Decision‐Making about Workplace Disputes: A Policy‐Capturing Study of Employment Arbitrators,Labor Arbitrators,and Jurors

Firms are increasingly turning to the controversial practice of employment arbitration to resolve workplace disputes. Yet little is know about how decisions are made by employment arbitrators or how their decisions compare to those made in traditional dispute‐resolution forums. This study uses a policy‐capturing design and hierarchical linear modeling to compare how decisions about termination cases are made by employment arbitrators, labor arbitrators, and jurors. The results indicate significant differences in the overall willingness to uphold termination, with labor arbitrators being the most likely to rule in favor of the employee, followed by jurors, employment arbitrators judging statutory and for‐cause claims, and employment arbitrators judging statutory‐only claims. Significant differences were also observed between categories of decision makers in the weight given to procedural compliance, evidence of discrimination, employee work history, and stress‐inducing personal circumstances.     

A Model of Arbitral Decision Making: Facts,Weights, and Decision Elements

This study provides a structural model of arbitral decision making that depicts arbitrators as deciding cases by ascertaining the facts, attaching weights to the facts, and combining the facts and weights to form decision elements that determine their decisions. The model further posits that arbitrators’ biographical characteristics affect their decisions by influencing their fact finding and weight assignments. It also allows for arbitrators’ characteristics to have a direct impact on their decisions. A test of the model indicates that the decision elements determine the arbitrators’ decisions but the arbitrators’ characteristics have a limited impact.     

Gender Effects in Grievance Arbitration

This study investigates arbitrators' decisions in 557 suspension cases and reveals that, other things equal, male arbitrators were 74 per cent more likely to sustain the grievances of female grievants than male grievants. There was no evidence, however, that female arbitrators treat male and female grievants differently. A review of studies on gender effects in arbitration suggests a weak gender effect where male arbitrators are more lenient with female grievants than with male grievants.     

Gender Effects in Grievance Arbitration

This study investigates arbitrators' decisions in 557 suspension cases and reveals that, other things equal, male arbitrators were 74 per cent more likely to sustain the grievances of female grievants than male grievants. There was no evidence, however, that female arbitrators treat male and female grievants differently. A review of studies on gender effects in arbitration suggests a weak gender effect where male arbitrators are more lenient with female grievants than with male grievants.     

Students as Arbitrators: An Empirical Investigation

No previous work has examined whether students are appropriate substitutes for arbitrators in research studies, despite the fact that students have been used in at least one experimental study of arbitral decisions. This study compares the decisions rendered by 233 students and 146 practicing arbitrators on two hypothetical discharge cases and finds that there are significant differences between decisions of arbitrators and students.     

Arbitrator Acceptability: Does Justice Matter? Arbitrator Acceptability

There is virtually no theory-based research that examines if arbitrator behaviors influence whether they will be chosen for future cases. This longitudinal field study uses organizational justice theory to predict the acceptability of arbitrators in dispute-resolution processes involving labor and management representatives in actual cases. The data indicate that procedural justice is more important in predicting arbitrator acceptability in interest than in rights arbitration cases. Arbitrator distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice are all related to acceptability of arbitrators. Procedural justice and interactional justice are differentially related to evaluation of arbitrators, suggesting that they are distinct constructs.     

The Ascendancy of Employment Arbitrators in US Employment Relations: A New Actor in the American System?

In this paper, we survey the underpinnings of the trend towards employment arbitration in the United States, and its implications for the broader industrial relations system. Specifically, we address the question of whether or not employment arbitrators have been substituted for collective bargaining by the government to an extent that warrants their inclusion as an actor in the industrial relations system. We review developments in workplace dispute resolution in the United States, the literature that attempts to explain these developments and posit an assessment of the stability of employment arbitration, and employment arbitrators, as a central feature of the US industrial relations system.     

Does the ADA Disable the Disabled?— More Comments

This article examines how best to identify individuals with disabilities for analysis of the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. It also explores whether amending the ADA to broaden its definition of disability can be expected to improve the employment prospects of those who seek its protections. Answering these questions requires that we learn much more about the labor force participation decisions of those with disabilities. Our aim here is to encourage further consideration and analysis of these and related questions regarding the possible effects of the ADA and of other environmental factors that affect the labor force participation of those with disabilities.     

外部关税变动对中国区域劳动力就业的影响

本文利用UNCTAD数据和中国人口普查微观数据,基于地区就业的行业结构和贸易对象国对中国征收的行业层面的进口关税,构建地区层面外部关税变动指标,研究外部关税变动对中国区域劳动力就业的影响。研究发现:(1)外部关税下降幅度越高的地区,总体就业、可贸易部门和不可贸易部门的就业增加也越多;(2)出口和内销规模扩张的就业创造效应、生产率提升的就业破坏效应,是外部关税下降影响地区可贸易部门就业的重要渠道;(3)外部关税下降带来的地区可贸易部门出口扩张、就业增加和工资上涨,通过产业关联和消费驱动等正向溢出效应增加地区不可贸易部门就业,通过就业的部门间再配置效应减少地区不可贸易部门就业;(4)外部关税下降对地区不可贸易部门就业的影响呈现出先抑制后促进的动态演进过程,这与外部关税变动下中国区域劳动力供给的调整紧密相关。此外,外部关税变动对地区不同属性劳动力就业的影响效果存在显著差异。本文的研究结论对于外部关税变动下稳定区域劳动力就业的相关政策制定具有一定的参考意义。     

Ownership,organization, and private firms' efficient use of resources

The principal–agent theory asserts that public firms' performance is driven by efficient capital and labor markets but is silent about non‐listed private companies, which are less permeable to market forces (both capital and labor) than are public companies. We propose and test a 2 × 2 framework distinguishing owner‐controlled vs. agent‐led firms from firms with a flat vs. multilayer organization. Our findings provide highly contrasted results and raise important issues for further study of private firms. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Role of Arbitrator Uncertainty in Negotiation Impasses

This article utilizes a unique data set to explore whether uncertainty about arbitration influences the likelihood that negotiators will use it. We use experimental data on decisions made by arbitrators in hypothetical scenarios to calculate a measure of uncertainty for each arbitrator. These data are matched to field data on contract negotiations involving this same set of arbitrators. We find that the greater the uncertainty about the arbitrator, the lower the probability of impasse.     

Who Supports Professional Certification? Insights from Employment Arbitration

Professional certification programmes became commonplace across the occupational structure in recent years, with many emerging and established professions opting to create their own certification programmes for reasons ranging from collective marketing to reducing malpractice litigation risk. Theories of social closure suggest that advantaged and established individual practitioners might want to use certification as a means of distinguishing themselves and enacting barriers to entry, though research on credentials and signalling theory leads to the expectation that certification is most valued by less secure and younger workers seeking to establish themselves in a profession. We use a survey of employment arbitrators as a case study in the dynamics of who supports certification, finding a surprisingly low overall level of support for certification. Arbitrators who are female, racial minorities and those who earn lower hourly rates are most supportive of creating and earning certification, suggesting that the most natural constituency for a new certification programme may be those looking to ‘break in’ to a profession rather than those already well established in their practice.     

Arbitration Decisions in Subcontracting Disputes

This study examines factors underlying arbitrators' decisions in disputes involving subcontracting. A framework devised by Dash (1963) is used to code arbitration decisions according to the issues arbitrators raised in reaching their conclusions. In addition, external factors such as geographical location, background of the arbitrator, industry, and when the decision occurred are evaluated. The results of logit analyses indicate that Dash's framework explains much of the variance in the arbitrators' decisions. External factors are unrelated to the decisions.     

Employment of People with Disabilities Following the ADA

Studies finding a negative effect of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on the employment of people with disabilities have used the work disability measure, which has several potential problems in measuring employment trends. Using Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data that permit alternative measures of disability, this study finds decreased employment among those reporting work disabilities in the first few years after the ADA was passed but increased employment when using a more probably appropriate measure of ADA coverage (functional and activity limitations that do not prevent work). State-by-state variation in labor market tightness is used to find that people with disabilities may have especially procyclical employment, but the contrary results in overall employment trends remain after accounting for labor market tightness. Given the problems in measuring who is covered by the ADA, there is reason to be cautious of both positive and negative findings.     

The Effects of Employment Protection for Obese People

This paper uses a 1993 court case, Cook v. Rhode Island, in conjunction with the implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to estimate the impact of employment protection on the labor market outcomes of obese people. In Cook, a federal appeals court ruled for the first time that obesity can be covered under the ADA. Using data from 1988 to 1999, I estimate that Cook increased employment for obese women and men relative to those whose weight was in the recommended range on the order of four and two percentage points, respectively. The results provide new evidence that obesity has important labor market implications.     

Labor market participation of Chinese agricultural households: Empirical evidence from Zhejiang province

This work is devoted to the analysis of the different labor market participation regimes of Chinese farm households over the reform process in the 1980s and 1990s. Using household data over the period 1986–2002 from the province Zhejiang, we apply a multinomial logit model to empirically examine household, farm, and regional characteristics affecting the probability that farmers participate in one of four alternative labor market regimes. As generally accepted, off-farm participation is the dominant form of farm households’ labor market participation. But rural households show additionally a significant impact on rural employment mainly linked with non-agricultural household business. Results suggest that labor market decisions are significantly related to several family, farm, and village characteristics. In particular, we find education to be a key determinant of participation. Furthermore, results point to a higher probability of female household members to take up off-farm work.     

Transitions Out of Casual Employment: The Australian Experience

This paper uses longitudinal data to examine the extent to which casual employees, who account for almost 25 percent of all Australian employees, are able to access non‐casual jobs in the future, and to contrast their experiences with that of other labor market participants. A dynamic mixed multinomial logit model of labor market states is estimated which reveals high rates of mobility from casual employment into non‐casual employment. Among men, casual employees are found to be far more likely to make the transition into non‐casual employment than otherwise comparable unemployed job seekers. For women, however, this is not the case.     

Economic and Political Factors in Formal Grievance Resolution

The resolution of formal grievances is largely determined by the applicable rights of grievant and the facts surrounding disputes. However, to the extent these rights and/or facts are unclear, the granting or denial of grievances is also partially determined by economic and political factors. A model of the impact of such factors on the favor ability of grievance decisions is developed and tested. The tests yield support for the general thesis and for several specific hypotheses.     

Machine and labor flexibility in manufacturing networks

Many industrial companies today operate under strict employment legislation and work agreements. Since flexible capacity has been widely recognized as an important hedge against uncertain demand, there exist strong efforts to introduce more flexible workforce models. In this paper, we investigate the benefits of such labor flexibility and its interplay with machine flexibility from a network capacity investment perspective.We consider a firm that has to invest simultaneously in labor and machine capacity under uncertain demand and a given network configuration while anticipating the deployment of labor flexibility after demand has been realized. Instruments of labor flexibility range from temporary employment to personnel transfers between plants. The underlying decision problem is formulated as a two-stage stochastic program with recourse.Based on numerical studies and the analysis of a stylized model, we demonstrate the impact of labor flexibility on the optimal levels of machine and labor capacity. We compare the benefits obtained by personnel transfers with those of temporary workers and find that temporary employment always decreases the number of permanent workers, while personnel transfers may even allow for a larger workforce. Our results further indicate that personnel transfers are more effective in larger manufacturing networks although these benefits are decreasing when most plants in the network are capable of producing more than one product (machine flexibility). Finally, we present evidence for the efficiency of a combined usage of personnel transfers and temporary workers.     

The Signal of Applying for a Job Under a Vacancy Referral Scheme

We investigate the signalling effect related to participation in active labor‐market programs. To this end, we conduct an experiment in which human resources professionals make hiring decisions concerning fictitious job candidates who apply either under a job‐vacancy referral system or directly. We provide first causal evidence for a substantial adverse effect of referral on the probability of being hired. In addition, we find that employers perceive referred candidates as being less motivated than other candidates.