings of companies with power (or explicit authority, or in fact) to participate in the decision-making process.
Finally, government agencies and private agencies play a role in the system of labor relations. The author states that, in some societies, these agencies can have such a large and decisive role that comes to nullify the power of hierarchies of managers and employees on all issues. In some other cases, its role may be so limited that allows a wide freedom of action of other hierarchies (Dunlop 1993. page 48). These organizations can perform several functions, such as dispute resolution, training, establishment of wages, health care, provision of pensions and retirement, among others.
The interaction of the actors occurs under the influence of three relevant contexts, namely: technology, markets and distribution of power in society in general. These “environmental conditions” are, according to the author, decisive in shaping the standards established a system of labor relations (ibid.).
The technological context relates to the characteristics of the workplace and work functions and operations. According to Dunlop, workplaces may vary with respect to various aspects: mobility, relationship with the residence of workers, hours of work and size of the workforce. Have the kind of operation work relates to the content, pace and workload. Dunlop (1993:48-49) argues that technological factors pose different problems for managers and employees and at the same time limiting the list of feasible solutions to these problems, resulting in different technological environments that determine the appearance of distinct rules.
The context of the term “market” comprises the product market, the budgetary constraints faced by firms and the labor market. The product market can vary the character of competition (pure competition, oligopoly, monopoly) and the type of market (local, national, international; protected or exposed to competition). This type of context includes, finally, the characteristics of the workforce, such as ethnic, cultural, religious, educational level and qualification. The context of markets focuses decisively on the degree of freedom in setting the standards, and is particularly relevant to issues such as remuneration of the workforce, the timing of revision of standards, norms and duration of the training of the workforce.
Finally, the context of power refers to the distribution of power in society actors. This is reflected, according to Dunlop (ibid.: 50), in its prestige, position and authority, indirectly affecting the interaction of actors in a system to contribute to its structure. The author notes that, in general, the distribution of power is critical in defining the actors status, that is, their functions and forms of interaction, being particularly important in determining the function of specialized government agencies. The functions and forms of interaction prescribed may be imposed "from outside", by society (as in the case of legislation in a business system) or be created by the very system of labor relations and then be sanctioned or recognized by community.
The third constituent element of a system of labor relations, “ideology” refers to the set of ideas and beliefs shared by the actors. According to Dunlop, ideology defines the role and place of each actor, as well as the ideas that each actor has about its place and the place of others in society. It has the function to integrate the system of labor relations. Furthermore, to some degree a system to be stable requires congruence or consistency, among visions or ideologies of each actor.12
The last element of the system of labor relations, web of “rules” or the web of standards, and is the result of the interaction of the actors or the dependent variable of Dunlop’s model of the industrial relations system. These standards encompass a wide range of or modes of expression, and may appear as obligations established in regulations and policies of the hierarchy of administrators, in rules of any organization of workers in labor legislation, in decrees or other governmental decision in court decisions, decisions in specialist agencies created by administrators or hierarchies of workers, or in agreements reached through collective bargaining. It can include also the customs and traditions of the working community (ibid.: 53).
In addition to the various forms that standards or rules can express itself the author also distinguishes as the object of its regulation, between substantive rules and rules of procedure. The first include the rules governing the compensation (remuneration) in all its forms, the duties and the performances expected of employees and the standards that define the rights of workers. The latter include the procedures for the establishment of rules and procedures to determine their application to particular situations.13
The authority of actors and procedures to establish standards are crucial aspects of a system of labor relations. The rules of procedure are a product of public policy, history and traditions of a country being constant and relatively stable over time. Also according to Dunlop, the relevance of the rules of procedure is such that one might distinguish one system from another by identifying the way in which labor relations are regulated in a given reality (ibid.: 51). For example, a national system in which the state legislation has prominence in the regulatory framework and insignificant role is fulfilled by collective bargaining between firms and unions is fundamentally different from a system in which collective bargaining play a role, whether this head, either is complementary, in the regulation of the employment relationship.
The definition of the degree of importance or authority of the actors in the regulation of labor relations is directly related to the distribution of power within society, that is, those aspects that Dunlop considers crucial for defining the status of the actors; and authority is associated with the legitimate use of power. Salamon (1998: pages70-71) 15 explains that the concept of power is used in two senses: the first is the ability of someone to control others, to give orders, to impose regulations or instructions to others; in the second, the capacity to influence the decision making of others. This influence can be exerted through the ability to force changes in the decisions of others or the ability to generate an implicit influence that can be an integral part of the environment is taken into account by others in the decision-making process. 16
The concept of labor relations system can be useful for analyzing the process of regulation of labor relations at different levels. Thus, the scope of a system can cover a national society, when we would be dealing with a national system of labor relations; can also refer to employment in a sector of economic activity or in a region; and finally, the system may include an economic group or a single company or establishment. As the author himself points out, "the concept of system is formulated to express two ideas: the scope or boundary of a system can vary the focus point to a nation, sectors of an economy or smaller units consistent, and the system indicates a strong internal sense of interdependence "(Dunlop, 1993:12,).
A final word about Dunlop’s contribution from a sociological perspective His approach was based on the then fashionable sociological theory of social systems of Talcott Parsons. However, since the 1950s general systems theory and social systems theory have developed and matured and encountered recently a major paradigm shift in which the structural-functionalist view is being replaced by an autopoietic (ability to reproduce and sustaining itself) understanding of social systems. Dunlop justifies his usage of systems theory with several direct references to Parsons’ theory of social systems. He considers systems theory in general, and Parsons' analysis of the economic system as social system in particular, to be suggestive for organizing insights and observations about the industrial-relations aspects of behaviour in industrial society (Dunlop 1958: 5). For Dunlop systems theory advances beyond previous approaches in industrial relations research, which he disqualifies as “classifications in the spectrum of labour peace and warfare”. He expects from an application of Parsons’ systems theory that it can “provide analytical meaning to the idea of an industrial relations system” (Dunlop 1958: page 3)
Despite what the critics have denounced of Dunlop’s Industrial Relations Systems, all of us are flawed and we need to acknowledge this. The evidence of the value of a man’s work is seen in the perusal / adoption / modification of the elements of his ideas, his beliefs and teachings. This is what is evidenced when we look at the present landscape and still see the brush marks of Dunlop’s handiwork. This marks the success of such a man.
What does the future hold?
When Dunlop brought forth his formulation, unions represented at least a third of the work force and there was every indication that this coverage would continue to grow. It was also assumed that collective bargaining should be fostered and preserved and that labour management relations in the US would continue to evolve into a mature and stable system. History has proven otherwise and it is clear that in several important respects the industrial relations system as analyzed in the 1950’s and envisioned for the years to follow is not the system that is in place today or appears to be unfolding for the foreseeable future.
Let me ever so lightly touch some of these: 1. A steady and progressive decline in the extent of union organization and the emergence of an alternative industrial relations system, also referred to as the union free system.

2. The aggressiveness with which management seeks to remain nonunion. Another facet of the aggressiveness can be seen in the willingness of more and more employers to operate facilities in the face of a strike. Employers are vigilant in making contingency plans and actually implementing them to continue operations during a strike.

3. With respect to wage determination, there is a tendency offer individual workers in key positions in industry and otherwise enticing remuneration packages that tends to dull ones attraction to being unionized

4. Historically the unions that have survived were the ones interested in "bread and butter" issues and not in politics. The venturing forth of the established labor movement into a close alliance with one political party marks a sharp break with this tradition. At the same time unions are down in the public opinion polls and they are seen as obstructive and "part of the past".

Are the changes temporary or more fundamental and long-lasting? The only way to be sure about the judgment is to understand the forces that are bringing about the changes and to decide whether these forces are temporary (or cyclical) or whether they are longer term, in other words, likely to remain on the scene for the foreseeable future. Changes in the economic environment -- without question the changes that have taken place in the economic environment over the past several years have been without parallel in the past seventy or eighty years. Increased foreign competition, new technology (computers), new products, deregulation and low cost nonunion competitors, the list is very formidable.
A second change with long run implications is the increased professionalization: initiative and presence being displayed by management. What has happened in the domain of industrial relations, now called human resource management, is that companies have moved from a posture of responding and coping with the onset of unions and collective bargaining to the stance where they are "calling the shots" and establishing the broad framework for the people side of the organization. It is true that historically in the United States there have always been some companies that have had human resource management as a key strategy.
The challenge is for union leadership to figure out what constructive role is left for it to play in the context of new systems of work and participation. Clearly, the nonunion sector has stolen the march and considerable experimentation is underway with various systems of teams, pay for knowledge and gain sharing arrangements. Since it is clear that these systems enhance productivity and worker job satisfaction they will gain in popularity.16

John Thomas Dunlop
(5th July 1914 -- 2nd October 2003)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/04/us/john-dunlop-89-dies-labor-expert-served-11-presidents.html 2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John Thomas Dunlop

3. (John Kenneth Galbraith, A Life in Our Times: Memoirs. (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1981), p. 79.)

4. http://www.leraweb.org/news/531-2/remembering-john-t-dunlop 5. http://www.leraweb.org/news/531-2/remembering-john-t-dunlop 6. Müller-Jentsch, Walther. (2004), "Theoretical Approaches to Industrial Relations", in BE Kaufman (ed.), Theoretical Perspectives on Work and the Employment Relationship. Champaign, IL, IRRA- Industrial Relations Research Association Series, cap. 1.

7. http://www.leraweb.org/news/531-2/remembering-john-t-dunlop

8. Kaufman, Bruce E. (2004), The Global Evolution of Industrial Relations: Events, Ideas and the IRRA . Genebra, International Labour Office.

9. Dunlop, John T. 1993) [1958], Industrial Relations Systems ((revised edition.). Boston, HBS Press. The 1958 edition of Industrial Relations Systems was reprinted several times and then republished in 1993 by the Harvard Business School. The 1993 edition contains a new Preface and a Commentary on Industrial Relations as an academic discipline, comparing it with Labour Economics and Human Resource Management. However, there are hardly any alterations to the main text.

10. http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0011-52582009000400007 John T. Dunlop and the 50th anniversary of Industrial Relations Systems

11. http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0011-52582009000400007 John T. Dunlop and the 50th anniversary of Industrial Relations Systems

12. http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0011-52582009000400007 John T. Dunlop and the 50th anniversary of Industrial Relations Systems

13. dados@iesp.uerj.br

14. Goodman, John FB et al. (1975), "Rules in Industrial Relations Theory: A Discussion". Industrial Relations Journal , vol. 6, nº 1, pp. 14-30. Goodman in his detailed elaboration on the concept of standards on labour relations theory based on Dunlop, and Flanders (1970: 24) indicate the distinct nature of the two types of standards to synthesize that "substantive rules define jobs, while rules of procedure regulate the process of elaboration of norms".

15. Salamon, Michael. (1998), Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice. London, Prentice Hall.

16. http://www.dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/.../SWP-1634-12741302.pdf‎ -by RB McKersie - ‎1985