Sidney and Beatrice Webb are commonly cited as the founders of the British field of industrial relations. Are they, however, if the field is centred not on study of unions and collective bargaining but rather on the entire employment relationship? A ‘qualified yes’ answer is given; however,...

Neoclassical economists, using a competitive demand/supply model of labour markets, typically conclude a legislated minimum wage is harmful to economic efficiency and social welfare. The major theoretical counter-attack by proponents of a minimum wage is to argue that low-wage labour markets are...

This article argues that the industrial relations (IR) field has had two distinct paradigms - an original paradigm centred on the employment relationship, and a modern paradigm centred on unions and labour-management relations. In practice, IR scholars in the decades after the Second World War...