Information technology: The threat to unions

Conclusions Although seldom recognized in the flurry of enthusiastic support, information technology has a dark side for unions. The Internet and the Web, with its power and convenience magnified by wireless communication, will reduce the relevancy of the traditional workplace-centered appeals of organizing unions. With greater physical distance and less psychological attachment to their employer and workplace, professional, clerical, technical, and sales workers will believe that collective bargaining does not fit their situations. Organizing these workers will require that unions not only have to broaden their mode of representation, perhaps even reviving associate membership, but also compete against advocacy and identity organizations. To make matters even worse, when unions try to organize any group of workers regardless of whether or not their jobs have been transformed by information technology, and when unions try to maintain their influence in already organized workplaces, they will have to compete against employer-controlled intranets.     

How unions affect management decisions: Evidence from public schools

This paper explores empirically the formal mechanism by which unions can influence management decisions on resource allocation and, thus, affect productivity. Instead of using a dummy variable to capture all union effects, contracts are broken down into various provisions to test whether they constrain management decisions. Analysis of data from New York school districts reveals that the number of provisions as well as specific provisions included in a contract significantly affect internal budgetary allocations.     

Running hard to stand still: Communication and information technology within social work training

Recent years have seen rapid technological changes and these have impacted on social work and social work education. Social work educators struggle to keep pace with these changes. Drawing on the author's own experience, this article outlines some key resources that are available to social work educators and students, reflects on the role of 'Communication and Information Technology' within the social work curriculum, and looks towards future developments in relation to online learning.     

How unions affect shareholder wealth in firms announcing layoffs

We investigate whether investor anticipation of future performance differs between union and nonunion firms following corporate layoff announcements. Using event-study methodology and multivariate regression analysis, we find that the stock market reaction to layoff announcements is negatively related to nonunion firms and positively related to union firms.     

How unions affect minority representation in building trades apprenticeship programs

I use program-level data to compare the relative representation of blacks and Latinos in the construction industry apprenticeship programs organized with and without trade union participation. Econometric analysis shows that there are significant differences between the black and Latino experiences. The black share is higher in union-management joint programs, but the Latino share appears to be higher in the unilateral employer programs. Although both groups have lower representation in the higher status (electrical and mechanical) and higher paying occupations, the Latino share is more sensitive to earnings.     

How information technology affects wages: Evidence using internet usage as a proxy for IT skills

Many research studies have found a positive link between information technology (IT) in the work place and wages. Using data from the December, 1998 Current Population Survey, we examine the impact of IT, as proxied by on-the-job Internet usage, on wages. After controlling for selectivity bias, we estimate an average wage gain of 13.5 percent for on-the- job Internet usage. This wage advantage is consistent with estimates from studies based on data collected earlier in the 1990s examining the impact of computers in the workplace. We also tested for differences across industries in the manufacturing sector. We conclude that industries marked by less intensive use of technology offered significantly higher wage premiums than industries characterized by more intensive use of technology. This finding undermines the argument that higher wages go to those working in high-tech firms, not to those with high IT skills. We also find evidence that high-tech firms sort workers by skill level, which is also consistent with earlier studies.     

Childhood mental health and adult family relationships: How ADHD shapes experiences with intimate unions and parenthood

Increasingly recognized as a chronic condition that can endure across the life course, childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with less stable family formation and more strain around intimate unions (dating, cohabitation and marriage) and parenthood. This article reviews and evaluates multidisciplinary research on childhood ADHD, intimate unions and parenthood, with the purpose of motivating future sociological research in this area. The paper is organized into three general sections. First, I provide an overview of information on ADHD including its diagnosis and treatment, cross-disciplinary etiologies, and sociodemographic correlates. Next, I blend sociological perspectives on labeling and stigma, social stress, and the life course to consider the role of ADHD-related stigma in shaping associations of childhood ADHD with family formation processes (intimate unions and parenthood) and family functioning (relationship quality and communication) in adulthood. Finally, I discuss opportunities for future sociological research on childhood ADHD and adult family relationships that have the potential to contribute both to empirical research on childhood ADHD and adult family relationships, as well as to sociological research at the intersection of family and health.     

Information technology, unions, and the new organization: Challenges and opportunities for union survival

The rapid transformation of the U.S. business environment has radically changed the character of organizations where unions seek to represent workers. Many of the structural elements that have provided critical support to union representation in collective bargaining have been significantly altered, or lost altogether. We have argued that information technologies have been a pivotal force of change in business organizations and have identified a set of key structural elements of these transformed organizations. It is our belief that while the new organization creates significant challenges for private sector unions, it also creates an opportunity for unions to develop new roles and new opportunities to prosper in the next millennium.     

Trade unions and quits: Australian evidence

This study uses data from the recent Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey to test the union voice hypothesis that unions reduce quits. Unlike the U.S., however, it is argued that union voice may not be directly correlated with union membership as a result of the protections afforded trade unions by the unique Australian industrial relations system. It is found that, while unions are inversely associated with quit rates, this effect is strongest where union membership is supplemented with a more direct indicator of what unions actually do in the workplace. The authors thank the Australian Commonwealth Department of Industrial Relations for the data used herein, Robert Drago, Bruce Chapman, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments and advice, and attendees at the Australian Labour Market Research Workshop, February 1993, Perth, at which an earlier version of this paper was presented.     

The peasant within: agrarian life in New Zealand and Canada

Cette communication analyse les tentatives des membres des families ďagriculteurs de vouloir imposer leurs propres modèles sur le processes de production et sur la création et la reproduction de leur existence sociale. Cette communication souligne aussi ľimportance ďune reformulation des approches traditionnelles envers la culture rurale en reconnaissant ľinfluence importante ďune histoire de domination. Les arguents sont basés sur les résultats de recherches entreprises sur place dans le nord de la Nouvelle Zélande et en Alberta central.
This paper examines the concern of the members of farm households to impose their own designs on the productive process, and on the creation and reproduction of their social existence. It also points to the importance of rethinking conventional approaches to rural culture by recognizing the pervasive influence of a history of domination. The arguments draw upon the results of field work conducted in northern New Zealand and central Alberta, Canada.     

How information frame influences risky decisions: Between-subjects and within-subject comparisons

Previous studies have demonstrated that subjects who receive positively framed information evaluate decision options more favorably than do other subjects who receive the same information framed negatively. This study examines whether the initial frame continues to influence responses of a given subject even after the frame is changed. In separate sequentially administered booklets, subjects were presented a series of gambles expressed in terms of probability of winning (positive condition), probability of losing (negative condition), or both (mixed condition). Subjects indicated whether they would take each ganble and rated their confidence in each decision Between-subjects analyses based on only the first condition received by each subject revealed a significant framing effect. Evaluations were most favorable in the positive condition and least favorable in the negative condition. Within-subject analyses based on all three conditions received by each subject revealed no significant framing effect. The effect of the initial frame apparently perseveres despite subsequent changes in the frame.     

What unions do: Insights from economic theory

Conclusion I have attempted to distill a quite sizable body of literature written by modern economists on the theory of labor unions, with particular emphasis given to the “two faces” view of unions developed by Freeman and Medolf in What Do Unions Do? Many important ideas and contributions have necessarily been omitted, but hopefully the main contours and implications are captured.     

Public attitudes towards unions: Some Canadian evidence

Despite a growing body of research on attitudes towards unions in the U.S. and, to a lesser extent Britain, surprisingly little is known about this topic in Canada. We attempt to fill this gap by examining data from a survey of 736 randomly selected residents of the western Canadian cities of Winnipeg and Edmonton. We find a high degree of latent unionism among non-unionized labor force members: 40 percent would join a union if one existed in their workplace. Union attitudes are better predictors of willingness to join than are demographic and socioeconomic variables, although we can predict instrumental beliefs about unions with some accuracy using such objective measures. This article is based on a paper presented at the Canadian Industrial Relations Association annual meeting, June 1983, in Vancouver, British Columbia. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Population Research Laboratory at the University of Alberta and its Director, Professor L. W. Kennedy, in making available results of the 1981 Edmonton and Winnipeg Area Studies. We also thank Val Caskey for typing services. Helpful comments on an earlier draft were provided by an anonymous reviewer.