Employment and Local Public Sector Unions

This study examines the longitudinal effects of unionization on employment levels in 13, 749 departments of city and county government with unchanged union status between 1977 and 1982. The resluts demonstrate that, holding constant 1977 employment per capita, 1982 employment pr capita is 3.1 per cent higher in departments with bargaining units, compared to nonunion department. Employment levels in departments with nonbargaining associations are equal to nonunion levels, but associations may increase employment relative to levels employers would choose because they also set compensation above nonunion levels. The political context of local public sector employment is probably responsible for these effects.     

Comparative Industrial Relations Research: Towards Reversing the Gender Bias

This paper seeks to begin the reversal of the gender bias in comparative industrial relations research which is still focused on comparing and contrasting the regimes that cover mainly male manual workers. There is little systematic evidence on industrial relations practices in private or even public services, for non-manual workers or for atypical workers. These employment areas are central for women's employment and are of increasing importance in the labour market, but few attempts have been made to compare industrial relations regimes by reference to the protection they afford to women. Taking into account industrial relations practice in these areas can change significantly the classification and estimated coverage of collective bargaining systems. By 'mainstrearning' gender issues it also becomes clear that current macroeconomic policy proposals have major gender implications that are ignored in current debates     

Training and Labour Market Flexibility: Is There a Trade-off?

This paper explores the nexus between work-related training and labour market 'flexibility' (which we proxy by contract type, part-time employment and lack of union coverage), using the first five waves of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) conducted over the period 1991–5. Our results show that workers on short-term employment contracts, who are working part-time or are not covered by a union collective agreement, are significantly less likely to be involved in any work-related training to improve or increase their skills. These findings suggest that there is a trade-off between expanding the more marginal forms of employment and expanding the proportion of the work-force getting work-related training.     

Did the Retreat of UK Trade Unionism Accelerate during the 1990–1993 Recession?

It is widely believed that recessions are periods of accelerated structural change, with major reorganizations or adjustments being made under intense pressure. These changes are made to ensure the survival of firms, exploit opportunities created by difficulties facing other firms, or take advantage of temporary falls in the opportunity cost of initiating and carrying out changes. This line of argument suggests that we should expect to see firms making major changes in their investments in human capital, and in their industrial relations practices. Our results are only partially consistent with this view. What seems to be clear from the data generated by our surveys is that firms are not reluctant to make changes in their bargaining strategies and industrial relations systems. This should be no surprise. Unlike investments in plant and equipment, these changes do not require much cash, and the opportunity cost of making them is much lower in recessions than in booms. However, the observed changes in union recognition have not occurred primarily in firms that were severely affected by the recession. Increases in pay decentralization and reorganization of work-force arrangements were no more likely to be initiated by distressed firms than by firms only moderately affected by the recession. It follows, then, that the retreat of UK unionism observed during the 1990–3 recession was, in the main, a continuation of existing secular trends. The mild acceleration in the pace of change revealed by our survey may be cyclical, but the trend is unlikely to be reversed as recovery gathers pace.     

Institutional Resilience in a Changing World Economy? The Case of the German Bankking and Chemical Industries

This paper examines whether there has been a transformation towards company-specific and unitarist industrial relations in Germany. On the basis of 25 case studies of employment practices in German and foreign-owned banks and chemical firms as well as industry data, the research found that the German system has so far remained relatively stable. Companies in the two industries studied generally still comply with the labour market institutions of multi-employer collective bargaining, workplace representation and initial vocational training. Pressures have been accommodated by changes within the system rather than by a radical change of the system.     

How Do Organizational Environments and Mandatory Arbitration Shape Employment Attorney Case Selection? Evidence from an Experimental Vignette

Using a novel experimental vignette design, this study shows how firm adoption of equal employment opportunity (EEO) policies, internal dispute resolution procedures, occupational segregation, and use of mandatory arbitration agreements affect employment attorney perceptions of employment discrimination claims. Findings reveal the organizational environment of a claim can signal compliance with antidiscrimination law and the use of mandatory arbitration reduces the expected value of a claim and willingness to accept it for representation. These findings contribute to the understanding of antidiscrimination law as a social system by showing organizational environments and mandatory arbitration clauses predict attorney case assessment.     

The Employment Contract: From Collective Procedures to Individual Rights

The article analyses the institutional basis and form of the employment contract in Britain using the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey. It assesses the extent to which collective bargaining still regulates pay and non‐pay aspects of employment. While collective procedures have declined in importance, there has been an increase in legal governance of the employment relationship. Logistic regression analysis establishes that both contractual formalization and legal compliance are greater in larger organizations and where trade unions are present. Trade union activity is also associated with superior fringe benefits. Collective bargaining thus appears to facilitate both access to and improvement on statutory rights.     

Affirmative Action in a Changing Legal and Economic Environment

This study examines the effects of changing legal and economic pressure on a large manufacturing firm in the 1980s and shows that the firm was able to pursue two potentially contradictory goals: equal employment opportunity compliance and product market competitiveness. The firm's institutionalized affirmative action commitment and diverse local labor market shaped innovations in production and employment practices in a way that encouraged meeting both goals rather than trading off one for the other.     

Asset-Specific Investment and Unionized Labor

This article investigates the bargaining problem that exists when firms make asset-specific investments and then are subject to excessive union wage demands. In this context, the combination of both large asset specific investment and high union density is important in determining the magnitude of the bargaining problem. Using firm-specific union-density rates and various asset-specificity proxies, evidence is found that the bargaining problem results in substantially lower firm profitability, investment, and employment.     

Taiwan: An Exploration of Labour Relations in Transition

This paper explores the emerging relations between workers and employers in Taiwan. The lifting of martial law in 1987 and other reforms have set in motion a basic restructuring of the industrial relations system. A union movement dominated by the interests of employers and the ruling political party has given workers little leverage in the employment relationship. Constrained collective bargaining plus consultation with employers offers the best long-term prospect of providing a systematic basis for worker participation in the workplace and broader business and economic decision-making.     

Changes in Wage-setting Arrangements and Trade Union Presence in the 1980s

In this paper we detail the results of a retrospective survey of changes in trade union and wage-setting arrangements in the 1980s for a sample of 558 UK companies. Our key findings are as follows. (1) Complete derecognition of unions in a firm was rare even in firms with low trade union density. (2) Partial derecognition in multi-plant firms was more common. Some 13 per cent of companies with recognized unions in 1984 had had at least partial derecognition by 1990. (3) Large falls in trade union density within a firm have also been rare, though small but observable declines have been commonplace. (4) The coverage of the closed shop has substantially declined, and this decline has been most marked in the last five years. Around one-quarter of firms with recognized unions in 1990, however, still had closed-shop arrangement for at least part of their work-force. (5) There has been no clear decline in the prevalence of multi-unionism or multiple bargaining units. (6) There has been a significant move away from national/industry-wide bargaining, towards negotiations at the individual company or more often the establishment level. (7) In the absence of collective bargaining there have been clear moves away from wage-setting by formal external links, such as wages councils and multi-employer agreements, and even away from worker consultation towards more managerial discretion. (8) In deciding wage settlements, managers are increasingly influenced by company performance and less by multi-employer wage settlements.     

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.     

Economic Integration and State Responses: Change in European Industrial Relations since Maastricht

The article analyses industrial relations change in the six largest EU countries since 1992 in relation to increased internationalization pressures. Based on qualitative and quantitative analysis, it distinguishes between associational and state governance, and detects that despite a predominant, but not universal, trend of weakening trade unions and collective bargaining, no overall liberalization has occurred in the political regulation of employment (employment policies, welfare state, labour law, state support to collective bargaining, public sector). Rather than converging towards neoliberalism, industrial relations emerge as more politically contingent and dependent on multiple forms of power, which are affected by internationalization in different ways.     

Interstate vs. Interprovincial Differences in Union Density

Union density in Canada is approximately twice that in the United States. The range of densities from high to low states/provinces is much smaller, however: 2:1 in Canada vs. 6:1 in the U.S. After adjusting for differences in industry distribution of employment, this study finds that the major source of interstate and interprovincial differences is private sector density. Most of the low union density states have right-to-work laws, while the greater the comprehensiveness of state bargaining laws, the higher the public sector density. In Canada, where all public and private sector employees have the right to bargain, there is a higher average level of public and private sector densities and a smaller range for both. The more supportive labor legislation in Canada may be associated with the existence of labor-oriented political parties at the provincial level.     

Bargaining (De)centralization, Macroeconomic Performance and Control over the Employment Relationship

Based on data for 20 OECD countries, this paper analyses the effect of bargaining centralization on performance and control over the employment relationship. Rejecting both the corporatist thesis and the hump–shape thesis, the paper finds that performance either increases or decreases with centralization, depending on the ability of the higher level to bind lower levels. There is a clear effect on control in that bargaining coverage significantly declines with decentralization. Employers can therefore expect to extend management prerogatives, rather than improve performance, when enforcing decentralization. Hence the literature on bargaining structures when focusing on performance has lost sight of their contested nature.     

Bargaining Effects of the Mandatory-Permissive Distinction

This study uses a laboratory experiment to examine empirically the effect of the mandatory permissive distinction on the negotiation of wages, employment guarantees, and advertising expenditures. Results suggest that negotiators spend more time bargaining over a smaller settlement range when an issue is mandatory than when it is permissive. Further, tentative findings provide no evidence that negotiators can circumvent the distinction through the use of tradeoffs across issues or bargaining power.     

我国主要海洋产业对劳动力就业的拉动效应分析

就业问题事关国计民生.积极寻找新的就业增长点,缓解当前就业压力,促进经济稳定增长已成为政府、学者和公众关注的焦点话题.本文以我国主要海洋产业为研究对象,从就业弹性和单位岗位贡献两个角度出发,对主要海洋产业的就业拉动效应做出分析.研究结果表明:我国主要海洋产业生产总值每提高1%,将使主要海洋产业就业人数增加3.28万人次;就业弹性显著为正,但呈现出下降的趋势;主要海洋产业群内部各子产业的单位岗位贡献差异明显,其中海洋交通运输业和海洋油气业对就业的带动作用较大,且传统优势产业海洋渔业、滨海旅游业等仍扮演重要角色.     

Women, social skill and interactive service work in telephone call centres

This paper contributes to current debates about gender, work and skill in the service economy, focusing specifically on the case of women's employment in telephone call centres. The paper asks whether call centre employers are capitalising on women's 'feminine' social skills, and examines the degree to which these skills are being developed, acknowledged and recognised.     

Overt Employment Discrimination by Multinational Firms: Cultural and Economic Influences in a Developing Country

An issue that has been explored only to a limited extent is the role that multinational firms might play in promoting or inhibiting employment discrimination based on gender in developing countries. This study focuses on this issue within the context of Thailand, a country that, until quite recently, had one of the world's fastest growing economies, driven to a large extent through investment by foreign multinational firms. The approach we take is to analyze the determinants of the inclusion of explicit gender restrictions in job announcements by both multinationals and Thai-owned firms. Some job announcements restrict jobs to male or to female applicants, and some are silent on the issue of gender. Others specifically invite both male and female applicants. There are no laws in Thailand restricting gender-based discrimination nor requiring "equal opportunity" language on the part of private employers.
The analysis examines the relationship of the cultural characteristics of the firm's home country, along with economic growth in the host country, with the likelihood of various gender-based restrictions being placed in job announcements. We employ widely used measures of national culture developed by Hofstede.Empirical results demonstrate relationships between discrimination and certain of Hofstede's cultural dimensions. Economic growth was not found to have an impact on discrimination. Control variables in the study include dummy variables to control for occupation and the industry of the employee firm.     

The Impact of Union Political Activities on Public-Sector Pay, Employment, and Budgets

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the political power of public employee unions has been a major cause of excessive growth in municipal expenditures. Previous studies, however, have not directly measured union political activities but instead have used some type of unionization or collective bargaining proxy. This paper uses unpublished data from the International City Management Association (ICMA) to develop a more direct measure of police and fire union political activity. It is found that increased union political activity leads to greater department expenditures but not necessarily to greater municipal expenditures or revenues. The results also suggest that unions increase department spending through political activity and not through the collective bargaining process itself. Further, it appears that political activity increases department spending through higher employment and not through higher compensation.