Sangamon Sun

A growing number of U.S. colleges and universities, including Northwestern University and the University of Illinois, have begun to offer degrees on the subject of labor and industrial relations.

According to StartClass.com, 44 colleges currently offer such a degree.

The University of Illinois, in fact, features a School of Labor and Employment Relations, which is the oldest school of its kind in the U.S. Founded in 1946, the school is described on the university’s website as “one of the world’s premier programs for human resources and industrial relations.” The school boasts corporate sponsorship from the likes of PepsiCo and Boeing Co.

A recent development has been for such schools to be caught up in political battles, especially at the state level, between labor unions and “right to work” advocates.

After Gov. Bruce Rauner was elected in 2014, he sought a new right-to-work law, following the passage of a similar law in neighboring Wisconsin. During the battle -- which ended in defeat for the legislation in 2015 -- an op-ed was written in the Chicago Sun-Times by Robert Bruno, a professor at the University of Illinois’ School of Labor and Employment Relations, who regularly speaks and writes in opposition to right-to-work laws.

“In Illinois, nearly 900,000 workers employed by thousands of union employers are covered by labor-management agreements, which shape the middle-class standards that prevail in the state,” Bruno wrote in the Sun-Times, in an op-ed published in February 2016. “If, however, Illinois adopted rules that allowed workers to forsake their obligations toward the common good, not only would it violate the fairness principle, but also the capacity to protect the quality of life, for all workers would be damaged.”

The participation of Bruno and other labor-relations professors in such campaigns has led to criticism from some who support the right-to-work movement -- and even question whether there’s any reason for such degrees, aside from helping labor unions.

“I can’t speak to any individual program, but there is no question that as a whole, these programs seem to have an inherent bias in favor of union power at the expense of the rights of individual workers’ freedom of choice,” Patrick Semmens, vice president for public information at the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, said.  “Almost uniformly, when I see a professor from one of these programs quoted as an ‘expert’ in the media, it is to advocate for more powers for union officials, or to attack Right to Work and other policies that promote worker choice over mandatory dues.”

Twenty-five states have right-to-work laws on the books.

“This bias may not be shared by all of the students of these programs, but it certainly is going to disproportionately attract those who want to promote forced unionism as a model," Semmens said. "The promotion of a one-sided viewpoint of labor relations, especially to the extent that taxpayer money is funding these programs, is a problem."