[...] Among employers there grew a great demand for expertise in the tricks of what was called "union avoidance." All that was needed were a few good capitalists ready to tap that burgeoning market, and a whole new industry was born.

The first nationally known management consulting firm that specialized in helping companies evade unions was Labor Relations Associates of Chicago, Inc. Labor Relations Associates was formed in 1939, just two years after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Wagner Act and ordered its full implementation. The firm was founded by a veteran personnel man named Nathan Shefferman, a member of the original National Labor Relations Board in 1934, who a year later became director of employee relations at Sears, Roebuck & Co. Today perhaps few people recognize the name Shefferman. But when Shefferman's company folded in 1959 after twenty years in business, his name and that of his firm had become forever linked with the more shameful elements of organized labor. That year, Shefferman was charged with conspiring to help Teamsters president Dave Beck avoid paying income taxes.