Faculty & Staff

Biography

Dr. Victor G. Devinatz is Professor of Management in the Department of Management and Quantitative Methods at Illinois State University where he teaches courses in labor relations, human resource management and conflict management/dispute resolution. He is nationally recognized for his expertise in qualitative research in a wide variety of labor relations and employment relations topics where he utilizes ethnographic, oral history and archival research methodologies.

In a widely distributed Associated Press article in March 1999,  Dr. Devinatz’ scholarly book, High-Tech Betrayal: Working and Organizing on the Shop Floor (Michigan State University Press, 1999), was recognized as the first industrial ethnography to chronicle assembly work in a high-tech environment, specifically that of a low-wage medical electronics factory. In addition, he has published (or has had accepted for publication) more than 50 articles in Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations, Labour/Le Travail, Labor History, Industrial Relations, Science & Society, Journal of Labor Research, Labor Studies Journal, Journal of Collective Negotiations in the Public Sector, and Labor Law Journal, among others. Dr. Devinatz’s articles also have appeared in Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working Class History, Work in America: An Encyclopedia of History, Policy and Society; The Encyclopedia of the Great Black Migration, and Encyclopedia of Europe: 1914-2004, among other scholarly encyclopedias.

In 2003, Dr. Devinatz was a recipient of a Merl E. Reed Research Fellowship in Southern Labor History. In addition, in 2005, Dr. Devinatz won the Illinois State University Outstanding Researcher Award.  In 2004 and 1999, he was named a Caterpillar Faculty Scholar; he received the College of Business Research Award in 2003 and 1997 and was the recipient of a University Research Initiative Award in 1994. In addition, his comments concerning current labor relations issues have been cited in articles in a number of international and national news publications including The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, South China Morning Post (Hong Kong), Asia Times, USA Today, the Bureau of National Affairs Daily Labor Report, Bureau of National Affairs Employment Discrimination Report, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, the Detroit News and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Besides currently serving as an associate editor of Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, he also is the editor of Perspectives in Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal. In addition, he is an editorial board member of Labor Studies Journal, Journal of Collective Negotiations, WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society and Journal of Workplace Rights. Dr. Devinatz currently writes a periodic labor column for StreetWise, a Chicago-based newspaper.