bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Unions on Firm Performance in Japanese Manufacturing
Authors: Brunello Giorgio
Published: June 2015

Using data on a sample of 979 union and nonunion Japanese manufacturing firms selected from the 1987 issue of the Yearbook of Japanese Unlisted Companies, the author examines the relationship between union status and firm performance in Japan. The findings suggest that Japanese unions in the sample substantially reduced both productivity and profitability, as well as regular wages net of bonuses and fringes. These three union effects were considerably smaller in small and medium-size firms than in large firms, perhaps because many of the small and medium-size firms were subcontractors that were pressed by the firms contracting them to cut costs and increase productivity.
Wage Rule Formation in the Aerospace Industry
Authors: Erickson Christopher L.
Published: June 2015

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.
The Economic Progress of Black Women, 1940–1980: Occupational Distribution and Relative Wages
Authors: Cunningham James S. , Zalokar Nadja
Published: June 2015

This paper uses Census data on women's wages and occupations from the years 1940–80 to examine long-term trends in black women's relative economic status. The paper links black women's increased relative wages after 1940 to their entry, especially after 1960, into occupations and industries in which they were previously unrepresented, most notably factory jobs and clerical work. The authors find little evidence that convergence in the characteristics of black and white women (increasingly similar education, for example) is responsible for black women's increased relative wages and occupational status and conclude that black women's improved economic status after 1940 was largely due to decreases in racial discrimination by occupation and industry. They also find that in the South racial discrimination had greater adverse effects on black women, and began to decrease later, than in the rest of the country.
The Effect of Hospital Bargaining Unit Structure on Industrial Relations Outcomes
Authors: Schwarz Joshua L. , Koziara Karen S.
Published: June 2015

Since the passage of the 1974 Health Care Amendments to the National Labor Relations Act, an implicit premise of public policy has been that multiple bargaining units in hospitals would lead to an increased incidence of wage leapfrogging, jurisdictional disputes, and strikes. This examination of two sets of hospitals in 1988, which had bargaining units ranging in number from zero to ten, finds little support for these assumed relationships. Only hospitals with five or six units had wage settlements that were higher than in hospitals with one unit, and then only for two of six occupations studied. Only hospitals with three or four units had more work assignment disputes than hospitals with one unit. Hospitals with four, six, or seven units averaged one more strike than hospitals with one unit over the 1980–88 period, but strikes per contract were higher only for hospitals with six units.
Swedish Wage-Earner Funds: An Experiment in Economic Democracy
Authors: Pontusson Jonas , Kuruvilla Sarosh
Published: June 2015

This article analyzes the performance of the “wage-earner funds” established in Sweden in 1983—collective share-holding funds financed by special payroll and profits taxes. The authors' analysis indicates that although the wage-earner funds generally met the financial objectives set by the 1983 legislation, their significance in promoting “wage solidarity” (wage determination based on the work performed rather than on firm or industry profitability) and in providing workers with substantial influence over corporate decisions was limited by the size of their stockholdings and the seven-year (1984–90) restriction on the inflow of revenues into the funds. The authors conclude that the funds achieved little in terms of furthering economic democracy when compared to the effects of the network of industrial and economic democracy legislation enacted in the 1970s in Sweden.
The Wage Mobility of Minimum Wage Workers
Authors: Smith Ralph E. , Vavrichek Bruce
Published: June 2015

Using longitudinal data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, the authors examine the earnings mobility of workers employed at the minimum wage. Results indicate that over 60% of workers who were earning the minimum wage in the mid-1980s were earning higher wages one year later; for those with gains, the typical rise was nearly 20%. A significant minority of workers, however—most of them lacking a high school diploma or working on a part-time basis—did not advance beyond the minimum wage between the two survey dates.
Product Quality Improvement through Employee Participation: The Effects of Unionization and Joint Union-Management Administration
Authors: Cooke William N.
Published: June 2015

This study investigates the effectiveness of employee participation in achieving product quality improvement in union versus nonunion settings and in programs unilaterally administered by management versus programs with joint union-management administration. An analysis of data from two surveys of manufacturing firm managers suggests that among unionized firms, those with jointly administered programs achieved significantly greater improvements in product quality than did those with more traditional, adversarial collective bargaining relationships (that is, with no participation programs), but those with programs administered solely by management fared no better than those with no programs. The gains associated with jointly administered programs in unionized firms were at least equal to the gains associated with participation programs in nonunion firms.
Wage-Pension Trade-offs in Collective Agreements
Authors: Gunderson Morley , Hyatt Douglas , Pesando James E.
Published: June 2015

Analyzing 98 matched collective agreements and flat benefit pension plans in Ontario in 1984, the authors find evidence of a significant trade-off between wages and an actuarially constructed summary measure of the expected future pension costs for employers. With respect to the separate components of the pension plans, they find a significant trade-off between wages and the main item that is bargained over—the flat benefit rate—but not between wages and most of the early and postponed retirement options. These results obtain when the pension variables are specified as a proportion of wages, to capture the assumption that the generosity of pension plans is reflected in replacement rates, and when simultaneous equation procedures are used to account for the possible endogeneity of pensions; the trade-off disappears, however, when the pension variables are specified in dollar amounts.
Dimensions of Local Union Effectiveness
Authors: Hammer Tove H. , Wazeter David L.
Published: June 2015

The authors develop a model of union effectiveness based on an analysis of organizational goals and use it to interpret data on 511 teachers' union locals in Pennsylvania. A factor analysis identifies five dimensions of union effectiveness in the locals: the quality or extent of (a) member participation, (b) the union's preparations for negotiations, (c) the union's involvement in political and civic activities, (d) a “union mentality” (union members' perception of the union as a political interest group representing them rather than merely an association that “meets and confers” with the school administration), and (e) the union's leadership. All of these dimensions except (b) are found to contribute significantly to overall union effectiveness; (d) and (e) are the most important components.
Wage Effects of Increased Union Coverage: Methodological Considerations and New Evidence
Authors: Belman Dale L. , Voos Paula B.
Published: June 2015

Although many studies show a positive relationship between extent of unionization and union members' wages, some analysts suggest that this relationship could reflect a concentration of labor organization in industries with potentially high wage gains, rather than unions' efficacy in raising wages. Consistent with that speculation, studies across occupations or geographic areas generally show a much weaker relationship between unionization and wages than do studies across industries. The authors of this study argue, however, that the weakness of the relationship found in some empirical research is due to the use of data sets mixing local market industries, characterized by local bargaining, with national market industries, characterized by national bargaining. An empirical analysis supports this hypothesis: wages are positively correlated with the extent of unionization in a local market industry (supermarkets), but not in a national market industry (aerospace).
Union Membership and Coverage Files from the Current Population Surveys: Note
Authors: Hirsch Barry T. , Macpherson David A.
Published: June 2015

This note informs readers about the availability of disaggregated annual unionization data compiled from the Current Population Surveys (CPS). Union membership, membership density, and contract coverage density are calculated for employed civilian wage and salary workers from the monthly CPS for January 1983 through December 1991. Workers are classified by demographic and labor market characteristics, industry, occupation, state, metropolitan area, and state-by-industry. The union membership and coverage files described in the note are available from the authors, without charge, in machine-readable form.
The Effect of Veterans Benefits on Education and Earnings
Authors: Angrist Joshua D.
Published: June 2015

Veterans benefits that subsidize education and training constitute the largest federal program for student aid. Using data from the 1987 Survey of Veterans, the author presents estimates of the effect of veterans benefits on schooling completed since entering the military and on subsequent earnings. Veterans benefits are estimated to increase schooling by roughly 1.4 years, which implies annual earnings approximately 6% higher than would have been expected in the absence of the benefits. This premium appears to accrue primarily to the 77% of benefit users who attended college or graduate school.
How Common is Workplace Transformation and Who Adopts it?
Authors: Osterman Paul
Published: June 2015

The author, using data on 694 U.S. manufacturing establishments from a 1992 survey, examines the incidence of innovative work practices (teams, job rotation, quality circles, and Total Quality Management) and investigates what variables, including human resource practices, are associated with the adoption of these practices. He finds that about 35% of private sector establishments with 50 or more employees made substantial use of flexible work organization in 1992. Some factors associated with an establishment's adoption of these practices are being in an internationally competitive product market, having a technology that requires high levels of skill, following a “high road” strategy that emphasizes variety, service, and quality rather than low cost, and using such human resource practices as high levels of training and innovative pay systems.
The Effects of Minimum Wages on Wage Dispersion and Employment: Evidence from the U.K. Wages Councils
Authors: Machin Stephen , Manning Alan
Published: June 2015

Using data on Wages Council coverage from the United Kingdom New Earnings Survey, the authors examine the impact of mandated minimum wages on wage dispersion and employment in the United Kingdom in the 1980s. They find evidence that a dramatic decline in the toughness of the regulation imposed by the Wages Councils through the 1980s—a decline, that is, in the level of the minimum wage relative to the average wage—significantly contributed to widening wage dispersion over those years. There is, however, no evidence of an increase in employment resulting from the weakening bite of the Wages Council minimum pay rates. Instead, consistent with the conclusions of several recent U.S. studies, the findings suggest that the minimum wage had either no effect or a positive effect on employment.
Wage Effects of the Move toward Free Markets in East Germany
Authors: Bird Edward J. , Schwarze Johannes , Wagner Gert G.
Published: June 2015

This analysis of data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the years 1989–91 illuminates important changes in the structure of wages that were occurring in the former East Germany during its transition toward a capitalist economy—and changes that are probably occurring in other countries in Eastern Europe as well. Under the new capitalist wage regime, workers realized significant returns to schooling gained under socialism, but no significant returns to work experience. Because work experience is the largest element in the human capital of older workers, their wages fell under the new system; and the results suggest that their wages will continue to fall relative to those of younger workers. Generous transfer payments from western Germany may prevent an absolute decline in living standards of these workers. Older workers in other eastern countries, however, will have no such social assistance, and their living standards will probably fall.
New Estimates of the Effect of Marijuana and Cocaine Use on Wages
Authors: Kaestner Robert
Published: June 2015

Using the 1984 and 1988 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this study provides an update of several previous cross-sectional estimates of the effect of illicit drug use on wages, as well as the first longitudinal estimates of that effect. The cross-sectional results, which are generally consistent with the surprising findings of previous research, suggest that illicit drug use has a large, positive effect on wages. The longitudinal estimates, which control for unobserved heterogeneity in the sample, are mixed: among men, the estimated wage effects of both marijuana and cocaine use are negative, but among women, the effect of cocaine use remains positive and large. Because the longitudinal model is imprecisely estimated, however, those results are inconclusive.
Protection, Trade, and Wages: Evidence from U.S. Manufacturing
Authors: Gaston Noel , Trefler Daniel
Published: June 2015

This paper investigates the effects of international trade policy on wages in U.S. manufacturing industries in 1983. The data set combines micro labor market data with comprehensive data on tariffs and nontariff trade barriers such as quotas and antidumping duties. The authors find that workers in unprotected, export-oriented industries had higher wages than workers with similar observable characteristics in protected, import-competing industries; more specifically, exports had a positive wage effect and imports had a smaller negative wage effect. Other findings are that nontariff barriers had no significant effect on wages, and tariffs appear to have had a large negative wage effect, even after the authors control for the trade protection received by low-wage industries.
Employee Participation Programs, Group-Based Incentives, and Company Performance: A Union-Nonunion Comparison
Authors: Cooke William N.
Published: June 2015

This analysis examines whether union representation positively or negatively influences the effectiveness of employee participation programs and group-based incentives in improving firm performance. Examined at the firm level, a model of the independent and interaction effects of participation, profit and gain sharing, and union representation is estimated against data on 841 manufacturing firms in Michigan in 1989. The evidence indicates that employee participation programs contributed substantially more to performance in unionized firms than in nonunion firms, whereas profit and gain sharing programs contributed substantially more to performance in nonunion firms than in unionized firms.
Gender Discrimination by Gender: Voting in a Professional Society
Authors: Dillingham Alan E. , Ferber Marianne A. , Hamermesh Daniel S.
Published: June 2015

Although most economic theories of discrimination hypothesize that discrimination stems from people's discriminatory tastes, no empirical study of the labor market has examined tastes for discrimination directly or considered people's willingness to trade off other preferences to indulge their tastes for discrimination. The authors study this trade-off using a set of data on votes for officers in a professional association in 1989 and 1990. They find that female voters were much more likely to vote for female than for male candidates, and that other affinities between them and a candidate had little effect on their choices. Male voters, in contrast, were indifferent to the candidates' gender, and their choices were easily altered by other affinities to a candidate.
Gender Earnings Differentials in Total Pay, Base Pay, and Contingent Pay
Authors: Chauvin Keith W. , Ash Ronald A.
Published: June 2015

Using data from a 1988 survey of business school graduates, the authors analyze gender differentials in earnings by form of pay—total pay, base pay, and contingent pay—with controls for human capital, occupation, job level, and individual characteristics. The results indicate that within narrowly defined occupations and jobs, most of the unexplained difference in total pay between the men and women in the sample was due to gender differences in the portion of pay that was contingent on job performance. The greater importance of contingent pay in the earnings of the men than of the women may reflect differential treatment of men and women by firms, gender differences in performance, gender differences in risk preferences, or some other sorting mechanism.
Flexible Production and the Transformation of Industrial Relations in the Motion Picture and Television Industry
Authors: Paul Alan , Kleingartner Archie
Published: June 2015

The authors trace the development of the motion picture and television production industry's three-tier compensation scheme, showing how incremental solutions to unanticipated problems broadly transformed labor relations by changing key institutional relationships. This example, they argue, demonstrates that a fundamental transformation in the union-employer relationship need not originate in high-level strategic planning, and may represent hope for the survival of collective bargaining in other industries.
Child Poverty in Sweden and the United States: The Effect of Social Transfers and Parental Labor Force Participation
Authors: Jäntti Markus , Danziger Sheldon
Published: June 2015

The authors compare the incidence and some of the causes of child poverty in Sweden and the United States in selected years using data from the Luxembourg Income Study. The U.S. sample is restricted to white non-hispanic children to present the most favorable comparison with Sweden's more homogeneous population. When parents' labor force participation and demographic characteristics are taken into account, the proportion of children in families whose income prior to social transfers and taxes was below the poverty line (defined as 40% of median disposable income adjusted for family size) is very similar in the two countries. Because all poor children in Sweden received transfers and many in the United States did not, however, and because transfers were more generous in Sweden, a much lower percentage of children in Sweden than in the United States were poor after social transfers and taxes, regardless of parents' work effort or other characteristics.
Is Job Stability Declining in the U.S. Economy?
Authors: Swinnerton Kenneth A. , Wial Howard
Published: June 2015

Using Current Population Survey data, the authors examine changes in job stability during the 1980s. For consecutive four-year periods during 1979–91, they present estimates of four-year retention rates for workers with varying levels of employer-specific seniority. Retention rates of low-seniority workers rose between 1979–83 and 1983–87 but fell between 1983–87 and 1987–91. Retention rates for 1987–91 were typically lower than those for 1979–83, suggesting a secular decline in job stability during the 1980s.
The Salary Effect of Faculty Unionism in Canada
Authors: Rees Daniel I. , Kumar Pradeep , Fisher Dorothy W.
Published: June 2015

Despite the fact that the faculty at most universities in Canada are organized, there has been little investigation of the impact of unionization on Canadian faculty compensation. The results of this analysis of data collected from Statistics Canada publications and other sources for the period 1972–91 suggest an average salary premium of between 2% and 3% for faculty belonging to a certified bargaining unit, compared to nonunionized faculty. So-called “special plans,” private agreements under which faculty associations annually negotiate salaries and other terms of employment but are denied the right to strike, appear to have had a similar effect on salaries.
The Effects of Gender Composition in Academic Departments on Faculty Turnover
Authors: Tolbert Pamela S. , Simons Tal , Andrews Alice , Rhee Jaehoon
Published: June 2015

Using data collected from a sample of 50 academic departments over the years 1977–88, the authors test several hypotheses about the effects of departmental gender composition on faculty turnover. They find that as the proportion of women in a department grew, turnover among women also increased, confirming the prediction that increases in the relative size of a minority will result in increased intergroup competition and conflict. The evidence also suggests, however, that when the proportion of female faculty reached a threshold of about 35–40%, turnover among women began to decline. The proportion of women had a negligible or negative impact on turnover among male faculty. The authors discuss the implications of this research for the implementation of affirmative action policies.
Why Do Workers Join Unions? The Case of Israel
Authors: Haberfeld Yitchak
Published: June 2015

The author argues that because almost all Israeli wage earners were covered by collective agreements in the early 1980s, neither the “collective voice” hypothesis nor the earnings premium hypothesis—the two prevailing explanations of workers' decision to join unions—was then applicable to Israel. Using 1982 survey data on Israeli workers, he examines four alternative explanations of unionization in Israel: non-work benefits; political ideology; social values, especially workers' attitude toward unions as a means for solidarity; and work and demographic attributes, such as employing unit size, gender, ethnicity, education, and age. He finds that Israeli workers' decision to join the Israeli Federation of Labor—the Histadrut—can be explained in part by non-work benefits of the Histadrut (health insurance and legal aid, for example) and by the workers' social values.
The Gender Pay Gap, Fringe Benefits, and Occupational Crowding
Authors: Solberg Eric , Laughlin Teresa
Published: June 2015

Using data from the 1991 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the authors estimate earnings equations for each of seven occupational categories and the aggregate sample. When fringe benefits are excluded from the compensation measure, a gender coefficient is statistically significant (that is, women are found to have received significantly lower compensation than men) within six of the seven occupational categories, the exception being the most female-dominated category. When an index of compensation that includes fringe benefits is used, however, a gender coefficient is significant in only one category, which contains relatively heterogeneous jobs. Gender-specific regressions are used to estimate what part of the earnings gap between men and women is due to differences in traits. The results indicate that occupational assignment is the primary determinant of the pay gap, a result that is consistent with a “crowding” explanation of that gap.
Fixing Women's Wages: The Effectiveness of Comparable Worth Policies
Authors: Ames Lynda J.
Published: June 2015

The author discusses some problems that can prevent comparable worth legislation from achieving meaningful gender wage equity, which she defines as the elimination of gender as a factor in wage setting. She then tests the comparable worth policies of two Canadian provinces against the same set of job content data from a 1988 survey of health care workers. Whereas Manitoba's comparable worth policy, she finds, would achieve gender wage equity if applied to this set of jobs, Ontario's would not, and would even result in new and capricious instances of inequity. She argues that continual scrutiny, including comparative analysis, of comparable worth policies is needed not only in order to identify the most effective policy designs, but also to guard against efforts to undercut legislation through manipulation of implementation procedures.
The Wage Effects of Sexual Orientation Discrimination
Authors: Badgett M. V. Lee
Published: June 2015

This study is the first to apply the econometric tools developed in the study of race and gender discrimination to the newer question of sexual orientation discrimination. Analyzing pooled 1989–91 data from a national random sample, the General Social Survey, the author finds that gay and bisexual male workers earned from 11% to 27% less than heterosexual male workers with the same experience, education, occupation, marital status, and region of residence. There is also evidence that lesbian and bisexual women earned less than heterosexual women, but this result is not consistently statistically significant across all variable definitions and specifications.
The Impact of Pension Benefits on the Distribution of Earned Income
Authors: Benedict Mary Ellen , Shaw Kathryn
Published: June 2015

Using standard measures of income inequality and detailed pension benefit information on participants in the 1983 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the authors investigate how pension benefits affected the distribution of earned income. The results suggest that private pensions increased annual income inequality (relative to inequality observed in the distribution of wage income) by only about 2% among all employed individuals, but by 21% among unionized workers. Further analysis indicates that private pensions raised annual income inequality primarily by increasing the rate of return to tenure, possibly through pension “backloading” (setting accruals to grow when earnings rise near retirement) and the increasing incidence of pensions with age. Private pensions had little effect on estimates of the distribution of expected lifetime income, but the addition to the analysis of social security benefits (public pensions) strongly reduced inequality in that distribution.
International Trade and Worker Displacement: Evaluation of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program
Authors: Decker Paul T. , Corson Walter
Published: June 2015

The Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program offers unemployment compensation and re-employment adjustment services to workers who lose their jobs due to increased import competition. In 1981 and again in 1988, the program rules were changed to shift the emphasis from compensation to training. This paper examines the pre-layoff characteristics and post-layoff labor market experience of two nationally representative samples of TAA program participants, one of which participated in the program just before the 1988 amendments and the other just after. The authors find that the TAA program was well targeted during the time period studied: it served workers who were permanently displaced from their jobs and who experienced significant earnings losses due to their layoff. They find no evidence, however, tha training had a substantial positive impact on earnings of TAA trainees, at least in the first three years after their initial unemployment insurance claim.
Worker Participation and Productivity in Labor-Managed and Participatory Capitalist Firms: A Meta-Analysis
Authors: Doucouliagos Chris
Published: June 2015

Using meta-analytic techniques, the author synthesizes the results of 43 published studies to investigate the effects on productivity of various forms of worker participation: worker participation in decision making; mandated codetermination; profit sharing; worker ownership (employee stock ownership or individual worker ownership of the firm's assets); and collective ownership of assets (workers' collective ownership of reserves over which they have no individual claim). He finds that codetermination laws are negatively associated with productivity, but profit sharing, worker ownership, and worker participation in decision making are all positively associated with productivity. All the observed correlations are stronger among labor-managed firms (firms owned and controlled by workers) than among participatory capitalist firms (firms adopting one or more participation schemes involving employees, such as ESOPs or quality circles).
Discrimination in the Payment of Full-Time Wage Premiums
Authors: Averett Susan L. , Hotchkiss Julie L.
Published: June 2015

This study investigates how many hours must be worked per week in order for workers in different race and gender groups to receive a high-hours (full-time) wage premium. An analysis of 1989 Current Population Survey data shows that across occupations, both white and black men received a full-time wage premium for working at least 33 hours per week, whereas white women had to work at least 37 hours and black women at least 39 hours to receive the premium. Controlling for occupation changes the threshold for black women to 33 hours, but does not change the results for the other groups. The authors find that the observed differences account for, at most, two percentage points of the wage differentials across race and gender.
Gender Differences in Departures from a Large Firm
Authors: Sicherman Nachum
Published: June 2015

Previous studies have found that although women have higher initial quit rates than men, the quit rates of the two groups converge as time on the job lengthens. This study of personnel records from a large company for the years 1971–80 confirms that finding in an analysis that aggregates observations across all reasons for quits. Disaggregation of the data by reason for quitting, however, reveals marked, systematic differences between men and women. Notably, a higher proportion of women than men left their jobs for non-market-related reasons such as household duties and illness in the family; and women were much more likely than men to name higher wages, and not better opportunities, as a reason for switching jobs. Also, the effects of tenure and education on quit rates differed significantly across both gender and reasons for departure.
The Effects of Job Turnover on the Training of Men and Women
Authors: Royalty Anne Beeson
Published: June 2015

Human capital theory predicts that workers will be more likely to invest in job training the longer they expect to remain working. The author tests that prediction using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth by examining the effect of the predicted probability of job turnover on the probability of receiving training. She finds that predicted turnover is significantly related to receiving training. Her preliminary analysis confirms the finding of previous studies that men undergo more training than women. The gender difference in training is 25% smaller, however, in an analysis that controls for the predicted probability of job turnover—an approach not taken in previous studies. Another finding is that the positive effect of education on training that has been reported previously is due to differences in turnover by education level rather than a pure complementarity between education and training.
Is Workers' Compensation Covering Uninsured Medical Costs? Evidence from the “Monday Effect”
Authors: Card David , McCall Brian P.
Published: June 2015

Steady increases in the cost of medical care, coupled with a rise in the fraction of workers who lack medical insurance, create incentives for workers who are injured off-the-job to file Workers' Compensation claims. Many analysts have interpreted the high rate of Monday injuries—especially hard-to-monitor injuries like back strains—as evidence of such claims. The analysis in this paper, however, which uses data on “first reports” of injuries filed with the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry between 1985 and 1989, indicates that workers with low probabilities of medical coverage are no more likely to report a Monday injury than are other workers. Moreover, employers are no more likely to challenge the Monday injury claims of workers with low medical coverage rates than the claims filed by workers with high coverage rates.
Railroad Deregulation: Pricing Reforms, Shipper Responses, and the Effects on Labor
Authors: MacDonald James M. , Cavalluzzo Linda C.
Published: June 2015

The Staggers Rail Act of 1980 relaxed restrictions on pricing and eased abandonment procedures in the railroad industry. Although the Act made virtually no reference to labor, its impact on labor has been dramatic. The long-term contraction of industry employment accelerated quite sharply after 1980. Wages increased until 1985, then declined substantially. The authors, whose empirical analysis uses data on aggregate rail employment for the years 1963–90, Current Population Survey data for 1973–88, and evidence from collective bargaining agreements for 1971–90, argue that pricing adjustments under the Staggers Act led to changes in shipper behavior, which in turn allowed for large declines in the derived demand for rail labor despite increasing output; and the observed pattern of wage change followed from the realization of the Act's eventual effects on employment.
Do Injured Workers Pay for Reasonable Accommodation?
Authors: Gunderson Morley , Hyatt Douglas
Published: June 2015

The authors present evidence on the extent to which injured workers in Ontario in 1979–88 “paid,” through lower wages, for “reasonable accommodation” requirements designed to facilitate their return to work after their injury. The data source, the Ontario Workers#x0027; Compensation Board's Survey of Workers with Permanent Impairments, provides detailed information on two categories of accommodation: workplace modifications, such as customized equipment and shortened work schedules; and reductions in physical demands, such as exemption from bending and heavy lifting. Employers who rehired their own injured workers appear to have absorbed virtually all the cost of the accommodations they made, but employers who hired workers who were injured at other firms shifted a substantial portion of the cost of workplace modifications (though not the cost of reductions in physical demands) onto the injured workers, in the form of lower pay.
Workers#x0027; Compensation Recipiency in Union and Nonunion Workplaces
Authors: Hirsch Barry T. , MacPherson David A. , Dumond J. Michael
Published: June 2015

This study estimates union effects on workers' compensation indemnity claims in 1977–92, based on individual panel data constructed from the March Current Population Survey. Union members were substantially more likely to receive workers' compensation benefits than were similar nonunion workers, and they were more sensitive to variation in benefit levels and waiting periods. The authors suggest that differences in union, as compared to nonunion, workplaces arise because workers are provided with information from their union representatives, supervisors are more likely to inform injured workers about workers' compensation filing procedures and less likely to discourage workers from filing claims, workers are less likely to fear being penalized for filing claims, and management has less discretion and ability to monitor workers and penalize them for questionable claims. The findings suggest that communication of relevant information to workers is an important determinant of workers' compensation recipiency.
Wage Changes and Intrafirm Job Mobility over the Business Cycle: Two Case Studies
Authors: Solon Gary , Whatley Warren , Stevens Ann Huff
Published: June 2015

Despite the many reasons to expect sluggish wage adjustment, recent evidence suggests that real wages are quite procyclical (growing more rapidly during economic expansions than during recessions) and that this wage procyclicality pertains even to workers who stay with the same employer. One possible explanation for these findings is the old hypothesis that a portion of firms' cyclical adjustment of labor costs is achieved not by changing the wages paid in particular jobs, but by changing the quality of labor assigned to those jobs. The authors' analysis of interwar personnel data from the Ford Motor Company and the A.M. Byers Company supports that hypothesis. The authors recognize that case studies of only two firms cannot be definitive, but they conclude that cyclicality in workers' job assignments deserves further attention.
Compensating Differentials and Unmeasured Ability in the Labor Market for Nurses: Why Do Hospitals Pay More?
Authors: Schumacher Edward J. , Hirsch Barry T.
Published: June 2015

Registered nurses (RNs) employed in hospitals realize a large wage advantage relative to RNs employed elsewhere. Cross-sectional estimates indicate a hospital RN wage advantage of roughly 20%. This paper examines possible sources of the hospital premium, a topic of some interest given the current shifting of medical care out of hospitals. Longitudinal analysis of Current Population Survey data for 1979–94 suggests that a third to a half of the advantage is due to unmeasured worker ability, and the authors conclude that the remainder of the advantage probably reflects compensating differentials for hospital disamenities. Supporting these conclusions is evidence that hospital RNs have higher cognitive ability and higher-quality job experience than non-hospital RNs, and indications that shift work accounts for roughly 10% of the hospital premium.
Public Sector Earnings and the Extent of Unionization
Authors: Belman Dale , Heywood John S. , Lund John
Published: June 2015

Many studies have examined the influence of union density (union members as a percentage of all workers) on earnings in the private sector, but few such studies have looked at the public sector. Using data from the 1991 Current Population Survey, this study estimates the determinants of earnings for state and local government employees in both the union and nonunion sectors. The extent of public sector unionization appears to be positively correlated with earnings for both state and local government workers and for those covered and not covered by collective agreements. Although the effect for non-covered employees is smaller than that for covered employees, both effects are larger than those typically found in similar estimates for the private sector. The authors also find that bargaining structure has some influence on earnings, with the most consistent effect being a positive influence of arbitration on the earnings of local government workers.
Loyalty, Voice, and Intent to Exit a Union Firm: A Conceptual and Empirical Analysis
Authors: Boroff Karen E. , Lewin David
Published: June 2015

Drawing on economics and organizational behavior concepts, the authors develop a model of employee “voice” (defined in terms of the frequency of grievance filing) and employee intent to exit the firm. They test the model using data on a sample of nonmanagement employees of a large multinational telecommunications firm in 1991. Employees' loyalty to the firm and their perception of the grievance procedure's effectiveness are the main independent variables. In tests that focus exclusively on employees who reported having been treated unfairly by the employer at some time, loyalty is found to have had a consistently strong negative association with both the exercise of voice and intent to exit the firm. One implication of these findings is that loyal employees who experienced unfair workplace treatment primarily responded by suffering in silence.
The Impact of Psychiatric Disorders on Labor Market Outcomes
Authors: Ettner Susan L. , Frank Richard G. , Kessler Ronald C.
Published: June 2015

Analyzing data on 2,225 men and 2,401 women from the National Comorbidity Survey, the authors examine the impact of psychiatric disorders on employment and, among those employed, work hours and income. They find that psychiatric disorders significantly reduced employment among both men and women. They also find evidence of small reductions in the conditional work hours of men and a substantial drop in the conditional income of men and women, although these findings are somewhat sensitive to the estimation methods and specification of the model.
How do Unemployment Insurance and Recall Expectations Affect on-the-job Search among Workers Who Receive Advance Notice of Layoff?
Authors: Burgess Paul L. , Low Stuart A.
Published: June 2015

This paper explores how advance notice of layoffs, recall (rehiring) expectations, and unemployment insurance (UI) benefits affected on-the-job search among a random sample of Arizona UI recipients in 1975–76. The analysis, which includes extensive controls for the characteristics of workers and their jobs, indicates that pre-unemployment search increased with length of notice and decreased with expected recall. Also, among workers not expecting recall, pre-unemployment search decreased with the level of UI benefits available after layoff. The authors argue that improved experience rating would encourage firms to give employees advance notice when layoffs are imminent, and re-employment bonuses for workers with zero or short unemployment spells would encourage early search.
A New Look at the Union Wage Premium during the Early Years of the AFL
Authors: Mullin Debbie
Published: June 2015

This study provides new evidence showing that the union wage premium in the late nineteenth century in the United States was lower than previously believed. Analysis of wage and productivity data from an 1890 survey of individual workers in Maine yields a 9.2% union-nonunion wage gap, once correction is made for self-selection bias (the disproportionate representation in unions of workers who, because of skills and other attributes, would probably gain above-average wages even in the absence of unions). The author argues that business cycle conditions and distinctive union dynamics can affect the results of analyses that employ the Heckman procedure, a common procedure designed to correct for self-selection bias.
Order from Chaos? The Effects of Early Labor Market Experiences on Adult Labor Market Outcomes
Authors: Gardecki Rosella , Neumark David
Published: June 2015

This paper examines the consequences of initial periods of “churning” or “mobility” in the labor market, to help assess whether faster transitions to stable employment relationships—as envisioned by advocates of school-to-work programs—would be likely to lead to better adult labor market outcomes. An analysis of National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data for the years 1979–92 yields modest evidence, at best, linking early job market stability to better labor market outcomes. The authors find that for both genders, adult labor market outcomes (defined as of the late 20s or early to mid-30s) are for the most part unrelated to early labor market experiences. This evidence does not support efforts to explicitly target the school-to-work transition, insofar as doing so implies changing the structure of youth labor markets so that workers form earlier and firmer attachments to employers, industries, or occupations.
Union Power, Cost of Job Loss, and Workers' Effort
Authors: Green Francis , McIntosh Steven
Published: June 2015

The authors hypothesize that the effectiveness of external threats in raising workers' effort is mediated by, among other labor market conditions, the presence or absence of a powerful union. In particular, they argue that because powerful unions reduce the potency of the external threat of job loss (by making it more difficult for employers to dismiss workers), the pace of work is less responsive to such a threat in strongly unionized plants than in weakly unionized plants. The results of an analysis of data from the 1990 Workplace Industrial Relations Survey in Britain support this hypothesis. The analysis also yields evidence that effort is increased where workers are rewarded individually according to results, and where there are various communication channels between workers and management.
Wage Loss following Displacement: The Role of Union Coverage
Authors: Kuhn Peter , Sweetman Arthur
Published: June 2015

Using two Canadian data sets, the authors explore the role of union coverage in displaced workers' wage losses. While only 32% of the workers had unionized jobs prior to displacement, the wage loss suffered by these workers represented about 80% of the wages lost by all displaced workers in both samples. Losing union status was associated with large losses whether or not a worker switched industries after displacement. Extrapolating the results to the United States, the authors estimate that one-third to one-half of U.S. displaced workers' wage losses may be due purely to the loss of union coverage.
The Earnings of Immigrant Men in Canada: Job Tenure, Cohort, and Macroeconomic Conditions
Authors: McDonald James Ted , Worswick Christopher
Published: June 2015

Using eleven cross-sectional surveys spanning 1981–92, the authors compare the earnings of immigrant and native-born men in Canada. Apparently, recent immigrant cohorts have suffered no decline in earnings. Job tenure is found to be a strongly significant determinant of earnings; previous estimates of immigrant earnings differentials, which have not incorporated job tenure information, may partly reflect differences in tenure between immigrants and the native-born. When the sample is restricted to pairs of surveys that are close to the Census survey years, the estimates of cohort effects are sensitive to the choice of survey years. One possible explanation for that sensitivity is suggested by the finding that macroeconomic conditions are a statistically significant determinant of the rate of assimilation of recent immigrants.
The Effects of Industrial Relations Factors on Health and Safety Conflict
Authors: Hebdon Robert , Hyatt Douglas
Published: June 2015

Expansion of the rights of individual workers to refuse unsafe work and to make anonymous health and safety complaints has met with concerns that these rights might be misused so as to increase union bargaining power or to otherwise harass employers. The authors construct a database that merges work refusals and health and safety complaints with collective bargaining schedules, impasses, grievance arbitrations, and bargaining unit characteristics for 10,193 Ontario units in 1988 to determine how frequently these rights were exercised, whether they were more likely to be used during periods when collective agreements were being negotiated, and whether refusals and complaints were associated with other forms of industrial conflict. Although the exercise of these rights was more likely the more adversarial the industrial relations climate, the authors find little evidence that it was used for concerted harassment of employers.