On November 17, 2010, the School of Labor Relations and Human Resources of the China University of Labor Relations (CULR) invited Professor Dan Guttman, a visiting scholar at Peking University and Tsinghua University, to give an academic lecture titled "The Characteristics and Development Trends of Collective Labor Relations Adjustment in the United States". Dr. Wang Kan presided over the seminar.

Professor Dan Guttman is a law professor at Johns Hopkins University in the United States and holds a law degree from Yale University. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton as a member of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. He is currently a visiting scholar at Peking University and Tsinghua University.

As an American expert in labor law who has lived in China for a long time, Professor Dan Guttman introduces and discusses freedom and equality by comparing the national conditions and legal systems of China and the United States. He believes that the labor movement in the United States has gone through five stages of development: the period from the founding of the United States to the formation and struggle of the labor movement after the Civil War; the development of the labor movement and intense labor-capital political confrontation from 1870 to 1930; the establishment of the "New Deal" and pro-labor laws from 1930 to 1950; the stable domestic labor relations and the emergence of globalization threats from 1960 to 1980; and the prevalence of Reaganism and the low tide of the labor movement after 1980. Subsequently, Professor Guttman chronologically outlined the history of labor law in the United States: from the origins of labor law, the Chicago labor strike, the establishment of minimum wage standards, the merger of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, to the opportunities and challenges facing labor law in the United States today.

When comparing the collective labor relations in China and the United States, Professor Guttman believes that due to the different national conditions and cultures of the two countries, the concepts of stability and civil rights are quite different. The United States emphasizes the establishment of a civil society-based bottom-up system of internal power balance, while traditional China emphasizes a strong top-down centralized political system. These two ways of thinking determine the different development paths of the two countries. Facing the challenges of globalization, he believes that the issue Chinese trade unions are facing is how to establish a democratic organization that truly represents the voice of workers.

Professor Guttman's presentation aroused great interest among the students, and caused a lively discussion after the presentation.

(School of Labor Relations and Human Resources)