The Allocation of Black Workers into the Public Sector

Abstract

This study examines the effects of individual and structural factors on the odds that a black worker will be employed in the public sector (federal or state-local government) rather than the private sector. The independent variables include human capital, gender, citizenship, and the structural features of the labor markets (metropolitan areas) in which these workers reside (percent black, residential segregation, geographic region). The study focuses on percent black and residential segregation, two variables which significantly influence discrimination, group power and the employment opportunities of black workers. Logistic regression shows that, controlling for other factors, the odds of black employment in the public sector are highest in metropolitan areas that have large black populations and relatively low levels of residential segregation. These findings indicate that the allocation of black workers into the public sector results from processes of both discrimination and group power. The implications of the findings for the future prospects of black Americans to advance economically through public sector employment are discussed.     

Structural changes in the receiving country and future labor migration--the case of Kuwait

This article describes changes in the volume, age and sex composition, retention, productivity, types of occupation, and economic sector of the labor force in Kuwait. The focus is on the structural changes in the indigenous labor force. Data were obtained from censuses and labor force surveys during 1965-93. Policies after the 1990 invasion pertained primarily to security of public employment sector among natives. Over 98% of private sector employment is among non-Kuwaitis. Government programs support high fertility. Female illiteracy has declined, and the proportion of women with a higher education has increased. Natives comprised 20.4% of the total labor force in 1993. About 90% of native males work in the public sector. 45% of total male employment is in the production sector. Around 50% of non-Kuwaiti males have been employed in production work over the decades. Over 90% of Kuwaiti females in 1993 worked in professional or clerical work. Over 50% of total female labor force participation is in the service sector. Concentration in the public sector increased for Kuwaitis and declined for non-Kuwaitis. Labor force participation declined with increasing age. Retirement benefits encouraged early retirement. The private sector is experiencing the departure of long-term migrants and more rapid turnover of labor. Hours of work are longer in the private sector. Kuwait is still dependent on foreign workers in the production and service industries. It is likely that native male workers will replace foreign workers in professional work and administrative/clerical work. Policies that will assure future reliance on imported labor include the assurance of government jobs for Kuwaitis, retirement rules, and the profitability of the trade in labor.     

Legal aspects of exclusive representation: Ruminations on the private-public sector analogy

From the perspective of a management labor lawyer, this article argues that any legitimate theory of employment rights must be founded on the premise that employment is a voluntary relationship governed by mutual consent. In contrast, the erosion of the doctrine of at-will employment and the substitution of its legal antithesis, the tort of wrongful discharge, depend on a conception of employment rights as something the employee possesses at the employer’s expense, that is, without the employer’s consent. The theme of this article is that an employment right does not exist apart from contract. The government cannot violate an employment right unless it prevents a willing employee and a willing employer from making a contract concerning a proper subject on terms satisfactory to both. In public sector employment, the state is one of the parties to the employment contract. In most cases, a public employer cannot be “willing” if the same sovereign or polity has enacted conditions on public employment, that is, has placed limitations on itself. This article analyzes the legal aspects of exclusive union representation and related union security arrangements within this conceptual framework. Member, State Bar of California. Associate, Latham & Watkins, Los Angeles and San Diego. I wish to thank my colleague, Mark W. Smith, for his helpful suggestions and comments during the preparation of this paper. The views expressed here are solely those of the author.     

Female labour force integration and the alleviation of urban poverty: a case study of Kingston,Jamaica

The author posits that female labor force integration in Jamaica accomplishes little in alleviating poverty and making maximum use of human resources. Women are forced into employment in a labor market that limits their productivity. Women have greater needs to increase their economic activity due to price inflation and cuts in government spending. During the 1980s and early 1990s the country experienced stabilization and structural adjustment resulting in raised interest rates, reduced public sector employment, and deflated public expenditures. Urban population is particularly sensitive to monetary shifts due to dependency on social welfare benefits and lack of assets. Current strategies favor low wage creation in a supply-side export-oriented economy. These strategies were a by-product of import-substitution industrialization policies during the post-war period and greater control by multilateral financial institutions in Washington, D.C. The World Bank and US President Reagan's Caribbean Basin Initiative stressed export-oriented development. During the 1980s, Jamaican government failed to control fiscal policy, built up a huge external debt, and limited the ability of private businessmen to obtain money for investment in export-based production. Over the decade, uncompetitive production declined and light manufacturing increased. Although under 10% of new investment was in textile and apparel manufacturing, almost 50% of job creation occurred in this sector and 80% of all apparel workers were low-paid women. Devaluation occurred both in the exchange rate and in workers' job security, fringe benefits, union representation, and returns on skills. During 1977-89 women increased employment in the informal sector, which could not remain competitive under devaluation. Women's stratification in the labor market, high dependency burdens, and declining urban infrastructure create conditions of vulnerability for women in Jamaica.     

Non-clearing labor markets and minority employment in municipal government

This paper posits a public choice model for explaining the variation across cities in the minority share of local government employment. The paper argues that, when hiring under conditions of excess supply, vote-maximizing local public employers exchange public sector jobs for political support from identifiable special interest groups. The model is tested for two local government occupations — police officer and firefighter — using a sample of cities above 50,000 in population. The results are compatible with the basic hypothesis that the greater the excess supply for an occupation, the higher the share of minority employment in that occupation. We are indebted to James D. Adams, Bernard Bernstein, Ali Rassuli, and Loren Solnick for helpful comments on an earlier draft. The authors alone are responsible for the contents of the paper.     

Correlates of Voluntary vs. Involuntary Part‐time Employment among US Women

This article presents a study of the extent to which type and duration of labour force attachment add to the explanatory power of psychological, demographic, and family household characteristics to predict voluntary (n=166) vs. involuntary part‐time (n=160) employment of women in the United States. We use the terms ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’ to reflect the woman's choice in accepting to work in paid part‐time employment. In this context, voluntary part‐time work is not meant to be construed as charitable, non‐paid activities, but rather is construed as individuals who are working part‐time but who would prefer to be working full‐time, if a suitable job were available. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience (NLSLME), we found that labour market attachment characteristics added little to predict part‐time employment status (involuntary vs. voluntary) and had virtually no effect on the odds of any other correlates on employment status. The major exception was number of years of unemployment. The longer working women were previously unemployed, the greater the likelihood they were involuntarily employed in part‐time jobs. In addition, we found that marriage and private sector employment decreased the likelihood of involuntary part‐time employment. Findings suggest that involuntarily part‐time employed women appear to be ‘settling’ for what they can get, namely, part‐time rather than full‐time jobs and that unmarried part‐timers may be viewed as a stigmatized or marginal group more likely to be employed in the public rather than private sector. Policy implications and future research are discussed.     

Pushed or Pulled? Women's Entry into Self‐Employment and Small Business Ownership

Over the past two decades the economies of Canada and many other industrialized countries have seen significant restructuring, bringing with it steadily rising levels of self‐employment and small business ownership. Women have been at the forefront of this change. Of the many questions raised by women's entrance into self‐employment, a central one concerns the factors fuelling its growth. While some argue that women have been pulled into self‐employment by the promise of independence, flexibility and the opportunity to escape barriers in paid employment, others argue that women have been pushed into it as restructuring and downsizing has eroded the availability of once secure jobs in the public and private sector. To date, existing research on the ‘push–pull’ debate has not fully answered; these questions, with survey and labour force data suggesting only general and sometimes contradictory, trends. This article examines this issue in greater detail, drawing on in‐depth interviews with 61 self‐employed women in Canada. Overall their experiences shed further light on the expansion of women's self‐employment in the 1990s, suggesting push factors have been underestimated and challenging the current contours of the ‘push–pull’ debate.     

Privatization of Refuse Removal and Labor Costs*

We examine the labor-cost savings associated with privatization by comparing earnings and employment trends of public and private sector refuse workers. Findings suggest that high union earnings for workers in the public sector are a source of labor-cost savings in the refuse industry. Evidence on job changers does not indicate that earnings for this group of workers are a compensating differential. Metropolitan area employment findings suggest that municipalities are less likely to use union refuse workers in the public sector when a relatively small percentage of area residents belong to a union.     

Male-female differences in the potential for union growth outside traditionally unionized industries

Using recent NLS data on preferences for union representation, this paper examines whether differences by sex exist in the potential for union organizing outside of traditionally unionized industries. The methodology distinguishes between workers’ preferences for union representation and the relative supply of union jobs in explaining interindustry differences in the extent of unionization. Within the private sector, women employed in industries other than those traditionally unionized are found to have at least as strong a preference for unionization as do comparable men but a considerably lower opportunity for unionized employment given the desire for union representation. Comparing the public sector with traditionally organized industries, the greater extent of unionization in the public sector is largely explained by a stronger desire for union representation on the part of both male and female public sector employees. The helpful comments of Rodney Fort, Daniel Hamermesh, Robert Hutchens, and Jon Sonstelie on an earlier draft of the paper are gratefully acknowledged.     

The Government Communication Decision Wheel: Toward a Public Relations Model for the Public Sector

We argue that the existing public relations and communication models do not adequately account for the unique environmental characteristics of the public sector. By reviewing the public sector environment literature, we identify 8 attributes that affect government public relations: politics, focus on serving the public, legal constraints, extreme media and public scrutiny, lack of managerial support for public relations practitioners, poor public perception of government communication, lagging professional development, and federalism. We then review 5 existing public relations models, arguing that none of these models fully incorporates the unique environmental characteristics of the public sector. We conclude by proposing a new model: the government communication decision wheel.     

Privatization of refuse removal and labor costs

We examine the labor-cost savings associated with privatization by comparing earnings and employment trends of public and private sector refuse workers. Findings suggest that high union earnings for workers in the public sector are a source of labor-cost savings in the refuse industry. Evidence on job changers does not indicate that earnings for this group of workers are a compensating differential. Metropolitan area employment findings suggest that municipalities are less likely to use union refuse workers in the public sector when a relatively small percentage of area residents belong to a union. The authors thank Jacqueline Agesa, Keith Bender, Maria Crawford, and Richard Perlman for valuable suggestions. Research assistance from Eric Blackburn is greatly appreciated.     

The future of private sector unions in the U.S.

Conclusion As noted, the union movement’s significant decline during the last four decades is primarily a private sector phenomenon. Since the mid-1950s, the union density of private sector workers has dropped from more than a third to less than a tenth, in contrast to that found in government employment, which is now about 37 percent. We are indebted to the Donner Foundation for support and to Noah Meltz and Rafael Gomez for research and intellectual advice.     

Public enterprise and the rise and fall of labor share

Developed economies experienced a rise and fall in labor share (LS) in the postwar period. We present a novel explanation of these trends – public enterprise employment. We document a link between it and both LS and wage compression in 15 developed nations. We then build a model that shows how overstaffing public enterprises can increase LS and reduce wage inequality. Overstaffing directly increases public enterprise LS and indirectly increases private sector LS by reducing available labor. We examine several public enterprise reforms. Consistent with the model’s predictions, reforms reduce public enterprise LS permanently and private sector LS temporarily.     

Mothers in the workforce

This evaluation of maternity leave was completed by the Australian Institute of Family Studies. The use of maternity leave was investigated in 3 separate surveys. In 1, all women throughout Australia who had borne a child during 1 week in May 1984 (2000 women) were surveyed 18 months after the birth. The 2nd and 3rd surveys examined the experience of maternity leave in 1252 private sector businesses of varying sizes and a smaller number of public sector organizations. The study found that 46% of women are in the workforce during pregnancy. However, looking only at women in employment before the 1st birth, 3/4 of them are in the workforce. 44% of women took maternity leave, 33% were eligible but did not take leave, and the remaining 24% were ineligible for maternity leave either because they were casual workers or because they had not been in continuous employment with their employer for the required minimum period of 12 months. Of all maternity leave taken, 78% is taken by public sector employees and only 21% by women employed in the private sector. 1/2 of the women eligible for maternity leave in the private sector who did not take up the option had no information about maternity leave provisions. The main determinants of taking maternity leave, apart from having information about it, are working in the public sector, having a strong attachment to the workforce, having values which see work and child rearing as complementary, being a member of a trade union, having a high education and high status occupation, and being employed in a large establishment. Other survey findings follow. 1) 55% of women who were in employment before their 1st child returned to the workforce within 18 months of the birth. 2) 45% of women returned to work used informal child care provided by family or friends (usually unpaid). 32% used formal care only. 23% used a combination of formal and informal child care. 3) Women are spending an average of between 20% and 25% of their income on child care. 4) Financial reasons are the main reasons given by women for their return to the workforce. 5) Cost and availability of child care is an important issue in determining women's workforce participation after the birth of a child. 6) 60% of women do not return to the workforce after childbirth; 90% of these women intend to do so in the future. 7) For the majority of women who give birth, motherhood emerges as their most important role in life. Almost 1/2 the women agree that a woman should give up her job if it inconveniences her husband and children. 8) 2/3 of working women can establish just as warm and secure a relationship as non-working mothers, compared with 4 out of 10 non-working mothers.     

District elections and the power of municipal employee unions

Very little prior research has been devoted to the effects of the institutional structure of local government on public sector labor markets. This study addresses the differential effects of the two main systems used to elect city council members — district versus citywide (at-large) elections. The study hypothesizes that, in district-election cities, municipal employees, especially those who are unionized, face a lower cost of influencing city council candidates and, consequently, will have greater power to influence employment conditions. To test this hypothesis, data on U.S. cities over 25,000 population are used to estimate both reduced form and structural wage and employment equations. The results are consistent with the basic hypothesis: district elections provide a more fertile ground for municipal employees, especially those organized in unions, to affect their employment conditions. The authors acknowledge the helpful comments of Tim Sass, Tom Means, and participants in a session at the 1991 Public Choice Society meetings.     

Unions,politicians, and the public interest: Retrenchment in the public sector

The growth of the public sector that has continued nearly unabated since the end of World War II is coming to an end. This apparently will set the stage for a classic confrontation between public sector unions, vote-maximizing politicians, and the general public. Using an employment multiplier approach, we show that the conflict is largely illusionary. Because of a fortunate coincidence, retrenchment in the public sector is likely to be carried out so that no one group will be grievously offended.     

Testing for state and local government job queues

Bivariate probit estimates with partial observability identify the factors influencing the worker’s decision to seek a state or local government job and the factors influencing the government’s decision to hire particular workers. The estimates routinely confirm the presence of a local job queue but confirm the presence of a state job queue only when the role of unionization is explicitly recognized. Our results suggest that the net benefits from local and state government employment are greater than those from private sector employment. The estimates also indicate that local governments disproportionately hire racial minorities relative to the local governments’ pool of applicants but indicate no such relationship for state governments. The authors thank Dale Belman, Jugal Ghorai, and Matt Higgins for help on this and related work. We also thank the referee and the editor for useful suggestions.     

Incentive compensation in the public sector: Evidence and potential

Conclusions During much of the 20th century, the U.S. public sector underwent a conversion from a patronage to a civil service system of work and pay. Later in that century, a substantial proportion of public employees became unionized, with the consequence that pay (and other terms and conditions of employment) became less single-mindedly management determined and more collectively determined. Still later, fiscal crisis, the government re-invention movement, and broadened economic competition spurred governments to shift away from strict payment for time practices and adopt various incentive compensation initiatives based on the principle of pay-for-performance. That this is not the only pay principle operative in governments, however, is attested to by the existence of prevailing wage, minimum wage, and, most recently, living-wage statutes in many if not most governments.     

Working Part‐Time for the State: Gender,Class and the Public Sector Pay Gap

This article explores the role and nature of disadvantages associated with part‐time working in perpetuating the gender pay gap in the public sector. It does so by means of a detailed case study of local government workers in the UK, with particular reference to the more than one and a half million local government service workers covered by National Joint Council bargaining arrangements. The article draws from original pay data analysis and national survey work conducted by the author. It argues that little has changed since the findings reported 20 years ago by Beechey and Perkins with respect to the disadvantages experienced by part‐time workers and the ‘construction’ of employment in gendered ways. However, the role of class may have been understated in previous accounts: class fractions in gender‐segregated employment continue to hold deep significance and provide some potential for solidaristic approaches by trade unions alongside traditional ‘equality’ initiatives.     

The case against union-only project labor agreements on government construction projects

Imposition of union-only PLAs in the public sector cannot be shown to serve the public interest. The government should not enter into the realm of labor management relations by arbitrarily creating a protected enclave for union work at the expense of taxpayers and to the detriment of fair and open competition. Government agencies that impose union-only PLAs in response to short-term political pressure from labor organizations will suffer long term consequences, in the form of litigation, increased costs of construction, and adverse taxpayer reaction. Mr. Baskin is a partner with the Washington, DC. law firm of Venable, Baetjer, Howard & Civiletti, LLP. He focuses on all aspects of labor and employment law representing management and serves as General Counsel of Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc.