WELCOME TO CLIFF DONN'S PROFESSIONAL WORLD WIDE WEB HOME PAGE. You can send Cliff e-mail at donn@lemoyne.edu Cliff Donn's Professional Home Page
The first section of this page deals very briefly with my background. The rest of the sections deal with my professional interests, in particular general issues related to industrial relations, maritime industrial relations specifically, and Australia. You can skip directly to any of those sections by clicking on the appropriate title just below.
Background
Industrial Relations
Maritime
AustraliaCliff's Background
I was born on March 7, 1950 , in Rockland County, New York to Morris and Arline Donn. I was one of a pair of fraternal twin boys, Larry being the other. I grew up with my parents, and three brothers, in New City, New York. I graduated from Clarkstown Central High School in 1968 and received a B.S. degree from the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University in 1972 (having spent my junior year at the London School of Economics and Political Science). I continued my education by entering the Ph.D. program in Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where I received my Ph.D. in 1980.I attended M.I.T. from 1972 through 1975 taking classes and teaching introductory labor economics in his third year. After the 1975 school year, I moved to Sydney, Australia. I lived in Sydney for three years while I worked on my Ph.D. dissertation on the history of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and taught at the University of New South Wales as a tutor and th en at Macquarie University (1976-1978) as a lecturer in Economics.
In 1978 I returned to Boston where I spent the year at M.I.T. completing my Ph.D.. From 1979 until 1982 I was an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
Since 1982, I have been teaching at Le Moyne College. I was hired as an Associate Professor but was promoted to Professor in 1987. I served as chair of this department (Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management) from 1983 to 1995. I was the first Director of the International Studies Program from 1987 until 1995. I served as the Director of the Le Moyne College's study abroad program from1991 until 1998. In 2006 I joined the Department of Anthropology, Criminology and Sociology and in 2007 I became the chair of that department. The department of Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management was abolished and in 2007 I became the director of its successor, an interdisciplinary program called Work and Employment Relations If you would like to see a complete list of my publications (books, articles, notes and book reviews) you can do so from here.
My hobbies include bicycling (touring, not racing), racquetball, basketball and bridge. If you want to see pictures of my family, send me an e-mail message at donn@mail.lemoyne.edu and I'll direct you to the family home page.
Industrial Relations
I majored in Industrial and Labor Relations as an undergraduate at Cornell. While my Ph.D. from M.I.T. is in Economics, I concentrated in labor economics and even within that subfield was particularly interested in institutional issues related to unions and collective bargaining. At Macquarie and the University of Tennessee I taught in economics departments but I always taught at least partially in the areas of labor economics and labor relations. Virtually all of my published work has been related to these areas.Below you will find a series of links to unions and government agencies including data sources which may be of interest to students of economics and industrial relations. There is also a set of links to the home pages I have created for the classes I teach. If you are interested in my classes, this is a good place to look.
US Labor Unions
This is a selection of links to major U.S. labor unions includ ing the AFL-CIO.American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees
American Federation of Teachers
International Association of Machinists
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
International Brotherhood of Teamsters
New York State United Teachers
Service Employees International Union
Sheet Metal Workers International Union
United Food and Commercial Workers
International Labor Bodies
This is a set of links to international agencies and labor bodies.Canadian Industrial Relations Association: This is the leading Canadian professional association.
Congress of South African Trade Unions: This is the principal central union confederation in South Africa. It is affiliated with the African National Congress and played a major role in the struggle for majority rule.
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions: Traditionally this was the international federation of peak union bodies based largely on the non-Communist countries and the non-Communist federations in the West but also including Australia and Japan.
International Labour Organization: This tripartite body based in Geneva is a branch of the United Nations.
Trades Union Congress: This is the central trade union federation in Britain
International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers Unions: This is what is called an International Trade Secretariat. It is a grouping of unions from around the world in a particular industry or set of industries. There is a link to another of these, the International Transport Federation, below in the Maritime section.
Universities, Professional and Academic Organizations
These are links to the home pages of university departments and schools of industrial relations and closely related fields. There are also links to academic and professional organizations.American Arbitration Association: This is the leading dispute resolution body in the field. It maintains panels of arbitrators and produces a wide variety of publications.
Labor and Employment Relations Association: This is the leading professional association in the field. It includes large numbers of academics but it also includes a sizable contingent of practitioners.
Industrial Relations Research Institute, University of Wisconsin: Really the home of the study of industrial relations in the United States.
Le Moyne College Department of Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management: This department home page has many useful local as well as national and international links. Thanks to Tom Clifton who created and maintains this home page.
School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University: This site contains a very large number of useful links to organizations and data sources.
University of California, Berkeley, This site has a very large number of useful links to organizations and data sources.
Government Agencies and Data Sources
Bureau of the Census: An excellent source of general and demographic dataBureau of Labor Statistics: An agency of the U.S. Department of Labor. The best source for a wide variety of data on industrial relations and the economy.
Labourstart: This is a source of world-wide trade union news. It also has a link to Labor's Online Bookstore where you can see the latest available books on industrial relations and related topics.
National Labor Relations Board: The agency of the federal government entrusted with enforcing the rights of American workers with regard to unionization and collective bargaining.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration: Another agency of the U.S. Department of Labor
Unionstats is a page maintained by Barry Hirsch and David Macpherson based on government data. It is the easiest way to access comprehensive statistics on union membership and collective bargaining coverage in the United States. The data are organized by industry, by occupation, by state and by metropolitan area.
White House Economic Statistics Briefing Room
White House Social Statistics Briefing Room
Cliff's Course Home Pages
These are all links to pages for courses I regularly teach at Le Moyne College. At the moment, they are all for my undergraduate courses.IRL 101 is Introduction to Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management
IRL 201 is History of American Labor and Management
WER 401 is Collective Bargaining
IRL 402 is Arbitration
IRL 420 and IRL 421 are Comparative Industrial Relations Systems I and II. The first course covers Canada and Western Europe. The second covers Japan, Australia, several less-developed countries, Israel, China and South Africa.
ECO 313 is Labor Economics
HRM 470 is Alternative Dispute Resolution
HRM 702 is Conflict Resolution
EDL 502 is Leadership for Human Resource Development in Schools
EDL 510 is Labor Relations in the School Setting
SOC 245 is Conflict Resolution
SOC 311 is Sociology of Work
SOC/CJS 321 Law, Society and Social Science
Maritime Labor Relations
Since 1986, my primary research interest has been in the area of labor relations in the maritime industry, and specifically among the seafarers themselves (as opposed to shore-side workers in the maritime industry). I have a number of articles published in that area as well as some related to Australian maritime labor relations (or which compare the Australian maritime experience with that in the USA) which have been written with Richard Morris (University of Western Sydney) and/or Gerry Phelan (Macquarie University).I am currently working on a book-length manuscript on maritime labor relations. I have a contract to write the book with MacMillan Press in London.
The most important agency regulati ng maritime programs in the USA is the US Department of Transport Maritime Administration, MARAD. MARAD's home page contains descriptions of a variety of programs and is an excellent source of data.
The International Transport Workers Federation, the ITF, brings together maritime unions from around the world. The ITF has a long-standing campaign against flag-of-conveni ence vessel operators. That campaign effectively involves one of the rare examples of international collective bargaining.
A general reference on the merchant marine (in large part devoted to honoring merchant mariners who have served in U.S.-fought wars) can be found at the American Merchant Marine homepage. This has lots of wonderful links.
Maritime Unions and Employers
American Presidents LineInternational Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots
Australia
I developed an interest in Australian industrial relations and later in Australia more generally beginning during my senior year at Cornell University. While in graduate school, I decided to write my Ph.D. dissertation on a topic related to the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the central union federation in Australia.I left for Australia in 1975. Over the next three years I lived in various locations on Sydney's north shore. I remained there for three years, returning to the United States in July 1978. I returned to spend part of my first sabbatical leave visiting at the University of New South Wales in the first half of 1989. In 1992 I was invited to give a paper at the Congress of the International Industrial Relations Association so I returned for a brief visit at that time. In 1996, I spent a brief portion of his next sabbatical visiting at the University of Western Sydney. I spent the second half of 2003 teaching and doing research as a visiting professor at the University of Western Sydney's School of Management.
I have a number of publications relating to Australian trade unions and industrial relations as well as a couple relating more specifically to Australian maritime industrial relations.
Australian Web Sites
What follows is a brief set of links to Australian World Wide Web Home Pages. Most relate specifically to Industrial Relations issues.Australian Council of Trade Unions: This is the central union confederation in Australia. I wrote my Ph.D. thesis about its history and economic policy.
Universities
University of New South Wales: Located in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs. This link is to the School of Industrial Relations and Organizational Behavior at the university.
University of Western Sydney: Located in Sydney's Western Suburbs, this is a multi-campus university. I taught there as a visiting professor during the second half of 2003.