Strategic militancy and the probability of strikes in union-firm bargaining

The paper provides a model that explains the probability of strikes by the union's use of militancy as a strategic tool in bargaining. Militants are useful because they provide a credible threat, hence enhancing the union's bargaining position. Using a multi-stage bargaining game, we show that, in general, militants will be used by the union as a strategic tool. The strategic benefit of militancy is reflected by the fact that the wage and employment level will be higher in a union that uses militants, compared to a union that does not. We use the model to show that the level of militancy and the probability of a strike decrease with the union's power. This suggests that policies that increase the strength of the union will have, at least, a partial positive effect on social welfare. We also show that the model can be viewed as providing an equilibrium of a repeated game, an interpretation that can explain the probability of strikes even in the absence of militants.     

Workplace unions and workplace industrial relations: the Italian experience

An examination of the Italian system of workplace trade unionism and industrial relations reveals an interaction of legal protection and union and managerial behaviour that has contributed to the rapid development of local bargaining. Both this and the recent problems of union representativeness have implications for British students.     

Union effects on pay levels in Britain

The contraction of union representation in Britain raises the question of whether or not unions still achieve a wage premium. Analysis of matched employer–employee data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey shows that there is now no demonstrable premium for private sector workers in general. However, unions do achieve a wage premium of around 9% for about half of employees covered by collective bargaining arrangements. The effect of union bargaining spills over to other employees in the same workplaces. The paper identifies circumstances where union effects are strongest—employer endorsement of union membership, high collective bargaining coverage and multi-unionism.     

Union authorization card signatures and union certification election vote

One stage of the union organizing process involves the legal requirement that at least 30% of the employees in a potential bargaining unit express a desire for union representation by signing union authorization cards. Beyond the necessary legal requirement, do the data generated by card signing provide a potentially valuable source of information that may be useful to the union organizer in formulating campaign tactics? In addition, do authorization cards provide a sufficiently valid basis for establishing bargaining unit recognition as is the case in Canada? In order to explore these possibilities, the relationship between card signing behavior and certification vote in six union representation elections is examined. Although card signing and vote for certification are significantly related, overall results indicate that relying on union authorization card data as an indicator of vote at the individual level is questionable.     

Integration of collective bargaining and formal worker participation processes: Boon or barrier to worker rights?

Many employers are extending workplace rights by allowing for more employee voice in decision making. Numerous unionized organizations have established formal worker participation processes to help achieve this end and to improve organizational performance. Based largely on theory, such processes are normally designed to operate independently from the bargaining process. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between participation and bargaining processes, and the effect of this relationship on workplace satisfaction. A total of 712 Midwest union officials were surveyed, and the results indicate that the processes tend to become integrated in the workplace. Further, union officials' workplace satisfaction was greater where formal worker participation is institutionalized within the bargaining process.     

Endogenous scope of bargaining in a union–oligopoly model: when will firms and unions bargain over employment?

The scope of firm–union bargaining is shown to be endogenously determined in a union–oligopoly model with decentralized negotiations. If the unions' power is sufficiently high, all bargaining units choose to negotiate over wages alone, i.e., universal right-to-manage bargaining emerges in equilibrium. Otherwise, wage/employment bargaining and right-to-manage bargaining coexist in the same industry. In equilibrium, some firm–union pairs will always choose to bargain over employment as well, since the firms become Stackelberg leaders in the market by committing to a particular output during the negotiations. The firms and their unions both benefit from the additional Stackelberg rents, provided that the unions' power is small enough. Our analysis suggests that there is not necessarily a negative relationship between unions' power and sectoral employment rates.     

Seniority Profiles in Unionized Workplaces: Do Unions Still have the Edge?*

The focus of this study is to distinguish the different paths seniority earning profiles follow depending on whether the individual is employed in a workplace where trade unions and collective bargaining are present, or not. Within this framework, two propositions are set. In the union sector seniority should be an important determinant of wages, while in the non‐union sector productivity, proxied by occupational experience, should have a key role on earning profiles. The empirical analysis verifies both propositions. Seniority earning profiles appear to be steeper in the union sector, while occupational expertise is estimated to have a more significant role in non‐union jobs.     

Union suppression and union substitution strategies of multinational enterprises in Ghana

This article complements the literature by furthering the understanding of an ‘African dimension’ of multinational enterprise (MNE) union avoidance. The evidence suggests that MNEs engaged in both union suppression and union substitution strategies by (i) exploiting young employees' apathy to promote opposition and indifference for union organisation (evil stuff), (ii) implementing union member‐centred employee retrenchment (fear stuff), (iii) using enterprise‐level collective bargaining arrangement to suppress union bargaining power (fear and fatal stuff), (iv) exploiting the fragmented labour union environment to suppress union organisation (fatal and evil stuff) and (v) promoting individual employee voice and involvement mechanisms (sweet stuff). Although MNEs in Ghana engaged in both union suppression and union substitution strategies, they appear to particularly favour the adoption of ‘union suppression’ strategies and what might be termed as ‘corridor tactics’. Our article highlights four transitional issues underpinning the emerging success of ‘corridor tactics’ in union suppression in a less developed host country.     

Endogenous codetermination

This research introduces endogenous codetermination in a Cournot duopoly. Unlike the received literature (Kraft, 1998), this work assumes that firms bargain with their own union bargaining units under codetermination if and only if they can choose an ad hoc bargaining effort by maximising profits (three-stage non-cooperative game). There are remarkable differences compared with the main findings of the exogenous codetermination literature. Indeed, there may exist asymmetric multiple (Pareto efficient) Nash equilibria in pure strategies. Mandatory codetermination, therefore, is Pareto worsening. Each firm can then use the union bargaining power as a strategic device in a Cournot setting.     

Politics in wage setting: does government colour matter?

This paper studies the relationship between wage formation and the political colour of the government in an economy with a centralized wage bargaining system. Ideological, organizational and personal ties between the central trade union and the social democratic political party suggest that the trade union may behave significantly different in wage negotiations under a social democratic than under a conservative government. Using time series data for Norway, we estimate that changing from a conservative to a social democratic central government significantly reduces manufacturing wages and makes wages more responsive to unemployment. This result is consistent with a wage bargaining model augmented by political preferences of the union leaders and suggests that the effect of bargaining coordination depends on the political colour of the government. The estimated effects are both robust with respect to model specification and stable over time. We are grateful to Fredrik Wulfsberg, participants at seminars in Trondheim and Oslo, and an anonymous referee for valuable comments.     

Consultants,lawyers, and the ‘union free’ movement in the USA since the 1970s

This paper provides a qualitative analysis of the services that the anti–union consultants and law firms have provided to American employers during the past three decades and an account of the campaign tactics of several ‘superstars’ of the union–free movement. It describes a multi–million dollar industry that has helped employers to circumvent the intent of federal labour law through a vast array of union–busting tactics, implemented before the union arrives and continuing until after it is defeated: tactics that are designed, at every juncture, to undermine employees’ free choice of bargaining representatives.     

Union exclusion—next steps

The Conservative Government has intensified its commitment to union exclusion policies: new legislation has been implemented and the state is being restructured. Parallel policies have been implemented by private employers. In consequence, collective bargaining has been devolved to subordinate unit level, and union recognition and membership has further declined.     

Conflict for Mutual Gains?*

abstract This paper adopts Walton and McKersie's Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations to examine the outcomes of industrial relations negotiations to implement teamworking. Negotiations from 21 departments across two integrated steelworks are classified into four negotiation patterns, each producing different outcomes from teamworking for managers and employees. Managers secured lower manning and increased productivity in negotiations both in departments characterized throughout by cooperation and those characterized by conflict. However, mutual gains were secured only where union negotiators pursued conflict tactics during bargaining. In those departments where union negotiators adopted more conflictual bargaining tactics, more employees reported pay increases and greater satisfaction with teamworking agreements, compared with employees in more ‘cooperative’ departments. ‘Mixed’ bargaining approaches in other departments were less successful, particularly for union negotiators.     

Excessive trade union power: existing reality or contemporary myth?

It is now widely believed that trade unions have become too powerful, both in collective bargaining and in relation to government. The Employment Act, introduced by the present government, attempts to regulate these areas of concern—the closed shop, picketing and union decision-making. Brian Burkitt presents a long overdue analysis of trade union power.     

Investment, expropriation, and unionization

In this paper, I examine an economy where output is produced from labor, capital and public services, and where firms and labor unions bargain over labor conditions and lobby the government over union bargaining power and public services. I compare three institutional cases: (a) competitive wage settlement, (b) bargaining over wages and employment, and (c) bargaining over wages only. I show that in cases (a) and (b) the government expropriates investment rents, but right-to-manage bargaining (c) protects investors from this expropriation.      

Ever larger unions: organisational restructuring and its impact on union confederations

Unions have responded to current membership decline and other organisational problems by restructuring via mergers, increasing union concentration within and across union confederations. A particular noted feature are amalgamations to form ‘super‐unions’. These conglomerate unions threaten to undermine the role played by confederations in respect of political voice, bargaining coordination, and service provision. Despite these mergers, union pluralism still prevails in many European countries with separate peak associations organised along employment/occupational status or political and religious lines. After comparing the recent merger waves and increased union concentration in western European countries, the consequences for union movements are discussed.     

Changing the Rules of the Game

Abstract

This article examines the impact of privatization on the relative bargaining strength of management and trade unions. Findings are based on a study of Ireland's largest telecoms provider, Eircom, which has been privatized since 1999. The privatization of Eircom adopted a stakeholder approach, under which employee share-ownership and management–union partnership played an important role in firm restructuring. Findings show that despite this approach privatization has resulted in a significant decrease in the perceived bargaining strength of unions and an increase in the perceived bargaining strength of management.     

The practice of collective bargaining in the private sector in Quebec (Canada): the changing ‘rules of the game’

Drawing on 45 semi‐structured interviews with union negotiators active in the Quebec private sector, this article shows that local bargaining practices, despite their plurality, have tended to change following major trends. It also reveals, more fundamentally, a redefinition of the ‘rules of the game’. The transformation and stability of these social rules, which are much more focused on the needs of employers, have tended to weaken collective bargaining as a tool for industrial democracy.     

So what’s the news? Management strategies towards non–union employee representation at News International

In an environment of what would appear to be a widening ‘representation gap’ developing in many organisations, there has been considerable discussion on the effectiveness of non–union employee representation (NER) structures as communication devices and mechanisms for employee involvement, or as a substitute for unions in the collective bargaining process. The underlying debate centres on whether NER forms make trade unions unnecessary, or whether NER forms have a role different from, but complementary to, that of unions at the workplace. The findings of this study suggest that a ‘substitute’ or union avoidance strategy as used at News International Newspapers could have limitations. The implications of not recognising these limitations could result in greater indirect union influence in workplace issues and greater employee dissatisfaction at the workplace.     

Ireland's conundrum on union bargaining rights: assessing the Industrial Relations Amendment Act 2015

Anglophone countries address the question of workplace-level union bargaining rights via the mechanism of statutory recognition. Existing literature has evaluated such regimes as underpinned by several weaknesses. In contrast, Ireland presents an unusual case whereby the question of bargaining rights is resolved via collective dispute resolution procedures combining voluntary and statutory provisions. However, employer challenges and civil court rulings resulted in the weakening of these procedures from a trade union perspective. We assess the latest attempts to reform the Irish provisions via the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Act 2015, evaluating the implications for unions and their capacity to represent members' on pay and working conditions in comparison to Anglophone statutory recognition regimes.