Amazon.com description: Product Description: Given the diverse state of affairs in labor relations; a casebook cannot be expected to develop "the law" of public employee labor relations. The authors attempt, rather, to identify the policy issues implicit in any system of public sector labor relations law, and to present materials illustrative of the various arguments and solutions which have been brought to bear on these issues by legislatures, courts, and administrative agencies.

There is a lot of new material in the Fourth Edition - new cases, new statutes and recent amendments to old statutes, and an increased number of descriptive and analytical notes and questions. The authors have expanded consideration of the problems, unique to the public sector, connected with identifying the accountable public employer. Strikes, the prohibition of which continues to raise many interesting issues, are treated more fully than in the Third Edition. This is also true of procedures and arrangements for facilitating the settlement of bargaining impasses over what the terms and conditions of the collective bargaining agreement should be.

The authors estimate that about twenty-five percent of the material in the Third Edition has been carried forward on the ground that it continues to have more teaching value than some of the later decisions and statutes. The Fourth Edition is larger than its predecessors.