Public-sector bargaining, despite its relative infancy, has evidenced a precocious growth, and so has the amount of research devoted to it. In 1977 the IRRA Executive Board concluded that it was time to take stock: to review what we know about some key issues in this area, to analyze previous developments, and to project, to the extent possible, the direction of future trends. The present volume in the IRRA Research Series is devoted to these purposes.Accordingly, the s everal authors have concerned themselves primarily with the organization, interpretation, and evolution of the data in hand, rather than with the undertaking of new research . This process has permitted them, however, with considerable success, to cas t new light on the developments of the past 18 years .
