Bellace, Janice R.

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Clyde W. Summers

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University of PennsylvaniaLaw ReviewFOUNDED 1852FormerlyAmerican Law RegisterVOL. 138 JANUARY 1990 No. 3DEDICATIONCLYDE W. SUMMERSJANICE R. BELLACEtWhen I graduated from Penn Law in 1974, Clyde Summers wasunknown to me, beyond a name appearing on one of the leadinglabor law casebooks. After three years in London, I returned to Phil-adelphia to discover that Clyde Summers had departed Yale andcome to Penn in my absence. Shortly after my return to Penn, Ibegan working on a study of the Landrum-Griffin Act at the WhartonSchool's Industrial Research Unit. The director of the Unit, com-menting that "you know Summers wrote most of the Act," tele-phoned Professor Summers and asked if I could come to his officeand discuss the study with him.It was with some trepidation that I walked over to the LawSchool that afternoon. The study was in its early stages, and its out-lines were not yet fully conceived. At this stage of my career, It Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Management, The Wharton School,University of Pennsylvania; Lecturer in Law, University of Pennsylvania.(615)616 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 138:615already knew that many prominent academics find young assistantprofessors with half-formed ideas seeking advice something of anoccupational nuisance. Anyone who knows Clyde Summers cananticipate the reception I encountered: a straightforward, entirelymodest person who genuinely sought to understand what I wantedto study and who earnestly wanted to convey what the statute wasmeant to achieve. Notions of time slipped into the background as hebecame engrossed in the subject matter. It was getting dark before Ileft his office. I walked back to my office, astounded at how generoushe had been with his time, how open he had been in the discussion,and how incredibly insightful his suggestions had been. Suddenly,the project seemed both manageable and meaningful.After that first experience, I came to know Clyde Summers.That experience was typical. Innumerable times I have seen himreply to a request by a complete stranger that he read a manuscriptand comment on it. He always unhesitatingly reads the manuscriptand seeks to make useful, often detailed, comments. He unfailinglyseeks to assist young academics as they grapple with a problematicthesis. The amount of time he expends in assisting others in theirwork is substantial, and in light of his other commitments, difficult tocomprehend. It took me some time before I realized that ClydeSummers is a teacher in the complete sense of the word. For him,the mission of conveying knowledge is not limited to his enrolledstudents. As a recipient of the University of Pennsylvania's LindbackAward for Distinguished Teaching, his classroom expertise is well-known. What is less well-known is his role in advising countless per-sons who have become, in effect, "students" of Clyde Summers.In many ways, it seems inevitable that Clyde Summers madelabor law his specialty. The late Sir Otto Kahn-Freund, who pio-neered comparative analysis in labor law, once remarked that heregarded labor law as "one of the centrally important branches ofthe law - the legal basis on which the very large majority of thepeople earn their living."1 Of people who specialize in labor law,very few have Clyde Summers' range: from individual rights in theunion, to forms of collective representation, to rights of non-unionemployees. In a sense, for Summers, the individual at work has beenthe unifying thread of his labor law writings. That is, Summers hasproceeded from the assumption that in a democracy individuals havea right to be treated fairly and to participate in the decisions thataffect them, and these rights apply even in the workplace. This has1 0. KAHN-FREUND, LABOR AND THE LAw 2 (2nd ed. 1977).CLYDE W. SUMMERSled Summers to investigate how the collective (the company, theunion, co-workers) can limit individual freedom and how the law canserve as a countervailing force. It has also led him to analyze formsof employee representation in an effort to determine whether theyallow individuals to participate in decision making.No effort will be made here to list major works, for a list of nota-ble works of Clyde Summers would begin in the 1940s and continuefor pages. One remarkable feature of Summers' work must benoted: his prominence in different areas. While one person maythink of Clyde Summers as the leading authority on individual rightsand the union, another will think of Summers as the pathbreaker inchallenging the employment-at-will doctrine, and yet another will listSummers as one of the most prominent Americans in comparativelabor law.One of Clyde Summers' contemporaries, Professor BenjaminAaron of the UCLA School of Law once observed that most Ameri-can scholars in industrial relations and labor law "have virtually noknowledge of similar institutions in other countries. '"2 When I firstmet Clyde Summers in 1977, I was delighted to find another laborlawyer who was interested in comparative work. My law teachers atthe London School of Economics had regularly compared British lawto labor law systems in Europe and North America. My own experi-ence had been that American labor law scholars routinely ignoredthe comparative dimensions of a problem. Clyde Summers, for avery long time, has been a prominent exception. From the time hespent a year in Sweden in the 1950s, he has made consistent use of acomparative approach.As a colleague has noted, Clyde Summers has used his knowl-edge of foreign labor law systems "as a source for discovering andtesting alternative ways to resolve perceived deficiencies in Americanlabor law." 3 Perhaps the most notable example of this approach ishis challenge to the employment-at-will doctrine. Thoroughly famil-iar with laws in various European countries that grant individualemployees protection against unfair dismissal, Summers pointed outthe peculiarity of the American employment-at-will doctrine and laiddown the basic elements of an unfair dismissal statute. His 1976 arti-2 Aaron, The Comparative Labor Law Group: A Personal Appraisal, 2 COMP. LAB. L.228, 234-35 (1977).3 Goldman, Methods of Comparative Labor Law in the United States, 7 CoMP. LAB. L.319, 328 (1986).1990]618 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 138:615cle in the Virginia Law Review is commonly cited as the seminal articlein this area.4From the time Clyde Summers began his comparative work, hehas been committed to increasing the numbers of American laborlawyers who are aware of foreign labor law developments. He wasone of the founding members of the U.S. National Branch of theInternational Society for Labor Law and Social Security. In 1985,when asked whether he would take over the editorship of the Compar-ative Labor Law Journal, he quickly agreed notwithstanding the greatdeal of time and effort this editorship would entail and the formida-ble obstacles presented by a slender budget. He did so because theeditorship of the Journal presented him with the opportunity ofbringing before American readers articles that he believed meritedtheir attention. Moreover, he saw the Journal as a way to involve hisstudents more deeply in comparative work. His stature in the fieldwas recognized when he was elected in 1988 as President of the U.S.Branch of the International Society for Labor Law and SocialSecurity.Besides his unhesitating help to students and strangers, ClydeSummers is known for supporting and stimulating his friends andcolleagues. He has travelled throughout the world, to study, to lec-ture, and to participate actively in seminars and conferences. Fromthese travels, he has a worldwide circle of friends, many of whomhave enjoyed his hospitality in Philadelphia. He and his wife, Evelyn,have opened their home to many friends and colleagues, all of whomhave enjoyed their gracious, direct, and warm interest. Clyde andEvelyn are close partners, of equal and independent intellectualcapacities. Those who know Evelyn are aware that she has played aninseparable part in his achievements.In describing the value of comparative work, Clyde Summershas written:Most of us are bound by our unconscious premises and have diffi-culty envisioning what we have not seen. When we have knownonly one labor law system, we are captives of its purported prem-ises and their claimed consequences. We cannot easily imaginethat essential parts might be otherwise; we do not see many of thequestions most worth asking.54 See Summers, Individual Protection Against Unjust Dismissal: Time for a Statute, 62VA. L. REv. 481 (1976).5 Summers, Conparisons in Labor Law: Sweden and the United States, 7 INDUS. REL.L.J. 1, 27 (1985).1990] CLYDE W. SUMMERS 619Those who know Clyde Summers assume that his formal retirementis just that, retirement in form only. His students, many of whomnever had him as a classroom teacher, continue to learn from hiswritings, for Clyde Summers continues to ask the questions mostworth asking.

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Clyde W. Summers

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