Union membership,economic rents,and migration behavior

This study represents an extension of the human capital paradigm as it relates to an individual’s decision to migrate. It differs from previous studies by incorporating union membership, a labor market variable, into the model. In effect, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 granted a monopoly bargaining position to unions. The theoretical implication of a union’s monopoly bargaining position is that union wage levels will increase relative to nonunion wages. The increase of relative wages results in union membership granting a property right that possesses positive net present value and hence reduces an employed union member’s probability of migrating. Additionally, the supra-competitive remuneration of union members results in a surplus of labor supplied to union firms. Employers respond by using quality screening to hire workers from the larger labor pool. As a result, unemployed union members will on average possess higher levels of human capital, which will increase their probability of migrating above that of their unemployed nonunion cohorts.     

Exclusive representation in public employment: A public choice perspective

Public sector unionization has grown rapidly in recent years, and research has suggested that among the reasons for such growth is legislation granting special privileges to public employee unions. This paper examines one form of legislative privilege, exclusive representation, from a public choice perspective. It is shown that exclusivity reduces employees’ freedom of choice, increases the welfare of union leaders at the expense of union members, limits employment opportunities to “outsiders,” entrenches the monopoly provision of public services, and generates conflict and instability in labor relations.     

The AFL-CIO v. CTW: The competing visions, strategies, and structures

As the AFL-CIO approached its twenty-fifth biennial convention in July 2005, seven unions formed a new Change to Win (CTW) coalition to challenge the federation for lead position as the voice of the labor movement. These unions, most of which have disaffiliated from the AFL-CIO, formed the CTW to demonstrate their unsparing discontent with John Sweeney’s leadership of the federation. We examine the reasons for the current breach in the house of labor, the competing visions offered by the AFL-CIO and CTW, and the likelihood that the CTW’s strategy will revive unions. We find that the gulf between the two factions is philosophically deep and practically irreconcilable. The CTW advocates an “engineered breakthrough” approach to revitalize labor whereas the AFL-CIO relies on a more conservative “accelerated evolution” path. There are no guarantees that the CTW’s strategy will work. It presupposes an unmet demand for unions that can be tapped through vast new investments. If the current model of unionism is lacking, as the CTW suggests, a viable replacement must be found. The CTW, with its limited resources, will have to experiment until it finds the right model, if one does indeed exist. The task of rebuilding labor is daunting, but it arguably requires a bold and fundamentally different course from what has been pursued. From this perspective, the breakup seems a logical development.     

Family labor supply,taxation and saving in an imperfect capital market

This paper combines income and expenditure with time use data to provide a unique picture of the labor supply, household production, saving and consumption decisions of two-adult households over a life cycle defined in terms of the presence and ages of children. The study also draws on data for household borrowing and lending, direct and indirect benefits and taxes to calibrate a “family” life cycle model at the core of which is the hypothesis that households face a borrowing interest rate that rises with the amount of non-collateral based borrowing. The household members jointly choose time paths of time use, consumption and saving over their life cycle in the face of this capital market imperfection. Importantly, households are shown to differ significantly in their saving behavior in a way that depends on secondary earner labor supply, with a strong positive association between saving and the income of the second earner. The results differ sharply from those of the existing literature.     

Unions in the 2000 election: A strategic-choice perspective

In the 2000 elections, organized labor mounted a“massive“ political effort. The AFL-CIO spearheaded a program that emphasized both grassroots and“checkbook” politics. Labor 2000, however, represented much more than an attempt to influence elections. Political action, dedicated to a“Working Families Agenda“ became a strategy of choice to elect candidates, influence lawmakers, mobilize union members, and recruit workers into the labor movement. In this paper, I examine Labor 2000 from a strategic-choice perspective. Specifically, I look at the scope and variety of labor's political effort; how labor allocated its political resources; the degree of competition it faced; and the election outcomes. In addition, I examine the effort in terms of its potential for transforming unions. Data from a variety of sources, some of which have not been previously used, are examined to put Labor 2000 into perspective as a strategy. The results indicate that labor did have some success in mobilizing union members politically. However, labor's impact proved insufficient to achieve immediate national election goals. Questions remain about the wisdom of political action as a strategy of choice, especially in terms of its viability as an instrument for institutional revival.     

Tax-funded unionism II: The facade of culture and democracy

This article investigates how unions, under the guise of promoting culture, have obtained taxpayers’ funds to finance union goals and activities, such as organizing. In addition, the establishment of the National Endowment for Democracy is examined to show how organized labor cooperated with the business community and the two political parties to obtain taxpayer funding purportedly to promote democracy abroad. The authors gratefully acknowledge research support provided by the John M. Olin Foundation, the J.M. Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the Earhart Foundation.     

The impact of labor unions on the passage of economic legislation

This paper examines the political power of labor unions. A model of the decision of an interest group to contribute to a political campaign is developed and tested. The empirical evidence indicates that interest groups, and unions in particular, use political contributions in a systematic and coordinated manner. Unions give money to candidates with relatively little seniority (who might otherwise not be elected) and to candidates from districts with about the average number of union members. Such candidates might otherwise not vote as the union would desire. The influence of campaign contributions and of union membership on the voting of congressmen on issues of interest to unions is also investigated. Union membership is sometimes significant and campaign contributions are always significant in explaining voting on minimum wages, wageprice controls, benefits for strikers, and OSHA and CETA appropriations. The indirect economic effects of labor unions — those effects which occur because unions influence legislation — may be as important as the direct effects which occur through collective bargaining.     

Union wealth: The bargaining power implications

Conventional wisdom holds that U.S. unions are in crisis. Recently, however, unions have shown both boldness and initiative, remarkably in the proposed merger between the Auto Workers, Steelworkers, and Machinists. Regardless of whether labor is genuinely on the rebound, unions need money in order to retain clout and expand. I explore the financial wealth of the 28 largest U.S.-based unions during the period 1979–1993, and find that these unions, overall, maintained their wealth during a period of substantial membership decline even after adjusting for inflation. At the same time, however, unions vary widely in terms of both their wealth and related trends over the past decade and a half, but wealth has nonetheless remained substantially concentrated among a small set. Yet, several unions possess a seemingly robust financial capacity to sustain a strike, and the pursuit of additional union consolidations might reinforce this capacity. These consolidations may also have political implications.     

Member support for union mergers: An analysis of an affiliation referendum

A changing labor relations climate has caused many national unions to merge with smaller independent unions in recent years. One aspect of the merger process concerns the willingness of independent union members to support affiliation with a national union (Chaison, 1986). This article examines the determinants of indivudual-level voting behavior using data gathered from members of an independent union who rejected a proposed affiliation with a national union in a membership referendum. Logistic regression results indicate that affiliation supporters perceived the affiliation as improving union effectiveness, were influenced by social support among co-workers in favor of the merger, and perceived the saliency of the independent union’s support for the affiliation proposal. Conversely, affiliation opposition was influenced by the employer’s “vote no” campaign and by perceptions that affiliation would lead to an increased probability of strikes and to future increases in dues.     

Labor and the democratic party: A report on the 1998 elections

The nature of the relationship between organized labor and the Democratic party — still much debated among scholars —can be usefully examined through an analysis of the role of unions in the 1998 congressional elections. Evidence drawn from a wide range of sources shows that the AFL- CIO and its affiliated unions devoted considerable financial and organizational resources to mobilizing union members and allied con-stituencies to vote for Democratic candidates. Combined with the unions' direct finan-cial contributions to campaigns, this activity made unions important players in the elections and helped project an image of potency and effectiveness in the news media and among politicians. As a result, the labor/Democrat alliance remained stronger than one would expect on the basis of union density figures alone.     

The impact of deregulation on labor demand in class-I railroads

This paper examines the impact of the Staggers Rail Act of 1980 on labor demand in Class-I railroads during 1961–1990. The demand for labor is a function of output, hourly wage rates, a time trend, and a vector of interactive dummy variables. Since deregulation, the labor demand curve has shifted downward; wage elasticities have become more elastic, ranging from −0.668 in 1980 to −1.187 in 1990; output elasticities trended upward from 0.557 to 0.809; and the marginal product of labor rose from 3.421 to 5.296 during 1980–1990. These findings suggest that unions’ bargaining power has declined, that the total wage bill is likely to decrease if the real wage rate rises further, and that cost savings and efficiency gains are realized through increases in the marginal product of labor. We thank an anonymous referee and Henry McFarland for insightful comments and assistance.     

Community and anti-poverty targeting

The standard theory of anti-poverty targeting assumes individual incomes cannot be observed, but statistical properties of income distribution in broadly defined groups are known. ‘Indicator targeting’ rules are then derived for the forms of transfers conditioned on group membership of individuals. In this literature the motivating notion of a ‘group’ is purely statistical, even when it is groups such as localities and ethnicities. We focus instead on groups which are ‘communities’, meaning thereby collections of individuals who have access to community-specific public goods, from which non-members are excluded. Such differential access constitutes a source of inequality among poor individuals belonging to different communities, which is not captured by monetary earnings. We show that this formulation of what constitutes a group changes many of the basic results of the indicator targeting literature. Optimal targeting for poverty alleviation leads to seemingly paradoxical rules, such as targeting transfers to the community that is richer. Total wealth of non-poor members of a community and its distribution both become relevant for specifying optimal indicator targeting rules. In addition, a poverty measure that is sensitive to the community identities of poor individuals, yet defined on nominal incomes, may be incompatible with some of the basic axioms in the standard literature on poverty measurement.     

Changing Spousal Roles and Their Effect on Recovery in Gamblers Anonymous: GamAnon,Social Support,Wives and Husbands

This paper examines changing spousal roles and their effects upon recovery in Gamblers Anonymous (GA). It is based upon a qualitative study designed to gage uniformity as well as variations in approaches to recovery in GA. Interviews were conducted with 39 GA members (26 men, 13 women; mean age 56.5 years). Though the study was based in the Toronto area, only 13 interviews involved participants from that region. Phone interviews were conducted with GA members from various regions of both Canada and the US. GamAnon, GA’s sister fellowship, has been designed for anyone affected seriously by someone’s gambling problem. In practice, GamAnon comprises mostly women––spouses of male GA members––who traditionally have taken a keen interest in the ways in which their husbands achieve and maintain abstinence from gambling. Changing spousal roles have led to fewer women joining GamAnon, as many opt instead to part with troubled spouses. As well, more women are attending GA than in the past, typically with husbands who are disinclined to join GamAnon. All of this has drastically altered how GA members pursue recovery. These changes and their implications are discussed.     

Household wealth and the measurement of economic well-being in the United States

We analyze the level and distribution of economic well-being in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s based on the standard measure of money income and a measure in which income from wealth is calculated as the sum of lifetime annuity from nonhome wealth and imputed rental-equivalent for owner-occupied homes. Over the 1982–2000 period, median well-being increases faster when these adjustments are made than when standard money income is used. This adjustment also widens the income gap between African-Americans and whites but increases the relative well-being of the elderly. Adding imputed rent and annuities from household wealth to household income considerably increases measured inequality and the share of income from wealth in inequality. However, both measures show about the same rise in inequality over the period. We also find an increasing share of wage and salary income in our expanded definition of income among the richest 1% over the period but do not find that the “working rich” have largely replaced rentiers at the top of the economic ladder.      

Cooks Cooking Up Recipes: The Cash Value of Nouns,Verbs and Grammar

In the process of eating, everyone cooks, personally combining ingredients at hand to enhance appetite; but few are called cooks. From this mundane example we can take a new approach to the study of material status. A sociological formula that credits capital as opposed to labor with the source of advantage will obscure the dynamics shaping material status. Drawing on a study of the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, I indicate how, at the lowest and highest levels, people make their material status by innovatively combining what they have, as passively available resources, and what they do in the nature of hourly or task paid labor. The shift of theory from nouns, like labor and capital, to the active and passive verbs, “doing” and “having,” leads to a shift in the search for explanations of status differences. As in cooking, the transformative tricks critical for producing savory results are not simply in the recipes handed down from generation to generation but in those cooked up, in the innovative interactions in relating working for pay and the exploitation of ongoing relations.     

Labor Force Participation,Regional Location,and Economic Well-Being of Single Mothers in Russia

This paper tests the contribution of increased labor market participation to a substantial narrowing of the gap in material welfare between two parent and single mother households in Russia in the period 1996–2003. Decomposition analysis employing the technique of Juhn et al. (Accounting for a slowdown in black–white wage convergence, Kosters (ed), 1991) and data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey shows that increased labor market participation explains about one-third of the narrowing of the welfare gap. Changes in the regional distribution of single mother households, specifically increasing concentration in Moscow and St Petersburg, have proved critical because of the higher wages available in these cities. Thus quality of employment has been as important as increased participation in the labor market.     

Marriage,Marital History,and Black – White Wealth Differentials Among Older Women

This study investigated the impact of union history and marital transitions on wealth inequality between older Black and White women (N = 7,026). Cohort data from the Health and Retirement Study show large and increasing Black – White differences in wealth. Marital and relationship histories are associated with the wealth accumulation process among older women. Women who married and stay married accumulated levels of wealth that exceeded those of other women with disrupted family lives. The marriage – wealth nexus is sensitive to a woman's position in the wealth distribution. Quantile regression results revealed that racial differences in total wealth holdings between Black and White women exist throughout the wealth distribution, whereas the relationship between current union history and wealth differentials is significant at the lower tail and middle of the distribution. Decomposition analyses highlighted the nontrivial role of racial disparities in marital histories in accounting for the racial wealth gap. As members of the baby boom generation enter their retirement years, it will be more important than ever to monitor the wealth accumulation process among older single and racial/ethnic minority women.     

Export Performance,Labor Standards and Institutions: Evidence from a Dynamic Panel Data Model

I investigate the role of labor standards in international trade. While the literature has used many different measures of labor standards, I use two: the rate of work injuries and the rate of strikes and lockouts — allowing me to construct both measures for 112 countries from 1980 until 2004. This allows dynamic panel data methods to be used in estimation. Three measures of the quality of institutions are also used for the same period: the number of years the chief executive is in office, the concentration of a country’s legislature measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, and whether the legislature is controlled by a party representing a special interest. The results show that countries with better labor standards and institutions do trade more — their exports to GDP ratio is higher.     

Outsourcing and union power

The outsourcing of union work and jobs either diffuses or diminishes union membership, depending on perspective and situation. The correlation of trends in union membership to trends in union power, while less than perfect, has until recently been relatively strong over the past sixteen years. The fact that as diverse a sample of unions as AFSCME, SEIU, and UAW have chosen to make outsourcing a prominent labor/public relations issue suggests that the correlation continues to be perceived by the union movement to be significant, notwithstanding the efforts of the “new” leadership of the AFL-CIO to break that link with respect to union political power by “taxing” member unions and their members to contribute both money and militancy to the 1996 election cycle. Although outsourcing may lead only to the diffusion of union membership either within or between unions, as opposed to the diminution of union membership, this fact has not received a great deal of attention. The net effect on total union membership of outsourcing from one union employer to another union employer is unclear, although the effect on the membership of the union at the outsourcing employer is not. The redistribution of membership within a union as a result of outsourcing is likely to have little immediate impact on union power. However, as even the best case scenario presented above suggests, it may have significant long-run deleterious effects on union bargaining power by taking labor out of a sheltered market and putting it into potentially competitive market. This is particularly likely to be the case when outsourcing (1) places the outsourced work into a different industry or wage contour and (2) creates the possibility of moving from sole-source to multiplesource supplier arrangements. The redistribution of membership between unions as a result of outsourcing is unlikely to have a major impact on union power broadly defined. It can have, however, serious deleterious effects in terms of the power of an individual union, as suggested in my “competitive case” scenario. The fact that one union’s losses due to outsourcing may be another union’s gain is of little consolation to the losing union. That act, in and of itself, may make the threat of outsourcing a potential union “Achilles heel” at the bargaining table by placing it into competition with some other, perhaps unknown, union as well as possibly nonunion competition. The most obvious threat to union power comes from outsourcing that diminishes union membership overall by transferring jobs from union to nonunion employers. The willingness and ability of employers to move work/jobs entirely out of the orbit of union control constitutes, in terms of power and particularly union bargaining power, a revisitation of the phenomenon of the “runaway shop.” It may also be viewed as a proactive form of hiring permanent replacements for (potentially) striking workers. The union options in dealing with such a challenge are to endeavor to preclude outsourcing through legislation or collective bargaining or to chase the work by organizing the unorganized, hopefully with the help of the unionized outsourcing employer. Neither option may be easy, but as the 1996 auto industry negotiations suggest, the former may be less difficult than the latter. The possibility that outsourcing from union to nonunion employer may provide unions with the power to organize from the top (outsourcer) down (outsourcee) cannot be entirely ignored as the issue of supplier “neutrality” reportedly was raised in the 1996 auto negotiations. The adverse effects of outsourcing on union political and financial power, by virtue of its impact on the level or distribution of union membership, can and may well be offset by an increase in union activism—as measured by dues levels, merger activity, organizing commitment, and political action. The adverse effects of outsourcing on union bargaining power are more problematical from the union standpoint. The effect of outsourcing, whatever its rationale or scenario, appears to be to put union labor back into competition. Thus, outsourcing constitutes yet another challenge to the labor movement in its ongoing and seemingly increasingly unsuccessful battle to take and keep U.S. union labor out of competition by proving itself able and willing to organize to the extent of the market and standardizing wages in that market.     

Transmission and inequality of wealth: An empirical study of wealth mobility from 1800 to 1938 in France

This paper endeavors to measure the intergenerational transmission of wealth inequalities over the 1800–1938 period. For this purpose, we have consulted historical data composed of wealth genealogies covering the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. The database was created from families included in the “3,000 families” survey of those individuals residing in the Loire-Inférieure département. The empirical study reveals a relatively large degree of intergenerational immobility: those whose father had twice the average level of wealth themselves upon death leave behind 1.45 times the average wealth of their generation.