bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
U.S. Multinationals and the Control of Subsidiary Employment Policies
Authors: Ferner Anthony , Bélanger Jacques , Tregaskis Olga , Morley Michael , Quintanilla Javier
Published: June 2015

The authors examine whether U.S. multinational companies (MNCs) are distinctive in the degree to which they exert direct control over policy on human resources and employment relations (HR/ER) in their foreign subsidiaries. The results confirm the distinctiveness of U.S. MNCs in their greater degree of direct control of policy, compared not only with non-U.S. firms but with every other major nationality or national grouping of MNCs: France, Germany, the Nordic group, the rest of Europe, and Japan. U.S. control of HR/ER policy is greater not just in the aggregate, but for most individual items. Finally, while levels of control over subsidiaries vary among host countries studied (Canada, Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom) the greater U.S. orientation to control relative to non-U.S. MNCs holds regardless of host.
Control over Employment Practice in Multinationals: Subsidiary Functions, Corporate Structures, and National Systems
Authors: Edwards Tony , Tregaskis Olga , Collings David , Jalette Patrice , Susaeta Lourdes
Published: June 2015

The authors use comparable data on employment practices in multinationals located in four countries—Canada, Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom—to examine the question, How can we explain variation among national subsidiaries of MNCs in the extent and form of control on employment matters? In accounting for variation in both output and social control, the authors explore three potential influences: the functions of the national subsidiaries within the wider companies; the role of host country constraints; and the structures of the multinational, including the HR function. They examine the effect of each set of factors in the presence of the others, something that previous research has been unable to do, and show that each is a significant influence. Their study breaks new ground by investigating the functions of subsidiaries and the link with control.
Is Job Quality Becoming More Unequal?
Authors: Green Francis , Mostafa Tarek , Parent-Thirion Agnès , Vermeylen Greet , van Houten Gijs , Biletta Isabella , Lyly-Yrjanainen Maija
Published: June 2015

The authors examine trends in nonwage aspects of job quality in Europe. They focus on both the level and the dispersion of job quality. Theories differ in their predictions for these trends and for whether national patterns will converge. Data from the Fifth European Working Conditions Survey are used, in conjunction with earlier waves, to construct four indices of nonwage job quality: Work Quality, Work Intensity, Good Physical Environment, and Working Time Quality. Jobs are tracked from 1995 to 2010, across and within 15 European Union countries. The social corporatist countries had the highest Work Quality and lowest dispersion for all four indices. Work Quality and Work Intensity each rose in several countries, and Working Time Quality rose in most. The dispersion of Working Time Quality, Work Intensity, and Good Physical Environment each fell in many countries, and there was little sign of national divergence.
Building Job Quality from the inside-out: Mexican Immigrants, Skills, and Jobs in the Construction Industry
Authors: Iskander Natasha , Lowe Nichola
Published: June 2015

Using an ethnographic case study of Mexican immigrant construction workers in two U.S. cities and in Mexico, the authors illustrate the contribution of immigrant skill as a resource for changing workplace practices. As a complement to explanations that situate the protection of job quality and the defense of skill to external institutions, the authors show that immigrants use collective learning practices to improve job quality from inside the work environment—that is to say from the inside-out. The authors also find that immigrants use collective skill-building practices to negotiate for improvements to their jobs; however, their ability to do so depends on the institutions that organize production locally. Particular attention is given to the quality of those industry institutions, noting that where they are more malleable, immigrant workers gain more latitude to alter their working conditions and their prospects for advancement.
Professionalization and Market Closure: The Case of Plumbing in India
Authors: Ranganathan Aruna
Published: June 2015

Professionalization has long been understood as a process of establishing market closure and monopoly control over work; however, in this article the author presents a case in which professionalization erodes rather than establishes occupational closure. She demonstrates how the Indian Plumbing Association (IPA), a newly formed organization of internationally trained plumbing contractors and consultants, has used the rhetoric and structures of professionalization to threaten pre-existing ethnicity-based closure enjoyed by traditional plumbers from the eastern state of Orissa. By employing a discourse of professionalism and by instituting codes, training, and certification programs, professionalization in this case has undermined Orissan plumbers by changing the basis of plumbing knowledge and opening entry to outsiders. The author concludes by suggesting that professionalization is a modern trope that does not necessarily imply monopoly benefits and higher job quality for all the members of a given occupational group.
Monopsony Power, Pay Structure, and Training
Authors: Muehlemann Samuel , Ryan Paul , Wolter Stefan C.
Published: June 2015

Although interest in monopsonistic influences on labor market outcomes has revived in recent years, only a few empirical studies provide direct evidence on this topic. In this article, the authors analyze the effect of monopsony power on pay structure, using a direct measure of labor market thinness. The authors find evidence of monopsony power, as firms facing fewer local competitors offer lower wages to skilled labor and trainees, but not to unskilled labor. The findings have important implications for the economic theory of training, as most recent models assume monopsonistic pay-setting for skilled labor, but not for trainees.
Going Abroad: HR Policies, National IR Systems, and Union Activity in Foreign Subsidiaries of U.S. Multinationals
Authors: Lawler John J. , Chang Po-Chien , Hong Woonki , Chen Shyh-Jer , Wu Pei-Chuan , Bae Johngseok
Published: June 2015

Previous research is limited regarding the effects of the HR policies of foreign subsidiaries of U.S. multinational companies on union activity. An important topic is the extent to which multinationals employ practices that can be used to reduce unionization in parent company domestic operations and whether they have the same effect in foreign subsidiaries. In this study, the authors examine the effects of a subsidiary's implementation of high-performance work systems, its greenfield site status, and its usage of contract or temporary workers on union activity within the subsidiary. Results from a survey of a number of geographically dispersed foreign subsidiaries of U.S.-based multinationals show that greenfield site status has a strong, negative effect on subsidiary union activity, whereas high-performance work systems have a more modest, negative effect. The authors also show that national IR system characteristics moderate the effect of HR policies, especially if enterprise unionism plays a dominant role in the host country.
Strategies of Disruption: Factory Unions Facing Asset-Strippers in Post-Communist Romania and Ukraine
Authors: Varga Mihai
Published: June 2015

The author uses ethnographic fieldwork to examine what forms of disruption trade unions use in resisting asset-strippers at four factories in the metal sector of post-Communist Romania and Ukraine. He shows how understanding disruption as differentiating among various targets and protest actions, and adapting actions to targets, allows researchers to make sense of how, when employers are uninterested in production, unions can effectively protest even if they cannot strike. In addition, he discusses how in many cases in Eastern Europe the search to create disruption is complicated by the persistence of nonadversarial forms of trade unionism coupled with employer actions that exploit such forms.
Union Recognition by Multinational Companies in China: A Dual Institutional Pressure Perspective
Authors: Kim Sunghoon , Han Jian , Zhao Longkai
Published: June 2015

Over the last decade, Chinese authorities have pressed foreign multinational companies to recognize official trade unions. Employing cross-classified multilevel modeling on a large data set (10,108 foreign-owned firms cross-embedded in 32 home countries and 755 Chinese cities), this study examines the antecedents of the varied positions of foreign-owned firms toward union recognition around the midpoint of the first decade of the 2000s—a time when the government-led union recognition campaign in China was gaining strength. Drawing on a dual institutional pressure perspective, the authors theorize that the likelihood that a foreign-owned firm will recognize a union depends on both the industrial relations system in the home country and the location of its operations in the host country. Specifically, a foreign-owned firm is more likely to recognize unions if it originated from a nation where the legitimacy of collective representation is high and if it is located in a Chinese city where union recognition is prevalent among Chinese-owned firms.
Temporary Weapons: Employers' Use of Temps against Organized Labor
Authors: Hatton Erin
Published: June 2015

Since the 1970s, U.S. employers have restructured their relationship to the labor market. This restructuring has included their rising use of nonstandard workers, particularly agency temps, and their systematic attacks on labor unions. These two trends are generally understood to be related but separate facets of a broader restructuring of the employment relationship. In this article, the author shows where and how these trends intersect by analyzing 106 labormanagement disputes. Employers use temps as weapons against unions in four primary ways: to prevent unions from forming, to weaken existing unions, to apply pressure on unions during negotiations, and to intimidate or harass striking workers. The author concludes that deploying agency temps in this way is a qualitatively new phenomenon—not simply a continuation of employers' longstanding practice of replacing union workers with “scab” labor.
The Changing Size Distribution of U.S. Trade Unions and its Description by Pareto's Distribution
Authors: Pencavel John
Published: June 2015

The size distribution of trade unions in the United States and changes in this distribution are documented. Because the most profound changes are taking place among very large unions, these are subject to special analysis by invoking Pareto's distribution—a new application of this distribution. Extensions to trade union wealth and to Britain are broached. The role of the public sector in these changes receives particular attention. A simple model helps account both for the logarithmic distribution of union membership and for the contrasting experiences of public- and private-sector unions since the 1970s.
The Changing Nature of Labor Unrest in China
Authors: Elfstrom Manfred , Kuruvilla Sarosh
Published: June 2015

A qualitative shift is underway in the nature of labor protest in China. Contrary to prior literature that characterized strikes as being largely defensive in nature, the authors suggest that since 2008, Chinese workers have been striking offensively for more money, better working conditions, and more respect from employers. They explain these developments using a “political process” model that suggests economic and political opportunities are sending “cognitive cues” to workers that they have increased leverage, leading them to be more assertive in their demands. Such cues include a growing labor shortage, new labor laws, and new media openness. Their argument is supported by a unique data set of strikes that the authors collected, two case studies of strikes in aerospace factories, and interviews with a variety of employment relations stakeholders.
Prevailing Preferences
Authors: Reynolds Jeremy E.
Published: June 2015

Studies of paid work hours have overlooked preferences partners have with respect to each other’s hours. The author uses the National Survey of Families and Households to examine how closely partners agree on the number of hours each should work. He also examines the extent to which actual hours reflect both partners’ preferences and factors that moderate the efficacy of each partner’s wishes. The analysis offers important new insights into work hours, work-hour constraints, and the negotiation of work hours between partners. The results indicate that partners often disagree about the number of hours each should work, and that although men’s hours reflect their own and their partner’s preferences equally, women’s hours are more closely tied to their own preferences. Still, changes in men’s and women’s actual hours are heavily influenced by factors that do not reflect their own or their partner’s preferences.
Balancing Efficiency, Equity, and Voice
Authors: Pohler Dionne M. , Luchak Andrew A.
Published: June 2015

Theory and research surrounding employee voice in organizations have often treated high-involvement work practices (HIWPs) as substitutes for unions. Drawing on recent theoretical developments in the field of industrial relations, specifically the collective voice/institutional response model of union impact and research on HIWPs in organizations, the authors propose that these institutions are better seen as complements whereby greater balance is achieved between efficiency, equity, and voice when HIWPs are implemented in the presence of unions. Based on a national sample of Canadian organizations, they find employees covered by a union experience fewer intensification pressures under higher levels of diffusion of HIWPs such that they work less unpaid overtime, have fewer grievances, and take fewer paid sick days. Job satisfaction is maximized under the combination of unions and HIWPs.
Does Low Wealth Constrain Long-Distance Migration?
Authors: McHenry Peter
Published: June 2015

Some families may have too little wealth (or liquidity) to finance a long-distance move, which may involve transportation costs and foregone earnings. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the author assesses whether wealth holdings directly influence migration decisions in the United States. The analysis focuses on long-distance migration and shows consistently that migration is common among households with little or negative net worth and that greater wealth does not increase the likelihood of migration. In addition, differential wealth holdings do not explain why minority groups and the less-educated are relatively unlikely to undertake long-distance moves. The author also finds little evidence that wealth holdings influence a person’s migration response to local labor demand shocks.
Why Do Unionized Workers Have More Nonfatal Occupational Injuries?
Authors: Donado Alejandro
Published: June 2015

Most empirical studies have estimated a positive union–nonunion “injury gap,” suggesting that unionized workers are more likely than their nonunion counterparts to have a nonfatal occupational injury. Using individual-level panel data for the first time in this type of study, the author explores several explanations for this puzzling result. He finds that controlling for time-invariant individual fixed effects already reduces the gap by around 40%. Some of the explanations he studies contribute to reducing this gap even further. The author does not, however, find evidence of the gap becoming negative, and the impact of unions on nonfatal injuries appears to be insignificant at best.
Internal Labor Markets Under External Market Pressures
Authors: Lee Jeong-Yeon
Published: June 2015

Through an empirical investigation of 11 Korean firms before and after the Asian financial crisis, the author examines the impact of increasing external market pressures on internal labor market (ILM) practices. In addition, the merits of ILMs are tested by capturing the reactions of white-collar managers within these firms. The author posits that 1) firms may desert ILM practices in the face of external pressures but do so in varying degrees, and 2) despite reduced values placed on firm-specific human capital in the marketplace, ILM practices continue to have merit in promoting consummate cooperation and delaying perfunctory cooperation. The findings generally support the hypotheses, and implications of these results for theory and practice are discussed.
Efficiency in Employee-Owned Enterprises
Authors: Arando Saioa , Gago Monica , Jones Derek C. , Kato Takao
Published: June 2015

The authors undertake the first econometric study of efficiency for Eroski, the largest member of the Mondragon group of worker cooperatives. Three types of stores are found within Eroski: 1) cooperatives with significant employee ownership and voice; 2) cooperatives with modest employee ownership and limited voice (known as GESPAs); and 3) conventional stores with no employee ownership. Key data are monthly observations—9,800 for supermarkets and 2,150 for hypermarkets (large superstores combining supermarkets and department stores). By estimating first-difference models, the authors find that hypermarket stores with cooperative ownership have significantly faster sales growth than do GESPA stores. For supermarkets overall, they find no significant differences in performance among the three types of stores. For a subgroup of small supermarkets, however, cooperatives outperform conventional stores. To investigate the mechanisms that help explain why cooperatives perform better, the authors provide additional evidence that takes into account the more extensive opportunities for employee involvement, training, and stronger economic incentives in cooperatives. While cooperative members are better paid than peers in comparable firms, individual data show that job satisfaction is lower for cooperative workers than for GESPA workers. Though this may reflect higher worker expectations in cooperatives, alternatively cooperatives may constitute a “high-stress work system.”
High-Performance Work Practices and Core Employee Wages
Authors: Sgobbi Francesca , Cainarca Gian Carlo
Published: June 2015

Past research has provided mixed evidence on the relationship between High-Performance Work Practices (HPWPs) and wages. Drawing from more than 1,800 interviews with the HR managers in a stratified sample of Italian manufacturing plants collected in 2008, the authors argue that the results are inconclusive unless the configurations of the HPWPs and the mechanisms underpinning employee involvement are taken into account. Their results show that HPWPs are associated with higher wages for core employees only when they align with an ideal type, and they result in higher wage equality only when they emphasize training, competence enhancement, and power delegation.
Is There Less Discrimination in Occupations Where Recruitment Is Difficult?
Authors: Baert Stijn , Cockx Bart , Gheyle Niels , Vandamme Cora
Published: June 2015

The authors empirically test the cross-sectional relationship between hiring discrimination and labor market tightness at the level of the occupation. To this end, they conduct a correspondence test in the youth labor market. In line with theoretical expectations, results show that, compared to natives, candidates with a foreign-sounding name are equally often invited to a job interview if they apply for occupations for which vacancies are difficult to fill; but, they have to send out twice as many applications for occupations for which labor market tightness is low. Findings are robust to various sensitivity checks.
The Labor Market and Illegal Immigration: The Outlook for the 1980S
Authors: Wachter Michael L.
Published: June 2015

This paper first develops a labor supply forecast for the U.S. labor market in the 1980s, focusing on the effects of the low fertility rates of recent years, and then compares that forecast with the BLS projection of employment demand in the next decade. The author attempts to isolate those occupations and age-sex groups that are likely to have a shortfall of workers and to match the characteristics of those shortage categories with the demographic characteristics of the illegal alien work force. He predicts a relative shortage of unskilled workers in the 1980s, a major departure from past trends, and suggests that an increased flow of immigrants to meet that shortage would benefit skilled older workers and, to a lesser extent, the owners of capital. He also argues, however, that increased immigration would harm domestic unskilled workers—who are increasingly minority group members—by lowering their relative income and raising their equilibrium unemployment rates.
The Impact of Unionization on Productivity: A Case Study
Authors: Clark Kim B.
Published: June 2015

This study examines the effect of unionization on productivity through the use of time-series data on selected establishments in the U.S. cement industry. The analysis combines statistical estimation of the union impact and interviews with union and management officials to forge a link between econometric estimation and the traditional institutional analysis of union policy and management practice. The econometric analysis deals primarily with the problem of controlling for interfirm differences in variables such as the quality of management and also for the possible union impact on labor quality. The case studies are designed to show the specific ways in which unionization affects productivity. The empirical results indicate that unionization leads to productivity gains, deriving in large part from a series of extensive changes in management personnel and procedures.
The Early Acceptance of Social Security: An Asset Maximization Approach
Authors: Burkhauser Richard V.
Published: June 2015

This paper, using a sample from the 1973 Social Security Exact Match File, tests the importance of economic factors in the decision of male workers to take social security (OASI) benefits at age 62. Previous studies of this decision have concentrated on the flow of pension benefits available to the worker in a single year, but this study emphasizes the asset nature of such benefits. The potential loss in market earnings when OASI benefits are accepted is weighed against the change in the total potential value of private pension and OASI benefits if retirement is postponed. The present value of the entire potential stream of benefits emerges as more important theoretically and empirically than the value of annual benefits immediately available to the worker.
The Earnings Effect of Black Matriculation in Predominantly White Colleges
Authors: Burnim Mickey L.
Published: June 2015

This study attempts to ascertain the extent to which the narrowing earnings differential between black and white males with college education is caused, as some have suggested, by the matriculation of blacks in predominantly white colleges and universities. To examine this question, a relatively new and little-used data base created and maintained by the Project TALENT Data Bank is used. The data used are for a group of persons who were in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades in 1960 and who later reported data on their earnings eleven years after their high school graduation. Four hourly earnings functions were estimated: one for all black males, one for all white males, and then one each for black males who attended one of the traditionally black colleges and universities and for black males who attended one of the predominantly white colleges and universities. The analysis shows that the total effects of college study, at each of the examined levels, were very nearly the same, thus refuting the “white-college hypothesis.”
The Predicability of Strikes: Evidence from the Stock Market
Authors: Neumann George R.
Published: June 2015

Discussions of strike activity, and in particular of the costs of strike activity, generally ignore the existence of capital markets. If strikes are costly and if they are predictable, the presence of capital markets limits the losses that can be imposed on firms. This paper examines the effect of strikes on the value of the firm as measured by the stock market. The results indicate that strikes do have a negative effect on the value of the firm, although not a very large one, and that the stock market predicts the occurrence of strikes efficiently.
Union Organizing and the Allocation of Union Resources
Authors: Block Richard N.
Published: June 2015

This study examines the propensity of unions to allocate resources to organizing activity. The author hypothesizes that as a union increases its extent of organization, the need of its members for organizing services declines relative to their need for representation services and also the costs of organizing are more likely to exceed its benefits. Consequently, the percentage of a union's resources devoted to organizing is expected to vary inversely with the extent to which the union has organized its primary jurisdiction. Data limitations prevent a direct test of this hypothesis, but a model based on this reasoning is used to predict differences across labor unions in the number of NLRB representation elections per 1000 union members. An analysis of relevant data for 1972–78 tends to support the model.
Strike Activity and Wage Determination under Rapid Inflation: The Chilean Case
Authors: Blejer Mario I.
Published: June 2015

This paper proposes and tests a model designed to study the feedbacks between strikes and wages in an environment more inflationary than that analyzed in previous studies. A model embodies the hypothesis that strike activity and wage changes are jointly determined by the expectations of workers about the future price level, the target rate of growth in their real earnings, and the labor market situation as reflected in the rate of unemployment. The empirical analysis departs from most previous studies by estimating a simultaneous-equation system. The model is tested with data describing the experience in Chile from 1956 through 1973, a period during which strikes were legal and prices rose over 16,000 percent in that country. The results in the main support the propositions of the theoretical model.
Unionized Professionals and the Scope of Bargaining: A Study of Nurses
Authors: Ponak Allen M.
Published: June 2015

This study examines the common assumption that unionized professionals will seek to expand the scope of negotiations to include issues reflecting distinctly professional concerns. Two questions are posed: Do professionals distinguish professional collective bargaining goals from more traditional bargaining objectives and, if so, do they view these professional goals as more or less important than the traditional ones? The author asked a sample of unionized registered nurses to appraise in a mail questionnaire an array of collective bargaining goals. Half the goals reflected traditional objectives subsumed under wages, hours, and working conditions; the other half reflected professional concerns, such as inservice education. The results show that these nurses differentiated professional from traditional goals and attached more importance to the former. The practical and theoretical implications are discussed.
Deterring Strikes by Public Employees: New York's Two-For-One Salary Penalty and the 1979 Prison Guard Strike
Authors: Peterson Andrew A.
Published: June 2015

After briefly tracing the development of the statutory penalties imposed on striking public employees in New York State, this article focuses on the Taylor Law's requirement that such strikers lose two days' salary for each day they are on strike. Particular emphasis is placed on the litigation that occurred in the aftermath of the statewide strike by prison guards in 1979, when the guards' union challenged several aspects of the two-for-one penalty. The author concludes that the act's current provision governing payment of the penalty—requiring that the entire two-for-one penalty be deducted from the strikers' paychecks during a sixty-day period after the strike—imposes a major hardship on participants in a long strike, and he recommends the act be amended in a way that he believes will not undermine the deterrent purposes of the penalty.
Voluntarism and Factional Disputes in the AFL: The Painters' Split in 1894–1900
Authors: Fones-Wolf Elizabeth , Fones-Wolf Kenneth
Published: June 2015

Some students of the AFL's internal structure have argued that the concept of voluntarism evolved over the years into an ideology used to justify, among other things, the stifling of rank-and-file protest within federation affiliates. This paper tests that interpretation of voluntarism by examining the behavior of Samuel Gompers and other AFL leaders in the face of a rank-and-file movement against the leadership of the Brotherhood of Painters and Decorators during the years 1894 to 1900. The authors show that voluntaristic principles actually afforded AFL leaders a good deal of flexibility in dealing with this factional dispute, allowing the dissident group to grow while Gompers worked to obtain a negotiated settlement between the two factions. Those efforts culminated in a federation-sponsored unity conference in 1900 that set the stage for the dissident faction to assume control of the Painters' union. The authors therefore conclude that on this issue the critics of the AFL have overstated their case.
Final-Offer Arbitration and the Naive Negotiator
Authors: DeNisi Angelo S. , Dworkin James B.
Published: June 2015

One criticism of final-offer arbitration has been that the theory underlying the technique is too complex to be understood by inexperienced negotiators. A laboratory experiment involving ninety undergraduate students playing the roles of labor and management negotiators was conducted to compare the effect on the bargaining process of three conditions: when the negotiators expect impasses to be resolved by final-offer arbitration and that procedure is explained orally; when the negotiators expect final-offer arbitration and that procedure is explained both orally and through a videotape presentation demonstrating the use of the procedure; and when the negotiators expect no third-party intervention in the event of an impasse. Subjects who viewed the videotape reported a better understanding of the procedure, set more reasonable initial positions, arrived at more reasonable final positions, made more frequent concessions, and came closer to agreement on unresolved issues than did subjects in either of the other two conditions. Attitudes of the subject-negotiators toward their opponents and the imposed settlement were also more positive among subjects who viewed the videotape.
The Persistence of Ideas in the American Labor Movement: The Heritage of the 1830s
Authors: Neufeld Maurice F.
Published: June 2015

In creating the first American labor movement, the craftsmen of Andrew Jackson's time advanced several ideas that challenged the doctrine of extreme laissez-faire which was then emerging. This essay examines six of those ideas—such as the beliefs that there were an excessive inequality of wealth and widespread monopoly—which provided support for the idea and practice of trade unionism. The author shows that these ideas have continued to be espoused by leaders and members of successive labor federations, including those of the AFL-CIO. He suggests that the persistence of these ideas reflects the persistence in some form of the political, social, and economic inequities that first evoked the ideas.
The Influence of Workers' Compensation on Safety Incentives
Authors: Chelius James R.
Published: June 2015

This study examines the impact of workers' compensation benefits on the allocation of resources to injury prevention, using unpublished data from OSHA on injury rates in manufacturing industries within 36 states. The analysis shows that higher compensation benefits are associated with lower severity rates of injury, suggesting that higher benefits induce employers to spend more on the prevention of serious injuries. On the other hand, higher benefits are also associated with higher frequency rates of injury, suggesting that higher benefits induce employees to take less care in preventing less serious injuries. The author suggests ways of resolving this dilemma and stresses that his findings show that decisions about the structure of workers' compensation laws should not be based solely on income security considerations, as they often are.
Ranking Occupations as Risky Income Prospects
Authors: Evans Richard , Weinstein Robert
Published: June 2015

This study investigates the problem of how best to measure the income attractiveness of various occupations, allowing for the differences among occupations in their stability of income. Analyzing data for eleven occupations from the one percent Public Use Sample of the 1970 U.S. Census of Occupations, the authors demonstrate the weaknesses of measures used in previous studies and the advantages of using stochastic dominance analysis.
Influencing the Electorate: Experience with Referenda on Public Employee Bargaining
Authors: Barnum Darold T. , Helburn I. B.
Published: June 2015

This research develops a model of the factors influencing public opinion on labor relations issues and tests the model with data from local referenda, each determining whether a community would adopt the Texas Fire and Police Employee Relations Act of 1973 and thereby allow local police and firefighters to bargain collectively. Regression analysis is used to identify factors influencing the vote, the dependent variable being the percentage favoring adoption. Independent variables account for (1) structural influences of the type normally included in economic analyses, such as income levels and unionization rates; (2) situational influences of the type generally discussed in institutional case studies, such as the number and nature of opposing and supporting groups; and (3) interactions of these two types of variables. Structural characteristics are found to influence the vote only when certain situational, and interaction variables. The authors also conclude that referenda are a poor method of resolving labor relations issues.
Models of Militancy: Support for Strikes and Work Actions among Public Employees
Authors: Schutt Russell K.
Published: June 2015

This paper examines support for militant action among the employees of a public assistance agency in which negotiations were occurring over a first contract. A questionnaire survey obtained information on whether employees were willing to strike over various issues during negotiations; whether they would participate in certain work actions, such as sick-outs, in the future; and whether they actually had participated in any work actions during the previous year. The survey results show that attitudinal support for both strikes and work actions, but not actual participation in work actions, was generated partially by the incongruity of professional aspirations within bureaucratic constraints. A political process involving the relations of union members and office stewards also affected support for work actions. The social-background variables of age and sex shared common effects on support for strikes and work actions, whereas race only affected strike support. An economic model of militancy received little support, perhaps because of the nature of the sample.
The Economic and Organizational Basis of Early United States Strikes, 1900–1948
Authors: Skeels Jack W.
Published: June 2015

This paper examines the question of whether economic factors played an important role in determining strike activity in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century. A review of recent research shows one author, David Snyder, concluding that economic factors mattered little during that period and that union organization and political variables explained much more; and another, P. K. Edwards, concluding the opposite. A retest of these authors' analyses, employing ordinary least squares regression and a variety of measures, suggests that Snyder's position is more sound. This author argues, however, that Edwards was correct in claiming that economic factors are major determinants of the extent of unionism as well as of strike activity, and thus one needs to apply a two-stage least squares test of the Snyder hypothesis. When that is done, the results show that economic variables are highly significant determinants of strike activity throughout the pre-1949 period, but for the subperiod 1921–29 noneconomic factors also play a role.
Worker Response to a Menu of Implicit Contracts
Authors: Bellante Don , Link Albert N.
Published: June 2015

The literature on implicit contracts between workers and firms suggests that workers face a variety of such contracts, allowing each to choose the optimal trade-off between earnings level and earnings stability. This study tests some implications of that theory through an examination of the risk behavior of individual heads of households. The data source is the University of Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which includes a measure of the worker's taste for risk avoidance. Additionally, several predictions derived from Arrow's postulate of increasing relative risk aversion are examined. The results confirm a tendency of risk-averse individuals to choose jobs offering lower wages and lower financial risk. The results also provide indirect support for Arrow's postulate. The paper's findings suggest that studies of the earnings effects of discrimination may possibly understate those effects, just as studies of the value of a human life may understate that value.
Discrimination in Seniority Systems: A Case Study
Authors: Kelley Maryellen R.
Published: June 2015

According to the 1977 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Teamsters v. U.S., seniority systems that have disparate impacts on women and black workers as compared to white men are not necessarily illegal. This paper uses a case study to examine what constitutes illegally discriminatory treatment in a seniority system in light of the Teamsters decision and subsequent rulings by federal courts. The empirical findings strongly suggest that as of 1976, at least with respect to promotions, the seniority system in the plant studied illegally discriminated against white women and black workers. The author concludes that the methodology used in this case can be applied more generally to other establishments where formal rules and organizational structures are important in shaping promotion opportunities.
Have Angels Done More? The Steel Industry Consent Decree
Authors: Ichniowski Casey
Published: June 2015

This study analyzes the consent decree of 1974 that reformed plant seniority systems in basic steel to resolve problems of equal employment opportunity. The author argues that the major factors leading to the negotiation of this industrywide decree were the large number of plant-level suits being filed against the parties and the influence of the Bethlehem Steel decision of June 1971. The decree provided in part for the replacement of departmental seniority by plantwide seniority in most promotion, transfer, layoff, and recall decisions; the retention of pay rates after transfer to a position that provides a lower pay rate than the previous position; the establishment of goals for minority representation in skilled jobs; and a back-pay settlement. The author's analysis of these provisions shows that minority representation in skilled jobs increased in the four-year period after the decree more rapidly than pre-1974 employment trends would have predicted; but in 1978, considerable underutilization of blacks in those jobs still existed.
Risk Preference and the Interindustry Propensity to Strike
Authors: Leigh J. Paul
Published: June 2015

This paper presents a model of the determinants of a union's decision to strike. The model states that, assuming management is risk neutral, workers' tastes for risks will be one important determinant of the decision to strike. A risk preference variable from the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics and an injury and illness rate for each of 89 manufacturing industries serve as measures of workers' tastes for risk. The model predicts that industries with high injury rates will experience a disproportionate share of strikes and that a greater share of weakly risk-averse workers will be employed in strike-prone industries than in strike-free industries. The author discovers strong support for the first prediction, but not for the second.
The Role of Perspective-Taking Ability in Negotiating under Different Forms of Arbitration
Authors: Neale Margaret A. , Bazerman Max H.
Published: June 2015

This study investigates whether the ability of negotiators to adopt the perspective of their opponents is a key to success in negotiating under conventional and final-offer arbitration. The authors tested this question in an experiment in which 80 pairs of students engaged in two sets of negotiations. The results suggest that both the perspective-taking ability of the negotiators and the type of arbitration affect negotiations—as measured by concession rate, number of issues resolved, and outcome success (the dollar value of the contract obtained)—and such attitudes as perceived agreement with and control over the outcome. The authors also find that negotiating experience affects various process and outcome measures of the negotiation as well as perceived control over and agreement with the outcome.
Interaction Analysis: A Tool for Understanding Negotiations
Authors: Bednar David A. , Curington William P.
Published: June 2015

This paper explains how interaction analysis, a methodology from the communication literature in which oral messages are systematically coded and analyzed, can extend existing methods of analyzing negotiations. Previous applications of this technique to bargaining interaction have focused principally on the frequency distribution of various messages, but recent statistical developments have made possible the analysis of sequences or patterns of messages. This paper explains the procedures of interaction analysis and how certain economic bargaining theories can be examined with this technique. The authors code the transcript of a labor-management negotiation, using two coding schemes, and analyze the results with Markov chain analysis. The results illustrate how interaction analysis can provide supplementary data for examining questions about the negotiation process that have been difficult to address in traditional industrial relations research.
Cost-of-Living Clauses in Union Contracts: Determinants and Effects
Authors: Hendricks Wallace E. , Kahn Lawrence M.
Published: June 2015

This study investigates, for the period 1969–81, the determinants of the incidence and strength of cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) clauses in U.S. manufacturing and the effect of those clauses on wage inflation. The sample includes approximately 5,570 union contracts in over 2,600 bargaining relationships. The authors find that both union bargaining power and inflation uncertainty positively affected the probability that a COLA clause was adopted as well as the strength of the clause adopted. Negatively influencing the incidence and strength of COLA clauses during the period studied were unanticipated changes in an industry's prices. The authors also find evidence that wage inflation was greater under contracts with uncapped COLAs than under all other contracts, a result that also was positively influenced by the amount of unanticipated inflation. From these results, the authors suggest a number of possible trends in the use and effects of COLA clauses.
Measuring the Impact of Nit Experiments on Work Effort
Authors: Burtless Gary , Greenberg David
Published: June 2015

In spite of exhaustive research by many analysts on the data generated by the NIT experiments, uncertainty remains over whether work reductions in the experiments should be considered “large” or “small.” The authors of this paper argue that this uncertainty arises in part because different analysts have implicitly measured the responses of different groups of individuals exposed to the NIT treatment. The authors use data from the Seattle-Denver experiment to provide estimates of several measures of average work response, including corrected estimates of some previously proposed measures. They conclude that the corrected estimates show a consistent pattern: as the fraction of NIT recipients rises in any group, the observed reduction in labor supply also rises.
Industrial Relations Performance, Economic Performance, and QWL Programs: An Interplant Analysis
Authors: Katz Harry C. , Kochan Thomas A. , Gobeille Kenneth R.
Published: June 2015

This study analyzes the relationship among plant-level measures of industrial relations performance, economic performance, and quality-of-working-life programs. The analysis employs pooled time-series and cross-section data from 18 plants within a division of General Motors for the years 1970–79. The empirical results show strong associations between industrial relations and economic performance measures and limited support for the hypothesis that quality-of-working-life efforts improve both kinds of performance.
Accounting for Labors Share: Class and Income Distribution in the Printing Industry
Authors: Kalleberg Arne L. , Wallace Michael , Raffalovich Lawrence E.
Published: June 2015

This study investigates the distribution of income between capital and labor in the printing and publishing industry. The authors first compare a variety of conceptualizations and operational measures of labor's share and then estimate models for the period 1946 – 78 that explain the movements in several share measures on the basis of variables that represent the differential power of labor and capital. Their findings indicate that worker power (particularly the extent of unionism and sometimes strike frequency) increased labor's share, especially in the 1946 – 62 period, whereas employer power (asset size and capital intensity) decreased it.
Length of Service and Layoffs in Union and Nonunion Work Groups
Authors: Abraham Katharine G. , Medoff James L.
Published: June 2015

This paper presents survey evidence from about 200 firms that protection against job loss grows with employees' length of service even after controlling for the perceived net value of employees to the firm. As would be expected, senior workers are better protected against permanent layoff in union than in nonunion firms, but even in the absence of unionism, longer service generally translates into extra protection. Among the private sector hourly work units outside of agriculture and construction represented in the authors' survey, seniority led to additional protection against job loss in 97 percent of groups covered by a union contract and in 86 percent of uncovered groups. Importantly, however, the extra protection was considerably stronger in the average union group than in the average nonunion group.
An Analysis of Workers' Choice between Employment in the Public and Private Sectors
Authors: Blank Rebecca M.
Published: June 2015

This paper estimates the extent to which workers with different personal characteristics are likely to be employed in the public versus the private sector. The author develops a reduced-form two-way probit model to analyze workers' choice between the two employment sectors, together with a three-way model that breaks this decision down to a choice among private, federal, and state and local government jobs. She estimates these models using May 1979 CPS data. The results show that, other things equal, government employment is preferred by the “protected” groups of veterans, nonwhites, and women. In addition, highly educated and more experienced workers are more likely to choose the public sector. Significant differences are found within the public sector between federal and state-local choices. The results also indicate that sectoral choice is influenced by more than wage comparisons.