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The Conference Board
The Conference Board, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit business membership and research organization. It counts nearly 2,000 public and private corporations and other organizations as members, encompassing 60 countries.
The Board convenes conferences and peer-learning groups, conducts economic and business management research, and publishes several widely tracked economic indicators.
The organization was founded in 1916 as the National Industrial Conference Board (NICB). At the time, tensions between labor and management in the United States were seen as potentially explosive in the wake of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 and the Ludlow Massacre in 1914. In 1915, presidents of twelve major corporations in the United States and six leading industry associations met in Yama, New York to formulate the business community's response to continued labor unrest and growing public criticism.
Although many of the organizations’ founders—including former AT&T president Frederick P. Fish and General Electric executive Magnus W. Alexander, its first president—had supported the open-shop movement; by 1916, they regarded national unions such as the American Federation of Labor as permanent fixtures of the American economy, and urged negotiation and concord.
When the United States entered World War I in 1917, the National War Labor Board formed by President Woodrow Wilson asked the NICB to formulate plans that would keep war industries running and strife-free. Its recommendations—based on cooperation between representatives of employers, employees, and government—were adopted in full. Though often mistrusted in its early years as an “employers union” funding studies against the labor movement, the non-profit NICB was also seen “as a spokesman for the so-called progressive wing of the business community [and] produced hundreds of research reports on economic and social issues facing the United States.”
Pioneering research published in this period include Woman Workers and Labor Supply, The Eight-Hour Day Defined, U.S. Cost of Living Index, and a series of reports on Workers' Compensation Acts in The United States.
The organization today remains funded by the contributions of members, often Fortune 500 companies. By the 1930s, however, it had already lost most of its character as an industry lobby. Virgil Jordan, a writer and economist who replaced Alexander as president on the latter's death in 1932, established a Bureau of Economic Audit and Control to offer members and the public an independent source of studies on unemployment, pensions, healthcare, and related issues in the midst of the Great Depression, when many questioned the credibility of the government's economic statistics. Unions soon joined the NICB alongside corporations for access to its research, conferences, and executive network.
The organization is considered an unbiased "trusted source for statistics and trends, second only to perhaps the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics". After World War II, it expanded to non-U.S. members for the first time. In 1954, it founded The Conference Board of Canada in Montreal, which was spun off as an independent non-profit in 1981. In 1959, its first overseas CEO-level was held in Torquay, England, bringing together executives and board presidents from the US, UK, and Canada.
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The Conference Board
The Conference Board, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit business membership and research organization. It counts nearly 2,000 public and private corporations and other organizations as members, encompassing 60 countries.
The Board convenes conferences and peer-learning groups, conducts economic and business management research, and publishes several widely tracked economic indicators.
The organization was founded in 1916 as the National Industrial Conference Board (NICB). At the time, tensions between labor and management in the United States were seen as potentially explosive in the wake of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 and the Ludlow Massacre in 1914. In 1915, presidents of twelve major corporations in the United States and six leading industry associations met in Yama, New York to formulate the business community's response to continued labor unrest and growing public criticism.
Although many of the organizations’ founders—including former AT&T president Frederick P. Fish and General Electric executive Magnus W. Alexander, its first president—had supported the open-shop movement; by 1916, they regarded national unions such as the American Federation of Labor as permanent fixtures of the American economy, and urged negotiation and concord.
When the United States entered World War I in 1917, the National War Labor Board formed by President Woodrow Wilson asked the NICB to formulate plans that would keep war industries running and strife-free. Its recommendations—based on cooperation between representatives of employers, employees, and government—were adopted in full. Though often mistrusted in its early years as an “employers union” funding studies against the labor movement, the non-profit NICB was also seen “as a spokesman for the so-called progressive wing of the business community [and] produced hundreds of research reports on economic and social issues facing the United States.”
Pioneering research published in this period include Woman Workers and Labor Supply, The Eight-Hour Day Defined, U.S. Cost of Living Index, and a series of reports on Workers' Compensation Acts in The United States.
The organization today remains funded by the contributions of members, often Fortune 500 companies. By the 1930s, however, it had already lost most of its character as an industry lobby. Virgil Jordan, a writer and economist who replaced Alexander as president on the latter's death in 1932, established a Bureau of Economic Audit and Control to offer members and the public an independent source of studies on unemployment, pensions, healthcare, and related issues in the midst of the Great Depression, when many questioned the credibility of the government's economic statistics. Unions soon joined the NICB alongside corporations for access to its research, conferences, and executive network.
The organization is considered an unbiased "trusted source for statistics and trends, second only to perhaps the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics". After World War II, it expanded to non-U.S. members for the first time. In 1954, it founded The Conference Board of Canada in Montreal, which was spun off as an independent non-profit in 1981. In 1959, its first overseas CEO-level was held in Torquay, England, bringing together executives and board presidents from the US, UK, and Canada.