Harold S Roberts

Dr. Harold Roberts was the senior professor of economics at the University of Hawaii and director of its Industrial Relations Center.

Dr. Roberts, a noted autority on labor-management relations, also was a delegate to the 1950 Constitutional Convention and was considered an expert on the document [the Constitution of the state of Hawaii] it produced.

Dr. Roberts was born in Zdunska-Wela, Poland, March 14, 1911. He came to the United States with his parents in 1921 and was naturalized in 1926.

After receiving his bachelor's degree from the City College of New York, and a master's degree and doctorate from Columbia University, he began a career with government in 1936 as an anaylst with the U.S. Department of Commerce.

He became an economist with the National Labor Relations Board in 1938. By 1947, he was chief of the collective bargaining division of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Labor Department.

He came to the University of Hawaii in 1948 as a visiting professor, and stayed to make his home in Hawaii.

He became chairman of the Department of Business and Economics. From 1950 to 1959, he was dean of the College of Business Administration.

He organized the University's Industrial Relations Center in 1948 and was its only director until his death in 1970.

Prior to his death, he was on sabbatical leave and was serving as a colleague, Institute of Advanced Programs at the East-West Center.

He was a member of the State Judicial Council, and chairman of its Committee on Legal Education and Standards of the Profession.

He had a continuing interest in the State Constitution. The first Constitutional Convention in 1950, in which he served resulted in his writing of a book, "Hawaii Constitutional Convention Studies."

He wrote another book, "Organizing, Collective Bargaining," based on Article 12 of the State Constitution, for delegates to study. He ran for a seat in the 1968 convention but lost.

Dr. Roberts was also actively interested in the problems of State legislature reapportionment and was considered an expert in the field. He entered into the State reapportionment case by becoming a party to the case before the U.S. Supreme Court as an amicus curiae. He also wrote a book on reapportionment.

A prolific writer, Dr. Roberts did most of his writing on labor-management relations. He is best remembered for his Robert's Dictionary of Industrial Relations, and Challenge of Industrial Relations in Pacific-Asian Nations. He was co-editor of the later with Paul Brissenden. His book Labor Management Relations in the Public Service was published after his death.

Dr. Roberts served as an arbitrator over the years in Hawaii, and was a mediator in public utilities disputes from 1947 to 1951.

In the 1949 dock strike, he was a member of the Governor's emergency fact finding board.

He served as administrative assistant to the late Governor Oren E. Long in 1952 and 1953.