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Call for Session and Paper Proposals: LERA 74th Annual Meeting

Posted: June 1, 2021
Organization: Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA)
Session Proposal and Single Paper Proposal (LERA Best Paper) Submission Deadline: November 15, 2021 
LERA Competitive Papers Deadline: December 15, 2021
AILR/LERA Best Papers Deadline: January 15, 2022
Submission Forms: Click Here

LERA Call for Session and Paper Proposals

LERA 74th Annual Meeting, June 2 – 5, 2022 — Virtual
(Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday)
Committee Meetings will take place on Wednesday, June 1, 2022.

Elevating Voice and New Voices in the Workplace and Beyond

LERA 74th Annual Meeting Call for Proposals Flyer Download | Deadline for session proposals is Nov. 15, 2021.
Call for Papers and Posters Flyer Download | Jump to Submission Forms. |  See Program Committee.

Paul F. Clark, LERA President Elect and Program Chair

*** BREAKING NEWS: Because of COVID-19 and the Delta variant, the LERA Executive Board has made the difficult decision to conduct our 2022 meeting virtually. Uncertainties about the spread of the variant even among the vaccinated, challenges surrounding social distancing, and risks of discretionary air travel make continuing with a place-based meeting impossible. ***

One of the universal workplace challenges, from the beginning of employment relationships to now, is the desire of employees to have some voice in their work.  Over the centuries, workers have slowly gained greater voice, but the progress made has been insufficient and has differed greatly for different groups of workers.  The theme of the LERA 74th Annual Meeting both recognizes the primary importance of employee voice in the workplace and the need to extend that same voice to all those workers who have not had equal opportunities to be heard in the past.  Only when voice is elevated and extended to all, can our workplaces, institutions, and society fully flourish.
The Co-chairs and Program Committee welcome session proposals from the best and brightest. At least one participant in a session must be a LERA member, and one author on each paper must be a LERA member.

The LERA Program Committee welcomes proposals for sessions and individual papers addressing the annual meeting’s theme. We seek contributions from a broad range of perspectives (incl. domestic and global, academic and practitioner -- worker, union, management and neutral) and disciplines (incl. but not limited to history, political science, labor and employment law, economics, sociology, industrial relations, human resource studies). We encourage proposals incorporating research, practice and policy; we also encourage a balance of gender, racial, and generational diversity among the proposed participants. LERA’s mission and the wide range of expertise of LERA’s community make it an ideal forum for exploring and debating competing and compelling ideas about a way forward. At this critical moment, dynamism and innovation in thought and action are badly needed. Additionally, we encourage submissions from different disciplines, including, but not limited to:
Economics • Sociology • Political Science • Labor and Employment Law • Industrial Relations • Human Resource Studies • Organizational Behavior • Labor Relations • Labor Unions and Social Movements • Work, Globalization, and Migration • Diversity • Work Organization and Management
Presentations may take a variety of forms: Symposia, panels, workshops, posters, skill-building, debates, roundtable discussions, etc. The number of tracks and lengths of sessions depends on the quantity and quality of proposals. To encourage thought diversity, participants may only present on the program once per role. Deadline: November 15, 2021.

Other paper competitions
  • LERA Competitive Papers, Deadline: December 15, 2021, (complete papers up to 30 pages)

  • AILR/LERA Best Papers Competition, Deadline: January 15, 2022 (paper proposals up to 3 pages), the special LERA Best Papers edition of the AILR Journal (complete papers up to 30 pages due the following April). Winning authors will be invited to present in special sessions at the meeting and may earn invitations to publish.

  • UCIRHRP Best Student Papers, Deadline: November 15, 2021 *$300 Cash Prize

  • LERA Best Papers, Deadline: November 15, 2021 (paper abstract). Winners will present in a LERA Best Papers session and be invited to publish their paper in the LERA Proceedings and can compete for journal publication in the ILR Review.

  • LERA Best Posters, Deadline: November 15, 2021 (paper abstract). Winners will present in a LERA Best Posters session and be invited to publish an abstract in the LERA Proceedings.
Organizers are required to provide a session abstract and description, identify participants (confirmed or invited) and brief contact information at the time of submission for all session participants. If you have questions about this Call for Proposals, contact: [email protected].
LERA's Annual Meeting program branched into new formats over the past several years. The long-appreciated format of research papers and discussants lay the foundation to new ways of organizing sessions. New formats include:
  • Facilitated panels of practitioners
  • Workshops hosted by one person
  • Hands-on case studies workshops, like the Arbitrator Panel
  • Point/Counter Point debates
The over-arching goal for the annual meeting program: Bring the labor and employment relations experts from all industries and perspectives and discuss how research-based practices improve work environments for everyone.

Diversity and Inclusion

LERA seeks to provide a professional environment that is diverse and inclusive of all perspectives in the workplace. To that end, we are asking that you include race and gender for your session participants, and comment more broadly on if/how your session will increase diversity on the program. While we have no rules regarding the gender and ethnicity makeup of a single session, LERA will use this information to gauge our progress from year to year in creating a more inclusive overall program. And to offset your workload, we have removed department and all address fields for every session participant except for you, the organizer. We hope this makes the form easier to complete!

Are you looking to diversify the participants you have listed in your session proposal? LERA is gathering perspective, areas of expertise, race and gender information from our members and meeting participants to try to put this at your fingertips in our member directory. While that information is building, you may wish to refer to these resources below in the meantime, which might be of assistance.

We also have some limited funding to support meeting registration fees for under-represented minorities who are speaking on the program and could not otherwise afford to participate at the LERA Annual Meeting, so please do let us know if you feel someone on your session proposals qualifies for and needs assistance.

Expectations

 Before submitting your proposal, consider these points:
  1. What is today's date? Session and general paper/poster proposals are not accepted after November 15, 2021. Competition papers and must be submitted no later than December 15, 2021. (Still other paper competitions are due Jan. 15, 2022 - please see http://www.leraweb.org/deadlines for complete list.)

  2. Collect affiliation and email addresses for all participants of your session in a document before starting the submission form. LERA communicates with all participants at different stages before the annual meeting. Email addresses are crucial for communicating updates.

  3. Sessions in 2022 will be 60 minutes long in the virtual meeting format. 

  4. All participants are expected to register (and pay) even if it is for one day. This requirement raises a one or two questions every year. LERA's mission focuses on being facilitators of open discussions on LER trends and practices. Our hope is the experts on all sessions will network and share throughout the day and meeting. All attendees benefit. From a practical point of view, with over 400 program participants, developing criteria for who pays and who doesn't is too challenging, and we price registration as low as possible so that as many people as possible can participate and be heard. The Executive Board understands the new session formats and an even more diverse audience means being flexible, which is why all program participants are eligible for the early-bird, member discount, whether they are a member or an early bird.

  5. Don't let item #4 discourage you. Most completely understand the requirement. Be upfront when you invite the participants and the rationale for why this is LERA's tradition. Most will register because they will gain more than they give. The experts attending are the cream of labor issues and practice and very few mention any inconvenience. Consider sponsoring your panel's registration(s) through your organization and be recognized as an industry supporter of improving work. Contact Emily at LERA (217) 333-0072 or [email protected] if you are interested in recognition options.

  6. LERA Program Committee guidelines will not allow any participant to act within a single session in more than one role (chair, panelist/presenter, discussant), and an individual cannot act twice in a given role throughout the entire program (all sessions at the conference). Someone can participate once as chair, once as panelist/presenter, and once as discussant. This is to ensure broad representation and participation of all LERA members and constituencies at the LERA Annual Meeting. There are a few exceptions to this rule to allow for competition winners, etc., but please use this as your guideline when crafting session proposals.

Proposal Submission Forms

Due date:
Nov. 15, 2021 
 Due dates:
Dec. 15, 2021 - Jan. 15, 2022
Proposals for
Sessions and Papers		 Proposals for
Competition Papers

Start Your Session Proposal

Start Your Paper Abstract Submission (LERA Best Papers)

Start your Poster Abstract Submission (LERA Best Posters)

Start Your LERA Competitive Paper Submission*
(Due Dec. 15, 2021)

Start Your AILR/LERA Best Papers Proposal*
(Due Jan. 15, 2022)

 

* More complete details for individual paper competitions such as LERA Competitive Papers, AILR/LERA Best Papers can be found at the LERA Deadlines page here: http://lera.memberclicks.net/deadlines.

LERA 74th Annual Meeting Program Committee (2021/2022)

Paul F. Clark, 
LERA President Elect and Program Chair 

John Budd, University of Minnesota, Academic Vice Chair
William Spriggs, AFL-CIO/Howard University, Practitioner Vice Chair
Robert Chiaravalli, Strategic Labor and HR LLC - Regional Vice Chair

74th Annual Meeting Program Committee:

Ariel Avgar, Cornell University
Greg Bamber, Monash University
Ben Begleiter, UNITE HERE
Lisa Charles, Arbitrator/Mediator (inv.)
Nicholas Enoch, Lubin & Enoch
Jody Hoffer Gittell, Brandeis University, Heller School of Policy
Lu Ann Glaser, American Water Co.
Steven Greenhouse, Author and former New York Times reporter
Jennifer Harmer, University of Toronto
Beverly Harrison, Arbitrator/Mediator
Elaine Hui, Pennsylvania State University
Tamara Lee, Rutgers University
Maite Tapia, Michigan State University
Richard (Rick) Warters, United Technologies Corp. (ret.)
Michael Wasser, AFL-CIO Dept. of Professional Employees (inv.)
Nathan Wilmers, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Regional Planning Team:

Robert Chiaravalli, Strategic Labor and HR LLC
Bill Dwyer, Ford Motor Co. (ret.)
Brad Markell, AFL-CIO
Marick Masters, Wayne State University
Lynn Rhinehart, Economic Policy Institute
Maite Tapia, Michigan State University

Ex-officio Members of the Program Committee:

Wilma Liebman, President
Ryan Lamare, Editor-in-Chief
William Canak, NCAC Chair
Hye Jin Rho, Poster Session Chair
Andrew Weaver, Secretary/Treasurer

Administrator: Emily Smith, LERA (non-voting)