The Influence of Union Transitions on White Adults’ Attitudes Toward Cohabitation

Data from the Intergenerational Panel Study of Parents and Children are used to identify the influences of adult union transitions on changes in attitudes toward cohabitation among a sample of 794 young adults. The analysis examines the extent to which attitudes about cohabitation change as a result of entry into and exit from cohabitation and marriage. A dynamic interpretation of union transitions is formulated, and results demonstrate that entry into a first cohabitation and divorce after direct entry into marriage are associated with increasingly positive attitudes toward cohabitation between the ages of 18 and 31. Some evidence suggests that direct entry into stable marriage leads young adults to view cohabitation less favorably.     

Employee involvement programs: Should unions get involved?

We test the mediated effects of participation in employee involvement (EI) programs on employee desires for union involvement in the future development and diffusion of EI and the perceived durability of an EI program as a possible moderator of these effects. Results indicate that participants developed more positive attitudes toward the EI program than nonparticipants and, in turn, these attitudes were related to higher desires for union involvement in EI. Additionally, volunteers developed more positive attitudes toward the EI program than nonvolunteers and, in turn, these attitudes were related to higher desires for union involvement in EI. However, the relationship between attitudes toward EI and desires for union involvement in EI was significantly less positive for participants who viewed the EI program as durable.     

Solidarity Revisited: Group-level Effects on Individual-level Union Voting

Rooted in the theory of planned behavior, our empirical reinvestigation of archived union certification election data provided strong evidence that workgroup solidarity was a significant predictor of individual voting behavior. Specifically, group-level attitudes toward unions accounted for individual voting behaviors beyond the individual-level attitudes toward unions. This study offers a meaningful increment to our knowledge as it provides a quantification of the extent that employees are willing to, and actually, comply with subjective norms. Important practical implications for both unions and employers as well as directions for future research are discussed.     

Representation elections in higher education: Occurrence and outcomes

This study examines factors related to the occurrence of union representation elections in four-year universities and colleges and the outcomes of those elections (i.e., whether or not faculty opt for collective bargaining). In general, the results indicate that the probability of union victory in an election depends on economic conditions, the structural characteristics of the institution, and union density in higher education. For the most part, however, such indicators of institutional vulnerability are not found to be significant determinants of election occurrences. A major implication of this study is that there is a need to investigate more thoroughly the intraorganizational processes of faculty unions with regard to the allocation of organizing resources in order to understand the spread of faculty unionism. It is also suggested that the findings of this study may cast light on the growth of unionism in other white-collar and professional sectors. The authors are grateful to James L. Perry, Jeffrey Pfeffer, Claudia Bird Schoonhoven, and an anonymous reviewer for comments on an earlier version. The research assistance of Ken Bergstrom is also acknowledged.     

The different meanings of corruption in the context of the Teamsters Union

Conclusion  TDU’s poor showing in the conventions misrepresented the attitudes of the union’s membership. This fact became clear after the government reached a court-monitored settlement to its RICO suit of the union. The settlement changed the political dynamics within the union, most importantly by providing for the direct election of national leadership. The new rules, combined with a factional split among the incumbents, allowed an insurgent slate, supported by TDU, to win the election in 1991. With a plurality of the membership’s votes, Ron Carey, a self-proclaimed reformer, became president of the union. I thank Bruce Kaufman, John Remington, Catherine Rios, Leah Vosko, Clifford Doerksen, and Robert Gregg for their help in reading this work and their many useful comments and suggestions.     

Crossing the line: The determinants of picket line crossing during a faculty strike

This study builds on the strike-militancy literature by examining the determinants of the union member’s decision to cross a picket line during a 29-day university faculty strike. As hypothesized, voting behavior in authorization and ratification elections significantly predicted crossing behavior, suggesting that strike voting may provide information about the level of support for the strike and, in turn, the level of bargaining power. In addition, satisfaction with the administration, union commitment, attitudes toward unions, co-worker social support, and the perceived cost of striking were significantly related to crossing behavior.     

The effect of labor relations climate on the union participation process

Research examining union member attitudes and behaviors have produced inconsistent results for key relationships in models of union participation. Social information processing theory suggests that a contextual variable, labor relations climate, should systematically influence the attitudinal variables in these models. Our meta-analysis shows that labor relations climate moderates four of five key relationships. Consequently, theory on union member participation should be altered to reflect the recent emergence of less adversarial union-management relationships.     

Patterns and determinants of union growth in the hospital industry

Recent changes in the National Labor Relations Act have increased the possibility that union coverage will expand among private non-profit hospitals. This study examines the success of union organizing efforts in the industry during the 1974–1978 period. The analysis focuses on the influence of environmental and organizational variables as well as the nature of the election process itself. The results suggest that hospital union success is largely dependent uponprior union success in the hospital (+), voter turnout (−) and unit size (−). The annual rate of election victories is predicted to fall to nearly 25 % by 1983 from an average of 50% in the 1974–1978 period.     

Cohabitation in the Philippines: Attitudes and Behaviors Among Young Women and Men

We examine data from a national survey of 15 – 27 year olds in the Philippines to assess attitudes toward marriage and cohabitation, and we analyze the marital and nonmarital union experiences of 25 – 27 year olds. We find that attitudes toward cohabitation remain quite conservative among young Filipinos, although men view cohabitation more favorably than do women. We also find that men’s socioeconomic status affects their ability to enter unions, particularly marriage, whereas women’s union formation patterns are influenced by the family in which they grew up, their participation in religious services, and to some degree by their place of residence. Both men and women who hold more liberal attitudes on a range of issues are more likely to have cohabited than are individuals who do not share those views. For now, however, we do not expect cohabitation to become a widespread substitute for marriage in the Philippines.     

The Changing Institution of Marriage: Adolescents’ Expectations to Cohabit and to Marry

Cohabitation has become part of the pathway toward marriage. Prior work focuses on expectations to marry and has ignored cohabitation. Although most young adults are not replacing marriage with cohabitation, but instead cohabit and then marry, it is important to study adolescents’ joint expectations to cohabit as well as marry. Our analyses draw on recently collected data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (N = 1,293). We find that adolescents are less certain about their cohabitation than marriage expectations. Dating and sexual experience, traditional values, prosocial activities, and parents influence adolescents’ union formation expectations. The findings from this work suggest that adolescents are including cohabitation as part of their future life trajectories but rarely envision cohabitation as substituting for marriage.     

Gender in the Midst of Reforms: Attitudes to Work and Family Roles among University Students in Urban Indonesia

ABSTRACT

The onset of the Reform era in 1998 after the fall of Suharto bears interesting prospects on gender relations among youth in Indonesia. Using a survey of 1,761 university students from 12 universities in two contrasting urban settings, this article explores attitudes to work and family roles among senior university students in 2004: this is the year when people were preparing to elect a president directly for the first time in history, with the incumbent president the first woman in the role. Results determined that women were less traditional than their male counterparts in their attitudes toward gender roles. This article further explores correlates of gender role attitudes, offering insights on the role of sex, sample sites, gender ratio in faculty, parental role models, religion, and ethno-cultural background.     

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.     

Perceptions of union power,service, and confidence in labor leaders: A study of member and nonmember differences

Attitudes toward specific aspects of unionization held by the subjects of large national samples of the U.S. work force (the1977 Quality of Employment Survey) and the general population (the1972–1978 General Social Surveys) are examined in two separate analyses. Comparisons of the attitudes held by union members and nonmembers are made on specific dimensions of union power and service and confidence in union leaders. Nonmembers are found to have stronger perceptions that unions are influential in running the country and that unions are stronger than employers. Conversely, union members have stronger perceptions that unions offer protection, job security, improve wages and conditions of work, are worth their dues, and have greater confidence in union leaders. Discriminant analysis of data over a five-year period also revealed that union members have a stable higher confidence level in union leaders than nonmembers. Explanations for such union member and nonmember differences are hypothesized. The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance of Brent Schooley. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Western Academy of Management meetings at Monterey, California, 1981.     

The Dutch people and the euro: A structural equations analysis relating national identity and economic expectations to attitude towards the euro

National identity, macro and micro economic expectations affect the attitude toward the euro. In a study in The Netherlands, data were collected and relationships between the latent concepts were modelled with LISREL. In the best fitting model, national identity has a direct and an indirect effect on attitude, respectively, an unstructured and a structured effect. The indirect effect is mediated by macro and micro expectations. Macro expectations also have a direct and an indirect effect. The indirect effect is mediated by micro expectations. On one hand, macro expectations form a strong link between national identity and attitude. On the other hand, macro expectations have a strong direct effect on attitudes. The euro is mainly perceived and evaluated in a macro-economic perspective.PsycINFO classification: 2229; 3920     

Attitudes Toward Divorce,Commitment, and Divorce Proneness in First Marriages and Remarriages

A random multistate sample of married individuals (N = 1,931) was used to explore whether more positive attitudes toward divorce and weaker commitment to marriage may contribute to the greater instability of remarriages than first marriages. Remarried adults, whether or not they brought children from a previous union into the remarriage, reported marital quality (happiness and conflict) equal to those in first marriages. They also reported more positive attitudes toward divorce, which were associated with higher divorce proneness (i.e., thinking about and taking actions toward divorce). Marriage type interacted with marital quality to predict divorce proneness, such that the association between low marital quality and divorce proneness was stronger for remarried individuals than for those in first marriages. This suggests that remarried adults may be more likely than adults in first marriages to take steps toward divorce when experiencing marital distress, possibly reflecting a weaker commitment to marriage.     

Research in the Undergraduate Curriculum: A Survey

Directors of and faculty teaching research/statistics in undergraduate social work programs were surveyed to (1) determine research requirement for undergraduates; (2) characterize those faculty teaching research; and (3) ascertain directors' and faculty perceptions of student attitudes toward research. Results revealed that most undergraduate programs required from 3 to 6 semester hours in research; course objectives varied widely from program to program; sociology faculty taught most of the research courses; and students were perceived as being negative toward research. Findings generally were consistent with prior surveys of MSW programs and practitioners. Dilemmas in teaching research are discussed.     

Attitudes of African American Adults Toward Treatment in Cases of Child Sexual Abuse

The attitudes of 155 African American adults toward the need for treatment in cases of child sexual abuse were assessed. These attitudes were assessed in relation to the following variables: age, sex, educational level, income, knowledge of short and long term effects, the cirucmstances and the nature of the abuse, and expectations regarding interactions with treatment facilities. In addition, attitudes toward other invervention facilities and agencies were assessed. The results indicated that attitudes toward treatment and intervention agencies had a significant impact on the treatment - seeking attitudes of African Americans that was dependent upon marital status. However, consistent with previous studies, participants generally held favorable attitudes toward mental health services and felt that treatment would yield positive results.     

Adolescent Attitudes Toward Male and Female Political Candidates:

Adolescents' attitudes toward male and female fictional political candidates were measured in a three-factor experimental design. Male and female high school students were asked to rate the personality of male or female political candidates before and after finding out the election outcome. The students made causal attributions about the reasons for the election outcomes and predicted the personal consequences the candidates would experience. The personality ratings, causal attributions, and future consequences showed primarily outcome effects rather than sex of a subject or sex of candidate effects. The adolescents responded differentially to the fictional candidate as a function of the candidate's success or failure rather than the candidate's gender. These findings are discussed in light of real world explanations and applications.     

“His” and “her” marriage expectations: Determinants and consequences

This article uses couple‐level data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N= 2,263) to investigate factors associated with unmarried parents’ expectations about marriage and the association between their expectations and subsequent union transitions. In most couples, both partners expect to marry, and their shared expectations are the strongest predictor of marriage and separation following their child's birth. Although men's expectations are somewhat more consequential for union transitions, marriage and relationship stability are more likely when at least one parent expects to marry. Factors such as children from previous relationships, distrust, conflict, and shared activities are also associated with union transitions. Findings about how expectations and other factors relate to marriage and separation may inform new marriage promotion initiatives.     

Predicting the decisions to vote and support unions in certification elections: An integrated perspective

This article develops and empirically tests a model of the dual decision-making process employees undergo to guide their behavior during organizing campaigns and elections. The model combines principles of risk-aversion theory with more traditional views that election decisions stem from cost-benefit analyses of union representation. Previous research lacks this integrated approach to the study of election behavior. Regression analyses on a sample of approximately 16,000 certification elections strongly supported the use of risk-aversion theory to predict employees’ willingness to formally participate in elections. Furthermore, we found that time exhibited a statistically significant, negative relationship with voting participation rates, the percentage of union votes, and union victories. The results also indicated that a saturation effect may exist for delays in the election process. Financial support for this research was provided by the Syracuse University Research Fund. The authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions that significantly improved the paper.