Working-time reductions: a survey of the Australian experience

Since the mid-1970s Australian trade unions have conducted a concerted campaign to reduce standard working hours. Part of the logic behind this was to increase employment opportunities for those currently unemployed. This article reviews the economic and industrial relations implications of that campaign by reference to the major studies undertaken in this area and compares them with those from other countries.     

British trade union membership,density and decline in the 1980s: a research note

This article is concerned with British trade union membership statistics. It provides three different estimates of trade union density and considers their meaning and significance. It also assesses the reliability of union membership figures, and finally it provides fresh data on the unemployed membership of trade unions.     

Union impact on the effective adoption of High Performance Work Practices

This paper examines the literature and research on unions relevant to the effective adoption of High Performance Work Practices. It demonstrates that unions that have a cooperative relationship with management can play an important role in overcoming barriers to the effective adoption of practices that have been linked to organizational competitiveness through the development and application of human capital. In particular, unions have the unique advantage of delivering independent voice that cannot be substituted by management. Not only can unions make a contribution to organization competitiveness but they can also ensure that employees benefit from High Performance Work Practice adoption and in doing so secure their own relevance. The contribution that unions can make is inhibited by management and union's reluctance to engage in an integrative relationship and an institutional context that does not value unions. Organizations that want to capture the value that unions can add must move away from a pluralist model of autocratic management, hostile unions and adversarial industrial relations, beyond a unitarist model that sees no role for unions, to a cooperative partnership with unions that shares the gains of implementing High Performance Work Practices.     

Paying to queue: a theory of locational differences in nonunion wages

Traditional theories of the effect unions have on nonunion wages are difficult to reconcile with firm and worker mobility. We show how differences in nonunion wages can persist in a two-city search model. Nonunion wage differences across cities are driven by transition rates into the union sector. Should union queues form in the nonunion sector, union power decreases nonunion wages as workers are willing to take lower wages to line up for union jobs. However, if queues are formed in the unemployed sector, union power increases nonunion wages as nonunion firms pay premiums to induce workers to leave the queue.     

The evolution of employers' organisations in the United Kingdom: Extending countervailing power

The concept of countervailing power has been used to suggest that the power of unions explains the origins and development of employers' organisations (EOs). However, unions have declined since the 1970s, but EOs continue to play an important role in employment relations. If pressure from unions is not sufficient to explain continuing employer organisation, what does account for it? This article pursues this question by examining the evolution and activity of UK EOs between the 1960s and 2016. Our countervailing power argument goes beyond a sole focus on unions to include changing pressures and demands on EOs caused by the state such as individual rights legislation and campaigns by civil society organisations. The changing force exerted by these societal pressures helps to explain the shift of EOs' focus from collective bargaining, nowadays only pursued by a minority of EOs, to lobbying, provision of services, legal support, and training.     

John Smith's settlement? The work of the 1992–93 Labour Party—Trade Union Links Review Group

In this article, I examine the work of the 1992–93 Labour Party Trade Union Links Review Group. I ask whether the measures it proposed amounted to a new, durable settlement that governed internal relationships within the party. I detail disagreements amongst trade unions over the format that parliamentary selections should take; I evaluate the demands for reform of the party‐union link; I ask whether support for reform and for one member, one vote was falling in the early 1990s; I consider whether unions launched a ‘no say no pay campaign’ with regard to the Labour Party; I assess how much restraint was demonstrated at this time by Labour's affiliated unions and I consider what might have been at stake in these debates more generally. I conclude that there was considerable antagonism in party‐union relations during the early 1990s and that the work of the review group did not amount to an enduring settlement.     

Russia's official trade unions: renewal or redundancy?

Russia's official trade unions claim to have reformed themselves into independent organisations representing workers' interests. This article takes one branch union, the official miners' union, and, on the basis of research in the South Kuzbass mines, considers how far enterprise level unions have changed, and the potential for reform.     

Unionism and the public sector

It is incorrect and misleading to speak of unionization as a ‘human right’. The only human right is ‘self-ownership’, i.e. to pursue goals with one's own abilities but with no force or fraud against others. Government cannot dispense rights, only privileges and protections to some at the expense of others. A minimal degree of coercion exercised by government is unavoidable. But labor unions are not governments. Government has granted significant privileges to unions in the private sector, but such are not appropriate for public sector unions.     

对煤矿企业工会工作方法的改革与创新

现阶段,我国的煤矿企业的改制工作不断推广,企业的工会工作的方法、内容、目的以及对象都发生了很大的变化。本文对于煤矿企业工会工作方法的改革与创新进行了分析与探讨。     

Women's attitudes towards trade unions in the UK: a consideration of the distinction between full‐ and part‐time workers

This article considers the attitudes and experiences of female full‐ and part‐time workers towards trade unions. Expanding upon previous research it suggests that while the attitudes of full‐ and part‐time workers towards trade unions are similar, experiences of trade unions are not: they depend upon the employment context and work history. A life course perspective is advanced, which examines women's employment contexts and transitions between full‐ and part‐time work in order to further explain female part‐timers’ lower likelihood of unionising.     

Does subsidised temporary employment get the unemployed back to work? Aneconometric analysis of two different schemes

Subsidised employment is an important tool of active labour market policies to improve the reemployment chances of the unemployed. Using unusually informative individual data from administrative records, we investigate the effects of two different schemes of subsidised temporary employment implemented in Switzerland: non-profit employment programmes (EP) and a subsidy for temporary jobs (TEMP) in private and public firms. Econometric matching methods show that TEMP is more successful than EP in getting the unemployed back to work. Compared to not participating in any programme, EP and TEMP are ineffective for unemployed who find jobs easily anyway or have a short unemployment spell. For potential and actual long-term unemployed, both programmes may have positive effects, but the effect of TEMP is larger.     

Do Unions Affect Labor's Share of Income: Evidence Using Panel Data

There have been a number of studies analyzing the impact of unions on labor's share of income. Most have relied on either time series or cross‐section data. The purpose of this paper is to determine the impact of unions on labor's share of income in the U.S. This study adds to the understanding of this topic by developing an analytical model of imperfect competition and estimating the model using panel data for the manufacturing sector. This study finds that unions have a positive impact on labor's share of income. Specifically, this paper finds that labor's share declined 17.9 percent between 1997 and 2006 whereas, if unionization density had remained at its 1997 level, labor's share would have declined only 13.9 percent. Thus, the decline in unionization explains about 29 percent of the decline in labor's share of income. This paper is important for three reasons. First, this paper sheds light on whether social and institutional forces play an important role in determining the distribution of income between labor and capital. Second, it helps to explain recent increases in wage inequality. Third, it has implications for understanding the potential impact of legislation, such as the Employee Free Choice Act, that would make it easier for workers in the U.S. to unionize.     

Union responses to ‘multi‐enterprise’ factories in the Italian motor industry

During the 1990s, outsourcing work was commonly associated with the weakening of union organisation and the deterioration of pay, working conditions and job security. A variant of outsourcing, termed here as ‘insourcing’, involves a firm purchasing ‘non‐core’ functions and services from enterprises located under the same roof. This case study of Fiat outlines the impact of insourcing on traditional arrangements and practices, and analyses the response of Italian local unions. The findings indicate that in the context of ‘bargained compromise’ between trade unions and management in the Italian motor industry insourcing did not have the negative implications for union organisation and employee terms and conditions associated with traditional outsourcing.     

Regional migration in Spain: the effect of personal characteristics and of unemployment,wage and house price differentials using pooled cross-sections

We present an empirical model of individual migration using time-series of cross-sections from the Spanish Labour Force Surveys 1987–1991. Personal characteristics not only have an important direct effect on migration decisions but also alter the effect of regional variables. We find that the estimated probability of migration for the unemployed not registered, who are known for certain not to receive benefit, is higher than that of the employed which in turn is higher than that of the unemployed registered, which includes all the benefits recipients. An important finding is that the effect of regional unemployment on migration is positive for the unemployed not registered but is important and negative for those registered.     

PHILANTHROPY AND ENTERPRISE IN THE BRITISH CREDIT UNION MOVEMENT

Through the 1990s hundreds of credit unions were established to serve indebted communities throughout Britain. These volunteer-run financial co-operatives did not meet growth expectations because of restrictive legislation, inadequate development models and well-intentioned but unproductive state intervention. British credit unions are more successful when they develop as market-oriented social enterprises able to build effective partnerships with banks, government and the private sector to serve low-income communities.     

Safety of nonfederally insured versus federally insured credit unions in the United States

The recent failure of the Rhode Island Share and Deposit Indemnity Corporation has heightened the debate about mandating federal deposit insurance for credit unions. To date, however, opponents of and proponents for required federal deposit insurance for credit unions have relied primarily on anecdotal evidence to support their positions. The objective of this study is to provide empirical evidence concerning differences in the behavior of federally insured versus nonfederally insured credit unions in the United States in 1989. Results suggest that the problems occurring in Rhode Island are not symptomatic of widespread differences in the safety of the two groups of credit unions throughout the country.     

Sisters organising in Japan and Korea: the development of women‐only unions

In this article, I explore the development of women‐only unions in Japan and Korea. Women‐only unions, which organise women workers across enterprises and employment status boundaries in both countries, have appeared only recently and are new areas of research. While the strategy to form autonomous women‐only unions in Japan and Korea is a recent phenomenon, women workers in both countries are continuing a tradition of women's activism that has challenged both management and the male domination of the union movement. By taking a broad scope and by organising the growing non‐full‐time workforce and women employed in small workplaces, the formation of women‐only unions in Japan and Korea is a positive development for both non‐unionised women workers and for the broader workers' movement in general.     

Union Mergers: The New Interest and Some Old Questions

When the merged union UNITE HERE was recently torn apart by internal dissent, the labor movement’s attention turned to some longstanding questions about how union mergers are negotiated, why some fail and others succeed, how members are affected by merger, and how the big, diverse unions created by mergers—the super-unions—manage to stay intact. This article addresses these questions, arguing throughout that little is actually known about the union merger process and outcomes. In doing so, it also suggests that some union mergers, such as the one forming UNITE HERE, may not always make sense and that bigger unions created by mergers are not necessarily better unions.     

对当前背景下国企工会职能的转变及服务创新的研究

在当前的社会背景下,工会在国企的发展过程中发挥着重要的作用,它在维护员工利益以及推动企业与员工的沟通与联系等方面作出了突出的贡献。随着国有企业的不断改革与创新,时代环境对工会的工作也提出了更高的要求,工会需要进行职能转变以及服务创新。     

Turning Unemployment into Self‐Employment: Effectiveness of Two Start‐Up Programmes*

Turning unemployment into self‐employment has become a major focus of German active labour market policy (ALMP) in recent years. If effective, this would not only reduce Germany's persistently high unemployment rate, but also increase its notoriously low self‐employment rate. Empirical evidence on the effectiveness of such programmes is scarce. We evaluate the effectiveness of two start‐up programmes for the unemployed, where we include the probability of being employed, the probability of being unemployed and personal income as outcome variables. Our results show that at the end of the observation period, both programmes are effective. The considerable positive effects present a stark contrast to findings from evaluations of other German ALMP programmes in recent years. Hence, ALMP programmes aimed at moving the unemployed into self‐employment may prove to be among the most effective, both in Germany and elsewhere.