James A. Gross (born 1933) is an American educator and historian who teaches

United States labor law United States labor law sets the rights and duties for employees, Labor unions in the United States, labor unions, and employers in the United States. Labor law's basic aim is to remedy the "inequality of bargaining power" between employees and em ...

and

labor history Labor history or labour history is a sub-discipline of social history which specialises on the history of the working classes and the labor movement. Labor historians may concern themselves with issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and other fac ...

at the

Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations The New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University (ILR) is an industrial relations school and one of the four New York State contract colleges at Cornell University, located in Ithaca, New York, United States. The ...

. He is the author of a highly regarded three-volume history of the

National Labor Relations Board The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is an independent agency of the federal government of the United States with responsibilities for enforcing U.S. labor law in relation to collective bargaining and unfair labor practices. Under the Natio ...

(NLRB) and is considered the leading historian of the NLRB.Compa, "Trade Unions and Human Rights," in ''Bringing Human Rights Home,'' 2008, p. 244.

Career

James Gross was born in 1933 and raised near

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

."Faculty Profile: James Gross," ''ILR Connections,'' Winter 2002.
/ref> He played baseball as a youth, and for many years pursued a career as a major league ball player. He graduated from

La Salle University La Salle University () is a private, Catholic university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The university was founded in 1863 by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools and named for St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle. History La ...

with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

in 1956.Gross, ''Workers' Rights As Human Rights,'' 2006, p. 261.Colosi, ''Proceedings of Two Seminars Sponsored by Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service,'' 1968, p. 81. He entered the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

after college. But after only a short time on active duty he left the military and enrolled at

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then called Ba ...

, where he received a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

in 1957. Although he still wanted to play professional baseball, at the urging of friends he enrolled in the graduate doctoral program at the

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

. Dissatisfied with the degree program, he decided to leave and take a job with the

Continental Can Company Continental Can Company (CCC) was an American producer of metal containers and packaging company, that was based in Stamford, Connecticut."CONTINENTAL GROUP COMPANY." ''International Directory of Company Histories''. Ed. Thomas Derdak. Vol. 1. Ch ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. But the university offered him a teaching assistant position, and he stayed in school. Although he almost left again, he was asked to teach a class (which gave him more money to live on) and discovered that he very much enjoyed teaching. Gross received his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

from the University of Wisconsin in 1962. Gross taught as an assistant professor at Holy Cross College from 1960 to 1966 before joining the faculty at Cornell. He was named an associate professor in 1968 and a full professor in 1975. His three-volume history of the National Labor Relations Board has been called "authoritative" and "exhaustive". The second volume in the trilogy, ''The Reshaping of the National Labor Relations Board: National Labor Policy in Transition, 1937-1947'', won the prestigious Philip Taft Labor History Book Award in 1983.

Memberships and awards

Gross is a member of the

National Academy of Arbitrators The National Academy of Arbitrators (NAA) is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) honorary and professional organization of labor arbitrators in the United States and Canada that was founded in 1947. Its avowed purpose was “to foster the highest standar ...

, the

American Arbitration Association The American Arbitration Association (AAA) is a not-for-profit organization in the field of alternative dispute resolution, providing services to individuals and organizations who wish to resolve conflicts out of court, and one of several arbitr ...

, and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. He has also worked as a labor relations mediator for the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

and

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

. Gross is the recipient of a grant from the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

,Gross, ''Broken Promise: The Subversion of American Labor Relations Policy, 1947-1994,'' 1996, p. xv. and in 2007 was Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Corporate Social Responsibility at

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Footnotes

Bibliography

*Colosi, Thomas R. ''Proceedings of Two Seminars Sponsored by Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.'' Jamestown, N.Y.: Jamestown Community College Press, 1968. *Compa, Lance. "Trade Unions and Human Rights." In ''Bringing Human Rights Home.'' Cynthia Soohoo, Catherine Albisa, and Martha F. Davis, eds., Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2008.
"Faculty Profile: James Gross." ''ILR Connections.'' Winter 2002.
Accessed 2010-11-17. *Gross, James A. ''Rights, Not Interests: Resolving Value Clashes Under the National Labor Relations Act.'' Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press, 2017. *Gross, James A. ''Broken Promise: The Subversion of American Labor Relations Policy, 1947-1994.'' Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 1996. *Gross, James A., ed. ''Workers' Rights As Human Rights.'' Albany, N.Y.: ILR Press, 2006. *Hodges, James A. "The Real Norma Rae." In ''Southern Labor in Transition, 1940-1995.'' Robert H. Zieger, ed. Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1997. *Hornby, Lance. "WHA-t Is Event's Status?" ''Toronto Sun.'' April 26, 2005. *Johnson, Christopher H. ''Maurice Sugar: Law, Labor, and the Left in Detroit, 1912-1950.'' Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1988. *Law, Gordon T., ed. ''A Guide to Sources of Information on the National Labor Relations Board.'' Florence, Ky.: Routledge, 2002.
Miller, J. Gormly; McGinnis, Boodie N.; and Julian, Robert R. "Appendix A : Time Line, Events, Incidents, and Items of Note." In ''The ILR School at Fifty: Voices of the Faculty, Alumni & Friends.'' Paper 14. 1996.
Accessed 2010-11-17.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gross, James A. 1934 births La Salle University alumni Temple University alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Cornell University faculty Labor historians Writers from New York (state) Writers from Pennsylvania Writers from Wisconsin Living people