Government regulations and business policies affecting employee relations are on an up ward trend, whereas the role of organized labor in private‐sector industrial relations is on a downward trend. The significance of the displacement of private‐sector unions in this transformation is not sufficiently addressed in the literature. The papers in this volume, summarized in this introduction, partly respond to this unmet need. We conclude with an agenda for future research about the labor movement, unions, and government in industrial relat