the impact on economic performance of a transformation in workplace relations this study examines how a transformation in patterns of conflict and cooperation affected economic performance in 25 work areas of a large unionized manufacturing facility in the period 1984 87 unlike most studies of industrial relations and economic performance this study clearly distinguishes conflict from cooperation but evaluates the two together rather than focusing on only one an analysis of data collected from union and employer records and interviews strongly suggests that work areas with traditional labor management relations rooted in adversarial assumptions had higher costs more scrap lower productivity and a lower return to direct labor hours worked than work areas with transformational relations characterized by increased cooperation and improved dispute resolution

the demise of the national union in italy lessons for comparative industrial relations theory using data collected during field research in italy on the reorganization of the auto industry the author analyzes recent changes in italian industrial relations based on this case study he argues for a new approach to comparative industrial relations research and theory instead of treating national systems as the basic unit of analysis and searching for macro institutional features as the key dimensions to use in constructing comparative typologies of industrial relations systems the author develops an approach focusing on micro level developments and the politics of strategic choice to explain variation within nations two factors appear to be crucial in explaining this variation local socioeconomic conditions that shape the strategies of unions and management in firms undergoing adjustment and the choices unions make in reallocating responsibilities between local and national structures

multi level bargaining during bulgaria s return to capitalism this paper emphasizes the close interrelatedness among various levels of bargaining in transition economies focusing on the bulgarian case the author argues that in bulgaria and other transition economies neither purely national nor purely company based bargaining is occurring instead the social partners interest groups representing labor and business have developed a multi level bargaining structure that encompasses and links together national company industry and regional levels multi tier bargaining is prompted on the one hand by simultaneous pressures for centralization and decentralization during economic restructuring and on the other by the need to legitimate the social partners at all levels the author shows that in bulgaria increasing interdependencies and interactions among levels of bargaining have helped secure greater flexibility adaptability and survivability during extremely uncertain times

unionisation structures and innovation incentives this paper examines how dierent unionisation structures aect rms innovation incen tives and industry employment we distinguish three modes of unionisation with increasing degree of centralisation 1 decentralisation where wages are determined independently at the rm level 2 coordination where one industry union sets individual wages for all rms and 3 centralisation where an industry union sets a uniform wage rate for all rms while rms investment incentives are largest under centralisation investment in centives are non monotone in the degree of centralisation decentralisation carries higher investment incentives than coordination labour market policy can spur innovation by decentralising unionisation structures or through non discrimination rules

centralized bargaining and reorganized work are they compatible the paper examines the implications for wage bargaining of an important aspect of the ongoing reorganization of work the move from occupational specialization toward multi tasking the analysis shows how on account of such reorganization centralized bargaining becomes increasingly ine cient and detrimental to rms pro t opportunities since it prevents rms from o ering their employees adequate incentives to perform the appropriate mix of tasks the paper also shows how centralized bargaining inhibits rms from using wages to induce workers to learn how to use their experience from one set of tasks to enhance their performance at other tasks in this way the paper may also help explain the increasing resistance to centralized bargaining in various advanced market economies 2001 elsevier science b v all rights reserved

the fragmentation of the bargaining society wage setting in the nordic countries 1950 to 1992 it is commonly believed that corporatist bargaining institutions have been in general decline in the 1980s and 1990s the leading explanations of the purported universal trend toward greater decentralization of collective bargaining are the impact of technological change changes in the occupational structure and growing international economic integration decentralization should be particularly visible in the nordic countries because collective bargaining was more centralized in these countries in the 1960s and 1970s than in any others in western europe in this article the authors present data on the changes in the centralization of wage bargaining in the four nordic countries since 1950 they document that a significant decentralization of collective bargaining has occurred in sweden as is well known but not in the other three the article concludes with a review of possible explanations of swedish exceptionalism

good times bad times postwar labor s share of national income in capitalist democracies this article returns to a classic question of political economy the zero sum conflict between capital and labor over the division of the national income pie a detailed description of labor s shar

transportation costs agricultural productivity and cross country income differences i document large difierences in domestic transport costs and transportation infrastructure across nations the richest countries have 5 times lower transport costs and 32 times more infrastructure per capita than the poorest countries of the world are these difierences a source of aggregate labor productivity difierences across nations using a three sector two region general equilibrium model i show that high transport costs can distort the allocation of resources not only across geographically dispersed production units within sectors but also between agriculture and non agriculture taking as given the observed difierences in transportation costs and transportation infrastructure per capita i quantify the role of transportation for cross country income difierences the calibrated model produces an income disparity of 7 5 between the 5 rich and 5 poor countries this corresponds to an improvement of 50 relative to the disparity predicted by a two sector model of agriculture and non agriculture furthermore the efiects of advancements in transportation are non linear the elasticity of aggregate labor productivity with respect to transport labor productivity in the poorest nations is 6 times higher than in the richest ones the efiects of transport frictions are even more pronounced when restrictions to regional migration are introduced

enterprise unionism the japanese system at work trade unions japanese unions at work the japanese labour market has worked quite well over recent decades whereas the european economies have produced more and more unemployment a popular hypothesis is that this difference can be attributed to unions while in europe unions are strong and centralized and do not care about the individual firm the japanese unions are enterprise unions which deal directly with and understand the heal management employers in japan in turn consult unions and employees on all relevant management decisions this corporatism finally ensures that workers are more motivated and have a higher productivity it is the central conjecture of this paper that the presence of unions increases the voice of the employees significantly by using innovative new firm data it is shown that this is actually the case hence japanese enterprise unions are not harmful but foster information sharing and contribute to the performance of the enterprise toshiaki tachibanaki and tomohiko noda

a re interpretation of pattern bargaining most recent studies investigating pattern bargaining have sought to establish its presence or absence by statistically comparing summary measures of wage levels or growth rates across and within industries the author of this study argues that a better measure of the existence of pattern bargaining over wages is the degree of similarity of collective bargaining contract clauses the usual focus of negotiators when they engage in pattern following using that criterion he analyzes uaw and iam collective bargaining agreements in the automobile aerospace and agricultural implement industries for the years 1970 95 he finds evidence that a strong wage pattern existed at both the inter and intra industry levels in the 1970s but that this pattern weakened in the 1980s among the major automobile industry bargaining pairs however a strong intra industry pattern returned in the late 1980s

macroeconomic performance and collective bargaining an international perspective this paper critically reviews the research on how collective bargaining systems influence macroeconomic performance in industrialized countries the review considers effects of bargaining level coordination and corporatist institutional arrangements key empirical results turn out to be quite fragile and much of the paper explores issues of measurement and specification that account for the fragility the paper concludes that complementarities between key institutions and between institutions and the economic environment may be more important for macroeconomic performance than the effects of individual institutions and it suggests research strategies

assessing the impacts of foreign manufacturing on regional economies the cases of wales scotland and the west midlands brand s hill s and munday m 2000 assessing the impacts of foreign manufacturing on regional economies the cases of wales scotland and the west midlands reg studies 34 343 355 this paper examines the direct and indirect contributions made by foreign manufacturing companies to the regional economies of wales scotland and the west midlands survey data derived from foreign manufacturers in each region were used in conjunction with regional input output tables to assess the comparative contributions of defined foreign and domestically owned sectors to regional value added the analyses are a starting point for the more accurate targeting of regional resources to industry sectors in the respective regional economies brand s hills s et munday m 2000 evaluer les retombees de l industrie etrangere sur les economies regionales etude de cas du pays de galles de l ecosse et des west midlands reg studies 34 343 355 cet article cherche a examiner les roles direct et indirect joue par les en

management whipsawing the staging of labor competition under globalization the authors examine management whipsawing practices in the european auto industry based on more than 200 interviews and a comparison of three automakers they identify four distinct ways in which managers stage competition between plants to extract labor concessions informal hegemonic coercive and rule based whipsawing practices at the three auto firms differed from one another and changed over time because of two factors structural whipsawing capacity and management labor relations strategy in the context of economic globalization whipsawing is an effective means for managers to extract concessions to loosen national institutional constraints and to diffuse employment practices internationally

the determinants of bargaining structure in u s manufacturing industries this study uses bls data on individual collective bargaining agreements and industry data from several sources to estimate the determinants of bargaining structure in the manufacturing sector probit analysis is used to estimate first the probability that a given agreement is multifirm rather than single firm in coverage and second the probability that a single firm agreement in a multiplant firm is less than firmwide in coverage industry concentration and plant size are found to be strongly associated with single firm as opposed to multifirm agreements other things equal among multiplant firms with single firm agreements however concentration and plant size strongly increase the probability of firmwide agreements in addition union rivalry tends to lead to decentralized bargaining units and labor intensity of production to centralized units

spanish unions institutional legacy and responsiveness to economic and industrial change using empirical data drawn from multiple sources including interview material the author examines spanish trade unions responses to the reorganization of spain s economy and changes in the struc

strategy meets institutions the transformation of management labor relations at deutsche telekom and ntt this comparison of labor management relations at deutsche telekom dt and ntt group formerly nippon telephone and telegraph demonstrates the value of considering both institutions and strategic decision making to under stand the interaction between companies and unions as corporations diversify multi divisional or holding company structures emerge but the degree of diversity introduced in employment relations within the corporate group de pends on the interaction between corporate strategy and the strategy of orga nized labor the authors field research based on interviews with managers and labor leaders shows that despite a broadly similar corporate strategy of diversi fication by dt and ntt after the liberalization of telecommunication markets employment relations became more decentralized both for unions and for works councils within the dt group than within the ntt group this differ ence in outcomes is explained by the relative power and strategic choices of labor and management rather than by constraints and opportunities specific to the existing national institutions

labor markets production strategies and wage bargaining institutions the swedish employer offensive in comparative perspective transformed patterns of labor market governance occupy a central place in the study of contemporary west european political economies here detailed analysis of the dramatic decentralization of wa

is pattern bargaining dead this paper challenges the common belief that pattern bargaining largely ended in the 1980s applying a measure of pattern bargaining the dispersion of log wages to wage data drawn from the same data set that audrey freedman used in her widely quoted studies of this subject the author shows that the extent of pattern bargaining was actually greater in 1983 than in 1977 the evidence suggests that managers perceptions of changes in the bargaining process which are the basis for freedman s claim that pattern bargaining has eroded are inconsistent with actual changes in wage patterns

institutions and performance in european labour markets taking a fresh look at evidence this paper presents a selective survey of the recent literature on labour market institutions and offers new empirical eu based evidence on the impact of labour market reforms on employment and labour market adjustment although the literature traditionally treats labour market institutions as exogenous attention shifted recently towards understanding the underlying causes of specific institutional arrangements as a consequence the literature highlights the great importance of an efficient policy design exploiting these interactions wisely and identifies general principles for achieving an efficient policy design at both macro and micro levels although empirical evidence does not show a major change in terms of intensity of labour market reform after the setting of the economic and monetary union and the creation of the euro the reforms aiming at strengthening the labour market attachment of vulnerable groups tend to have been successful both in raising their employment and increasing labour market adjustment

the decentralization of collective bargaining a literature review and comparative analysis the author reviews evidence that the bargaining structure is becoming more decentralized in sweden australia the former west germany italy the united kingdom and the united states although in

wage rule formation in the aerospace industry this study of wage bargaining in the aerospace industry focuses particularly on lump sum bonuses one time cash disbursements that generally accompany lower increases in the base wage than were formerly standard although such bonuses which appeared in aerospace companies before they appeared in other large manufacturing industries were viewed as a union concession they persisted into the 1989 bargaining round despite a sharp upturn in the fortunes of the most prominent aerospace company the author regards that fact as well as the weakening of both inter and intra industry pattern bargaining as support for the view that a significant shift in union wage determination occurred in the 1980s he argues however based on interviews with managers union officials and workers that consensus has not yet been achieved on the meaning of this shift

endogenous scope of firm union bargaining with vertical pay comparisons abstract there is strong evidence that employees motivation and incentives in the workplace are affected by vertical pay comparisons in a stylized cournot duopoly model with firm specific unions that institutionalize workers vertical fairness concerns we show that universal wage employment w e bargaining may arise as the equilibrium scope of bargaining institution we thus propose that intra firm vertical fairness concerns may resolve the mismatch between recent findings in the empirical literature on labor market institutions and the predictions of traditional models that universal w e bargaining will never arise in equilibrium the scope of bargaining puzzle we derive a number of testable hypotheses that address the recent shift towards more decentralized bargaining institutions the decline in unions bargaining power and the prevalence of w e bargaining

economic development and sectoral unions in china drawing on qualitative fieldwork in china s guangdong and zhejiang provinces the author asks how post socialist unions respond to worker unrest and why the development of sectoral level bargaining has been uneven in different regions of china while zhejiang has had relative success in establishing the organizational infrastructure for sectoral bargaining guangdong has had little success despite ongoing attempts by unions the author explains variation in sectoral level bargaining through an analysis of the different models of economic development which are characterized as local entrepreneurialism and global integration for zhejiang and guangdong respectively despite having different organizational forms unions in both places suffer from a lack of credibility and capacity to enforce contracts given the acftu s ongoing focus on sectoral level bargaining however experiments will likely continue in various regions and industries throughout china

ethics deception and labor negotiation there has been widespread emphasis on the importance of trust amongst parties to the employment relationship associated with a call for increased integrative bargaining trust is bound up with ethical action but there has been some debate about the ethics of deception in bargaining because it is possible for cooperative bargainers to be exploited some writers contend that deceptive behavior is ethical and established practice there are several problems about that view it is questionable how clear and uniform such a practice has been an appearance of deceptive bluffing can often be explained as exchange of genuine concessions recent trends have seen increased devolution of bargaining from professionals to non professionals which dilutes any shared understandings there have been in the past while practices that do exist may not be freely or voluntarily accepted and the existence of such practices is not enough to compensate for inequalities of power and skill it is questionable to what extent bluffing and deception are necessary for self defense there other techniques available by which parties can guard themselves against exploitation

organized labor s images of multinational enterprise divergent foreign investment ideologies in argentina south korea and spain this paper conceptualizes how organized labor in newly industrialized countries both responds to and shapes the presence of foreign multinationals four images of multinationals as villains nec

unionized labor markets and globalized capital markets abstract this paper studies the effects of international integration of capital markets in a world where countries differ in their labor market institutions one country has a perfectly competitive labor market while the other is unionized we show that workers should favor autarky in the unionized country but oppose it in the non unionized country and vice versa for owners of capital aggregate gains from integration however are negative we also show that under capital mobility an increase in relative bargaining power of unions does not always improve workers welfare

effects of union organization on strike incidence in eu companies the author reinvestigates the relationship between the organizational power of trade unions and strikes based on data from the european company survey 2009 ecs 2009 and the institutional characteristics of trade unions wage setting state intervention and social pacts ictwss database which include more than 5 000 firms across all 27 european union eu member states he shows that the incidence of strikes is higher in companies for which workplace union membership is high the number of workplace unions is high and unions dominate establishment level works councils these factors interact to affect strike incidence in addition the company level effects of union organization on strike incidence vary across countries these country differences can partially be explained by differences in national trade union systems such as decentralization and membership density

the effects of market economy type and foreign mne subsidiaries on the convergence and divergence of hrm this study explores patterns of human resource management hrm practices across market economies and between indigenous firms and foreign mne subsidiary operations offering a novel perspective on convergence and divergence applying institutional theorizing to improve our understanding of convergence divergence as a process and an outcome data collected from nine countries at three points in time over a decade confirm that convergence and divergence occur to different extents in a nonlinear fashion and vary depending on the area of hrm practice observed patterns of adoption and convergence divergence are explained through the effect of institutional constraints which vary between liberal and coordinated market economies and between indigenous firms and foreign mne subsidiaries specifically we expected and largely found supporting evidence confirming that compensation and wage bargaining level practices show more evidence of being institutionally constrained and hence were less likely to converge than contingent employment training and direct information provision practices the study contributes a more graded conceptualization of convergence divergence from constant no difference through robust convergence non robust convergence non robust divergence and robust divergence to constant difference allowing us to tease out the subtle manifestations of the process that can incorporate the complex dynamic reality of international business

governing work and employment relations in an internationalized economy the institutional challenge growing internationalization of economic activity has corroded the capacity of national institutions to regulate work and employment in this changing context established international institution

the determinants and extent of uaw pattern bargaining the author using two new data sets covering uaw contract outcomes in a wide range of industries estimates the degree to which the union s target settlement with a big three automaker was followed in subsequent settlements in the same bargaining round over the years 1955 79 and 1987 90 using several different specifications and examining both wage levels and percent wage increases he finds that target settlements had large statistically significant spillover effects in all years although the effects were considerably smaller in 1987 90 than in 1955 79 bargaining unit size and industry had important influences on pattern following in all years firm specific financial health indicators had little influence on pattern following in the earlier period but an important influence in 1987 90

unionization structure licensing and innovation we show the effects of the unionization structure viz decentralized and centralized unions on a firm s incentive for technology licensing and innovation the incentive for technology licensing is stronger under decentralized unions we identify circumstances under which the benefit from licensing creates a stronger incentive for innovation under decentralized unions if the union s preference for employment is high the benefit from licensing may create higher incentive for innovation under decentralized unions however if the union s preference for wage is high enough the incentive for innovation is higher under a centralized union irrespective of licensing ex post innovation if the centralized union decides whether or not to supply workers to all firms the possibility of higher innovation under decentralized unions increases we further show that perfectly substitutable workers can be better off under decentralized unions if the labor productivity depends on the unionization structure which occurs in our analysis when e g licensing after innovation occurs only under decentralized unions or innovation with no licensing occurs only under a centralized union

monetary union and wage bargaining institutions in the eu extrapolating from some member state experiences this article considers the question of how monetary union in the eu is likely to impact the preferences of governments employers and unions regarding the organization of wage bargaining european monetary union involves a decentralization of wage bargaining centered at the national level in relation to monetary policy centralized at the european level drawing on recent literature and on the experience of two member states italy and spain which prior to emu underwent periods of intense bargaining fragmentation the author argues that the imposition of restrictive monetary policy in a fragmented wage bargaining context in which workers nonetheless have substantial bargaining rights tends to have perverse effects these effects ultimately led governments and bargaining actors in italy and spain to seek a reorganization of bargaining that gave national actors greater control over wage setting the article considers to what extent a similar dynamic might play out in the euro zone