The composition of public sector compensation: The effects of unionization and bureaucratic size

This paper examines the effect of the political power of public sector unions on the composition of public sector compensation. Public employee unions provide a relatively low-cost vehicle for organizing workers’ political activity in support of the rent-seeking behavior of local politicians. The unions also provide a conduit for employees to capture part of these rents as payment for political services. Since the public has little interest in paying for the political activities of public workers, these payments are most likely to be made through fringe benefits so as to minimize public scrutiny. The authors would like to thank an anonymous referee for helpful suggestions. Any errors remain those of the authors.     

Local union mergers: Frequency,forms, and national union policy

This paper presents the results of a survey on the characteristics of almost 1,900 union mergers. It was found that a large proportion of national unions had some local mergers, but a majority of cases occurred in a few very active unions. Most mergers were absorptions of smaller locals into larger ones. Formal requirements for local mergers, either through general policies or constitutional clauses, were infrequent, but national level governing bodies appear to have substantial control over the approval of mergers. Suggestions are made for the further study of local mergers in relation to bargaining structure, local autonomy, membership participation, and local effectiveness.     

The effects of right-to-work legislation on union outcomes: Additional evidence

The authors reexamine the role of open shop legislation in affecting union outcomes. New indices of union success are employed which include election voting behavior, the size of newly certified units, and the rate of union decertification. Three competing hypotheses are empirically tested: (1) the free rider argument predicting lower membership levels in right-to-work (RTW) areas; (2) the saturationist hypothesis predicting a higher level of organizing activity in RTW areas as a result of large concentrations of unorganized workers; and, (3) the hypothesis that legislation is vitiated by distinct organizing behaviors in RTW and nonRTW areas. Empirical results, based on SMSA data from 35 states, tend to provide support for hypotheses (2) and (3). Recently, RTW areas have experienced more prounion outcomes, and the union returns to regional attributes (measured by Chow tests) are found to be distinct in the two areas.     

The effects of management practices on union election returns

This paper examines the importance of management suppression tactics on union activity in the United States. NLRB data on individual certification elections which have recently become available for the period 1972–1976 are merged with structural, demographic, and industry characteristics of the 96 largest SMSAs to ascertain the role of strategy versus structure in explaining union outcomes. The measures of election-generated membership outcomes are voter participation, the margin of pro-union votes, and union wins. Union suppression practices under study include consent elections, election delays, formal objections after unions win a certification election, elections overruled because of management unfair labor practices, elections held by management petition, and the number of unfair labor practice charges per representation election. Five of the six measures of suppression are significant determinants of some facet of union expansion after adjusting for structural characteristics of the area work force.     

The effects of davis-bacon on labor cost and union wages

Two issues have seriously hampered studies of the impact of the Davis-Bacon Act. The first is that one must make assumptions about what the distribution of wages would be in the absence of the statute. It is shown that cost estimates are quite sensitive to these assumptions. The second is that while Davis-Bacon determinations may increase nonunion wages, they are also likely to increase the bargaining power of unions leading to higher union wages. Simply estimating the impact on nonunion wages therefore underestimates the true effect. Union wages are both determined by and a determinant of Davis-Bacon wages. It is found that Davis-Bacon determinations exert a significant influence on the union’s ability to gain higher wages. I would like to thank Joseph DiMasi and David Alexander for comments and discussion on an earlier version of this paper. Special thanks are due an anonymous referee for his support and suggestions.     

The political effects of grievance handling by stewards in a local union

This study develops and tests three long-standing propositions about the relationship between grievance-handling behavior and political outcomes in a local union: (1) more favorable grievance handling enhances the steward’s likelihood of re-election; (2) the more the political support obtained in an election, the greater the steward’s ability to affect grievance outcomes favorably; and (3) as the relationship between management and the union evolves, grievance handling becomes more efficient and effective. Data on grievances and election results of Ford-UAW Local 400 from the 1950s were used to test hypotheses derived from these propositions; most received substantial, significant support.     

The effects of union membership on absence from work due to illness

A simple model of the effects of unionization on absenteeism due to illness is developed and tested. It is argued that unions lower absenteeism through providing a monopoly wage, but raise it by providing liberal sick-leave benefits. Data from the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics are used to test the model. In regressions which control for human capital and demographic characteristics as well as working conditions, it is found that the net effect of unionization is to encourage absence.     

The accessibility and applicability of knowledge: predicting context effects in national surveys

Using data from the National Health Interview Survey on Disability from 1994 and 1995, this research demonstrates that the size of accessibility effects (increased likelihood of using information activated by initial questions in responding to subsequent questions) can be modeled as a function of the applicability of the initial to the subsequent questions. When respondents reported a disability and were asked about the main condition causing the disability, they were more likely to report conditions they had been asked about earlier in the interview than alternative conditions. This accessibility effect was inversely related to the effect on reports of "other" or unclassifiable conditions. The more reports of primed conditions, the fewer reports of unclassifiable conditions. A log-linear model of the accessibility bias fit the data for all disabilities. For reports of specific conditions, a measure of the applicability of context accounted for 74.4 percent of the variance of the accessibility bias; for unclassifiable or "other" conditions, it accounted for 61 percent. When limited to "well-defined" disabilities, applicability accounted for 91.9 percent of the variance (a multiple correlation of.96). Finally, models of the context effects derived from the 1994 data were tested against the actual effects for the 1995 data. The correlation between predicted and actual effects was.80 across disabilities. The theoretical and the practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

The effects of communicator characteristics on patterns of reciprocity and compensation

This experiment examined gender, reward valence, and level of involvement as potential discriminators between dyadic partners who reciprocate, compensate, or do not respond to the communicator's changes in involvement. Fifty-one dyads engaged in a baseline interview followed by a second interview during which one participant increased or decreased involvement significantly. Partner's resultant change in involvement level was examined for reciprocity, compensation, or nonaccommodation. A gender by involvement interaction and a near significant reward by involvement interaction obtained. Female partners were more responsive to a communicator's involvement change than were men and subjects were generally more responsive to a high reward than a low reward communicator. However, contrary to predictions, females and partners of high reward communicators were most likely to reciprocate decreased involvement and compensate increased involvement.An earlier version of this article was presented to the Speech Communication Association annual meeting in Boston, November 1987.     

The division of union rents

In this paper, a median voter model that recognizes the trade-off between higher wages and lower levels of employment is presented. It is argued that a seniority-based layoff rule creates the opportunity for mutually beneficial side-payments between older and younger workers. As a result, older workers reap more of the rents of unionization than do younger workers. The resulting distribution of union rents is found to be consistent with existing empirical evidence. We would like to thank Mike Baye and Gene Grossman for most useful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Any remaining errors, of course, are solely our responsibility.     

Reconsidering union wage effects: Surveying new evidence on an old topic

I examine evidence on private sector union wage gaps in the United States. The consensus opinion among labor economists of an average union premium of roughly 15 percent is called into question. Two forms of measurement error bias downward standard wage gap estimates. Match bias results from Census earnings imputation procedures that do not include union status as a match criterion. Downward bias is roughly equal to the proportion of workers with imputed earnings, currently about 30 percent. Misclassification of union status causes additional attenuation in union gap measures. This bias has worsened as private sector density has declined, since an increasing proportion of workers designated as union are instead nonunion workers. Corrections for misclassification and match bias lead to estimated union gaps substantially higher than standard estimates, but with less of a downward trend since the mid 1980s. Private sector union gaps corrected for these biases are estimated from the CPS for 1973–2001. The uncorrected estimate for 2001 is .13 log points. Correction for match bias increases the gap to .18 log points; further correction for misclassification bias, based on an assumed 2 percent error rate, increases the gap to .24. Reexamination of the skill-upgrading hypothesis leads to the conclusion that higher union gap estimates are plausible. The conventional wisdom of a 15 percent union wage premium warrants reexamination.     

Global sports and patriot games: Rugby union and national identity in a united sporting kingdom since 1945

Richard Caplan and John Perrer (eds.), Europe's New Nationalism: States and Minorities in Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). Pp.xi + 241. £30 (hardback); £13.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 19 509148 5 and 509149 3

Tom Nairn, Faces of Nationalism: Janus Revisited (London: Verso, 1997). Pp.x + 246. £35 (hardback); £12 (paperback). ISBN 1 85984 823 0 and 194 5

Camille Guerin‐Gonzales and Carl Strikwerda (eds.), The Politics of Immigrant Workers: Labor Activism and Migration in the World Economy since 1830 (New York: Holmes &; Meier, 1998). Pp.xi + 366. $20. ISBN 0 8419 1298 X

Karen Fog Olwig (ed.), Small Islands, Large Questions: Society, Culture and Resistance in the Post‐Emancipation Caribbean (London: Frank Cass, 1995). Pp.191. £30 (hardback); £17.50 (paperback). IBSN 0 7146 5476 and 4225 8

Mary Chamberlain (ed.), Caribbean Migration: Globalised Identities (London and New York: Routledge, 1998). Pp.xii + 267. ISBN 0 415 16580 6

Frank Füredi, The Silent War: Imperialism and the Changing Perception of Race. Pp.282. £45 (hardback); £14.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 7453 1303 5 and 1308 6

Paul J. Smith (ed.), Human Smuggling: Chinese Migrant Trafficking and the Challenge to America's Immigration Tradition (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1997). Pp.xv +207. $21.95. ISBN 0 89206 291 6

Daniel Chirot and Anthony Reid (eds.), Essential Outsiders: Chinese and Jews in the Modern Transformation of Southeast Asia and Central Europe (Seattle, WA and London: University of Washington Press, 1997). Pp.vii + 335. US$25 (paperback). ISBN 0 295 97613 6

Mordechai Rozin, The Rich and the Poor: Jewish Philanthropy and Social Control in Nineteenth‐Century London (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 1999). Pp.xii + 268. £45 (hardback). ISBN 1 898723 79 6

Judith Laikin Elkin, The Jews of Latin America (New York/London: Holmes &; Meier, 1998). Pp.xv + 339. £12. 95 (paperback). ISBN 0 84191369 2

Ignacio Klich and Jeffrey Lesser (eds.), Arab and Jewish Immigrants in Latin America: Images and Realities (London: Frank Cass, 1998). Pp.xiv + 264. £32.50/$47.50 (hardback); £16.60/$22.50 (paperback). ISBN 0 7146 4873 6 and 4412 9

Robin Gwynn, The Huguenots of London (Brighton and Portland, OR: Alpha Press, 1998). Pp.viii + 67. £7.95 (paperback). ISBN 1 898595 24 0

Alec G. Hargreaves and Mark McKinney (eds.), Post‐Colonial Cultures in France (London and New York: Routledge, 1997). Pp.xv + 299. £45 (hardback); £15.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 415 14487 6 and 14488 4

Roger Bartlett and Karen Schönwälder (eds.), The German lands and Eastern Europe. Essays on the History of Their Social, Cultural and Political Relations (Studies in Russia and East Europe) (London: Macmillan/SSEES, 1999). Pp.x + 288. £47.50. (hardback). ISBN 0 333 72086 5

Donald M. MacRaild, Irish Migrants in Modern Britain, 1750–1922 (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1999). Pp.x + 230 £40 (hardback); £13.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 333 67761 7 and 67762 5

Thomas Kenneally, The Great Shame: A Story of the Irish in the Old World and the New (London: Chatto &; Windus, 1999). Pp.xiii + 732. £25 (hardback). ISBN 1 85619 788 3

R.J. Scally, The End of Hidden Ireland: Rebellion, Famine and Emigration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Pp.266. £13.99 (paperback). ISBN 0 19 510659 8

Jill Blee, The Pines Hold Their Secrets (Victoria, Australia: Indra, 1998). Pp.283. NP (paperback). ISBN 0 9587718 8 X

Jan Critchett, Untold Stories: Memories and Lives of Victorian Kooris (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1998). Pp.xxi + 283. NP. ISBN 0 522 84818 4

James G. Hollandsworth, Jr., The Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience During the Civil War (Baton Rouge, LA and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1997). Pp.140 + xiv. £23.95/$24.95. ISBN 0 8071 1939 3

Geoffrey Self, The Hiawatha Man: The Life and Work of Samuel Coleridge‐Taylor (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995: USA contact Ashgate, Brookfield, VT). Pp.326. £39.50. ISBN 0 085967 983 7

Brian Dyde, The Empty Sleeve: The Story of the West India Regiments of the British Army (London and Antigua: Hansib Caribbean, 1997). Pp.283. £11.95 (paperback). ISBN 976 8163 09 7

Philip Towle, Enforced Disarmament: From the Napoleonic Campaigns to the Gulf War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). Pp.x + 268. £35 (hardback). ISBN 0 19 820636 4     

Migration and research commitments: long-term effects of national socialization

This study examines the influence of migration on the long-term commitments by foreign trained researchers at Israel's 6 universities. Israel's scientists are trained in the US, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe, and even though these centers have different research traditions, scientific endeavor may provide a common method and outlook. The author hypothesizes relationships between different training backgrounds and long-term research commitments that influence work goals and productivity, thus affecting the operation of the local scientific community. 318 interviews held with university faculty members in the sciences during 1976-77 provide data. 40% of those surveyed are returnees from the US, 15% are US immigrants, 20% are trained in or are immigrants from Western Europe, and 10% are Eastern European immigrants. The scientists largely agree that the most imporant occupational values are to 1) select goals independently, 2) contribute to basic scientific knowledge, 3) contribute to the nation, 4) be recognized by colleagues, 5) have a secure future, 6) develop useful production processes, and 7) advance economically. Value patterns are similar among all origins, although there is some variation between Israeli returnees and those who trained in Israel. Returnees and immigrants may be dissatisfied because they are unable to fulfill expectations stemming from occupational values, and scientists who have not trained or worked outside Israel, and immigrants from Eastern Europe, feel less independent in selection of goals, and deprived in job security and economic advancement. Training in the US or Western Europe contributes to higher perceptions of success. In summary, American trained scientists are competitive and seek recognition from colleagues, Eastern European training encourages a concern with practicality and the development of more products, Western Europeans develop fewer products but product high quality publications, and Israeli trained scientists publish widely. Intermixing of Israeli trained scientists with those from the 3 centers of scientific endeavor may contribute substantially to Israel's scientific productivity.     

The union image: Concept,programs and analysis

Several key labor leaders have expressed the need to improve the public image of unions. This paper defines the core elements of the current negative image and describes factors contributing to it. The basic direct and indirect approaches employed by unions to improve their image are systematically presented. It is concluded that prospects for image change are minimal due to limited image building efforts overall, lack of strategic thrust and union coordination, limited understanding of the nature of the image, and virtually no evaluation of image building efforts.     

Labor union coercion: The misuse of the grievance procedure

Labor unions provide security to workers through the use of the grievance procedure. Unions, however, may misuse their power and thereby reduce the security of workers. Such misuse has been documented through Section 8(b)(1)(A) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, which outlaws “restraint and coercion” by labor unions. Few cases involving coercion through the use of the grievance procedure were filed during the 1950s and 1960s, but the number of cases began growing in the 1970s, possibly because of the growing legal sophistication of those involved in labor relations. Such cases still number under 15 annually.     

The causes of union political involvement: A longitudinal analysis

This study examines the political involvement of unions over the 1978, 1980, and 1982 congressional elections. An empirical model focusing on the campaign contributions made by unions and the number of registered lobbyists employed by unions is elaborated and tested. The findings suggest that unions’ political activities are systematically undertaken and that they have increased dramatically over the past three elections. Specific characteristics of unions, such as membership size and dependence on governmental regulations, directly affect the political involvement of unions. Further, given the current economic and political climate, it is likely that this political action will continue to increase. The authors are grateful to Jack Fiorito, Cynthia Gramm, David Lewin, Frank Lichtenberg, two anonymous referees, and the participants in the labor seminars at the University of Illinois and the University of Iowa for helpful comments on an earlier version of this study.