CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – A longtime University of Illinois educator and administrator who was a pioneer in the evolution of labor-management relations for more than a half-century will be remembered at a tribute and memorial service Saturday.
Martin Wagner, a labor arbitrator and scholar whose career included nearly 25 years with the university’s Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, died June 16 at his home in Urbana. He was 97.
Colleagues say Wagner was a key player in bridging the divide between labor and management that widened as unions sought to regain membership and clout withered by the Great Depression.
“He began his career in the ’30s, when the nation’s labor-management environment was volatile and even hostile,” said Walt Franke, who, like Wagner, is a former director of the U. of I. labor institute. “He taught people to take an even-handed approach, to deal with reason as much as possible and to find areas of agreement.”
Franke says Wagner’s passion was fueled by a sense of fairness, seeking to mitigate the inherent power that management wields in a capitalist society.
“Like many of us, he got into labor relations because of a concern about the underdogs, the less powerful and how the interests of ordinary people could be advanced,” he said.
In 1948, after working as a regional director for the National Labor Relations Board in San Francisco and Cincinnati, Wagner became the founding executive director of the Louisville Labor-Management Committee, in Kentucky, the first organization in the nation to pool labor and business leaders in search of common ground.
The same year, he was a founding member of the Industrial Relations Research Association, now the Labor and Employment Relations Association. The national association, which gave Wagner its lifetime achievement award shortly before his death, brings together professionals from all sides of employment relations to share ideas and discuss new trends.
He joined the U. of. I. in 1958 as director of the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, now the School of Labor and Employment Relations, and began one of the nation’s first doctoral programs in industrial relations in 1966. Wagner stepped down as director of the institute in 1968, but stayed on as a professor until he retired in 1982.
Franke, who led the labor institute from 1981 to 1994 and worked with Wagner for more than two decades, says the students Wagner taught are also part of his legacy.
“He’s left behind many, many students and practitioners in the field who benefited greatly from his insight and wisdom,” Franke said. “He was a man of great integrity and commitment to his field and to education. I routinely run into former students who still talk about Martin and how they’ve applied his lessons. “
Peter Feuille, another former director of the nationally recognized U. of I. labor institute, called Wagner an inspiration.
“Martin Wagner’s paramount legacy to the school and the university is the way he inspired others – the hundreds of students he taught, the dozens of faculty and staff colleagues with whom he worked, the alumni with whom he kept in touch, and the representatives of government, employers and labor organizations with whom he consulted,” Feuille said. “He inspired others with his knowledge, wisdom, uncommon generosity, unfailing courtesy and respect, and always-ready sense of humor. The entire LER community is deeply indebted to him.”
Wagner played a central role in developing public sector labor-relations laws in Illinois, and served as the first chairman of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board.
He also served 50 years with the National Academy of Arbitrators, and held leadership positions on various boards and commissions that dealt with training, unemployment, wage-price controls, civil service and other employment-relations matters.
A tribute to Wagner’s life and achievements will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday at Smith Hall, 805 S. Mathews Ave., Urbana. A memorial service will follow at the Wagner Education Center, named in his honor, at the School of Labor and Employment Relations, 504 E. Armory Ave., Champaign.
Wagner’s family, friends and colleagues are scheduled to speak, along with current and former campus leaders.
