A dynamic model of public sector employer response to unionization

We model the response of public sector employers to unionization using the response of public school boards to teacher unionization as an example. While it is generally believed that public sector employers pay unionized workers more than nonunion workers, there is less consensus about where the money comes from. We model two cases which are possible employer reactions to unionization: re-allocating resources among types of expenditures and modifying the way in which services are provided. The model contains a political equilibrium that determines the union’s preferences and an economic equilibrium that reflects labor market conditions. We compare the predictions of the two cases regarding the effect of unionization on wages, turnover, allocation of expenditures, and productivity. We interpret existing empirical research on public sector unionization in light of these predictions and make recommenda-tions for future empirical work.     

Contested milieux: Small firms,unionization, and the provision of protective structures

Three trends in the workplace point to the importance of considering work relations as well as governance structures for the development of protective benefits such as pensions. The increasing concentration of employment growth in smaller firms, the general decline of unionization, and the changing composition of the work force constitute the new exigencies of worker-employer contracts. The 1983 Current Population Survey Pension Supplement is used in conjunction with certification data from the National Labor Relations Board to examine the interaction between firm size and the influence, as opposed to the prevalence, of unionization in the provision of pensions. Unionization is found to be more influential in the provision of pensions for workers in small firms despite the established prevalence of unionization in larger firms. The implications of these trends for labor market theory are discussed.This is a revised version of papers that were presented at the annual meetings of the Gerontological Society of America, November 1988, and the American Sociological Association, August 1989.     

Reshaping the social contract: emerging relations between the state and informal labor in India

As states grapple with the forces of liberalization and globalization, they are increasingly pulling back on earlier levels of welfare provision and rhetoric. This article examines how the eclipsing role of the state in labor protection has affected state–labor relations. In particular, it analyzes collective action strategies among India’s growing mass of informally employed workers, who do not receive secure wages or benefits from either the state or their employer. In response to the recent changes in state policies, I find that informal workers have had to alter their organizing strategies in ways that are reshaping the social contract between state and labor. Rather than demanding employers for workers’ benefits, they are making direct demands on the state for welfare benefits. To attain state attention, informal workers are using the rhetoric of citizenship rights to offer their unregulated labor and political support in return for state recognition of their work. Such recognition bestows informal workers with a degree of social legitimacy, thereby dignifying their discontent and bolstering their status as claim makers in their society. These findings offer a reformulated model of state–labor relations that focuses attention on the qualitative, rather than quantitative, nature of the nexus; encompasses a dynamic and inter-dependent conceptualization of state and labor; and accommodates the creative and diverse strategies of industrial relations being forged in the contemporary era.

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A theory of the organization of state and local government employees

Expansion of public employee labor organizations has brought considerable change in a sector previously considered outside the domain of the trade union movement. A model to explain this phenomenon among state and local government employees is developed and tested using data from the1977 Census of Governments. The percentage of employees organized is determined by a number of factors which affect the costs and benefits of membership and may be influenced by the level of employees’ earnings. Empirical evidence indicates that a higher level of organization is a product of government size, legal provisions, unionization in the private sector, and, in some government functions, the unemployment rate, and level of income.     

Vocational Rehabilitation: Profession and Process. American Lecture Series,John G. Cull,Richard E. Hardy,Publication 831. Charles C. Thomas,Publisher, Springfield,Illinois. 1972. 547 Pages. $18.50, Hardbound

As unionization of professional social workers increases, so will the demand to better prepare social work students for their roles as managers and employees in the collective bargaining process. This paper explores labor relations developments as they apply to the unionization of social work personnel. Current research is reviewed, and labor contracts representing personnel in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Michigan are examined in order to identify typical contract clauses. Areas of needed research are outlined. Suggestions are made for introducing labor relations studies into the social work curriculum and a course taught at the University of Illinois is offered as an example.     

Induced inefficiency as a response to the union threat

Milkman and Mitchell (1995) extend Rosen’s (1969) threat-effect hypothesis to suggest that the threat of unionization can induce inefficient underutilization of labor by nonunion firms. If firms follow this strategy, the apparent paradox of competitive coexistence in the face of higher union wages reflects induced nonunion firm inefficiency rather than superior union firm efficiency. Furthermore, this strategy decreases demand for nonunion workers in a partially unionized industry. A generalized cost function analysis of data from sawmills in the Pacific Northwest yields evidence that nonunion firms use this strategy.     

OUTSOURCING AND UNIONIZATION: A TALE OF MISALLOCATED (RESISTANCE) RESOURCES

While many believe the growth in outsourcing contributed to the decline in U.S. unionization up to the 1990s, this argument has never been investigated systematically. In this article, we analyze the effect of outsourcing on unionization between 1973 and 1993. Instrumental variables estimation shows outsourcing contributes to higher quasirents and industry productivity. We find the union wage premium increases with the extent of outsourcing—both for workers that are substitutable by outsourcing services and workers in jobs that are not substitutes of the tasks being outsourced. Finally, we find no support for the claim that outsourcing reduces unionization. (JEL J5, L2, L6)     

The effect of unionization on safety in bituminous deep mines

This article examines the impact of unionization on safety in underground coal mines. An accident causation model is used to isolate the effect of unionization from other injury rate determinants. Results indicate that union mines experience more disabling injuries per year than nonunion mines,ceteris paribus. Previous studies attributed higher union injury rates to poor nonunion reporting practices. The data examined here suggest that other factors, including the UMWA’s job bidding system, low productivity, labor characteristics, and other institutional factors contribute to high injury rates at union mines. The authors acknowledge the helpful comments of Michael G. Finn, Clark G. Ross, and C. Louise Nelson. This research grew from work funded under contract DE-AC05-760R00033 between the Department of Energy and Oak Ridge Associated Universities. The views expressed and responsibility for errors or omissions belong to the authors.     

Comparing Offers and Take‐ups of Employee Health Insurance across Race,Gender, and Decade*

How often do U.S. employees receive health insurance offers from employers? When offered, how often do they take up their employer‐based health insurance? This article uses the 1992 and 2002 waves of the National Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW) to investigate changes in access to (offers) and employees electing to accept, take, or purchase their employers’ health insurance plans (take‐ups) among wage and salaried workers. Although much research has studied employee health benefits, little has examined the intersection of gender and race regarding both offers and take‐ups of such benefits. Logistic regression results indicate that offers and take‐ups of personal health benefits declined from 1992 to 2002, net of salient controls. Further analyses demonstrate that these declines did not affect all workers identically. Offers declined somewhat for both women and men among whites and African Americans, but declined more among Hispanic women and men. Among other ethnoracial groups, offers declined the most among men, but increased among comparable women. Take‐ups declined among white men and Hispanic workers. However, white and African American women's take‐ups did not change and among African American men take‐ups increased. We discuss the need to examine gender and race simultaneously and urge researchers to more closely examine changes in health benefit offers and take‐ups.     

Tip Work: Examining the Relational Dynamics of Tipping beyond the Service Counter

Tips constitute a growing form of income for roughly three million American workers today. While existing scholarship on tipping focuses on worker‐customer dynamics, it neglects the implications of gratuities beyond the service counter. Drawing on the case of restaurant workers in Los Angeles, this study analyzes tip work, the bundle of social relations and labor experiences framed by tips in commercial settings. I argue that tipping strains relations between subgroups of workers who, despite collectively producing service, are subject to unequal access to tip earnings. Tips thereby shape relations among workers in ways that exacerbate existing organizational and social hierarchies.     

Capacity and Solidarity: Foundational Elements in the Unionization Strategy for Immigrant Day Labourers

Recent scholarship has been reasonably optimistic about unionization as a mechanism of labour justice for immigrant workers in casual and contingent work. This optimism rests on two assumptions: (1) that unions have the capacity to absorb immigrant workers in nonstandard work and (2) that casual, immigrant labourers enjoy the kind of solidarity that underpins collective action. This paper examines these assumptions critically through a case study of construction unions and Latino immigrant day labourers in Denver, Colorado and Baltimore, Maryland. I use participant observation and in‐depth interviews with nine labour unions, 19 Latino immigrant day labourers, and two (non‐union) day labour organizing projects in the cities to examine questions of capacity and solidarity. I find that the existing foundations for unionizing day labourers may be weak in certain cities and communities. Union capacity is undermined by structural fragmentation and specialization in market segments that are inaccessible to day labourers. Strategically, in an age of de‐unionization, unions also face pressures to “add value” for employers by sorting the workforce into high quality and low quality categories. Locals indicate day labourers would likely fall into the latter category, thus precluding membership. The foundations for solidarity are similarly weakened in the cases studied. Culturally, day labourers in Denver and Baltimore emphasize self‐reliance and material well‐being over collective action and the pursuit of justice. To work toward unionization, organizers should be prepared to confront deficits of capacity and solidarity in other cities as well, especially those where homelessness is prevalent among day labourers, where immigrant populations are newly arrived, or where local union cultures are unreformed. I suggest that union collaboration, a cooperative type of occupational unionism, and commitments to training day labourers may help boost union capacity to absorb day labourers, while the creative use of material incentives should figure prominently in organizing strategies.     

Midlife and older displaced workers: A comparison of predisplacement and new earnings

The economic consequences of business closings and worker layoffs are of great concern to today's work force. The study compares earnings of 755 workers previous to displacement to 422 displaced workers with new earnings. Variables are identified using the data supplement of the 1988Current Populations Survey: Displaced Workers. Displaced workers employed in professional and white-collar positions have more favorable predisplacement earnings and new earnings than workers from other job sectors, but displaced workers who are homeowners and those who have health care coverage before and following job displacement have a decline in earnings. Displaced workers with some high school education and workers with 30 to 39 years of job tenure also experience decreased wages. Overall, displacement of American workers stifles the economy and negatively influences the human capital of the nation's work force. Her major research interests include displaced worker issues, work and family policy, and the economics of aging. Her major research interests include labor force participation of midlife and older persons.     

The effect of the extent of unionism on union and nonunion wages

This paper provides estimates, derived from micro wage equations, of the effects of unionism on the wages for both union and nonunion labor. These equations control not only for union status, but also include measures of the extent of unionism in product and labor markets. The results suggest,inter alia, that an increase in the extent of unionization in an industry has substantial positive effects on the wages of nonunion as well as union workers. Increases in the extent of union coverage within an occupation, however, have little or no effect on nonunion wages.     

LABOR MARKET PERFORMANCE EFFECTS OF DISCRIMINATION AND LOSS OF SKILL

We examine the impact of discrimination on labor market performance when workers are subject to a risk of losing skills during an unemployment experience. Within a search and matching framework, we show that both natives and immigrants are affected by discrimination. Discrimination in one sector has positive spillovers, inducing employment to increase in the other sector and the effect on labor market performance therefore depends on whether discrimination is present in only one sector or in both. Discrimination may induce workers to train more or less than natives after having lost their skills, dependent upon in which sector there is discrimination. Net output tends to be most negatively affected by discrimination among high‐skilled workers. (JEL J15, J31, J61, J64, J71)     

Wives' Relative Wages,Husbands' Paid Work Hours,and Wives' Labor‐Force Exit

Economic theories predict that women are more likely to exit the labor force if their partners' earnings are higher and if their own wage rate is lower. In this article, I use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 2,254) and discrete‐time event‐history analysis to show that wives' relative wages are more predictive of their exit than are their own or their husbands' absolute wages. In addition, I show that women married to men who work more than 45 hours per week are more likely to exit the labor force than are wives whose husbands' work approximately 40 hours per week. My findings highlight the need to examine how women's partners affect women's labor‐force participation.     

Cultural Influences on Immigrant Women's Labor Force Participation: The Arab‐American Case1

Research on the economic activity of immigrant women has flourished in recent years. The current study extends this literature to examine the labor force activity of Arab‐American women, a group whose labor market experiences provide an exception to hitherto accepted theoretical explanations. The employment rates of Arab immigrant women rank among the lowest of any immigrant group, while the rates of native‐born Arab‐American women resemble those of U.S.‐born white women. This study examines potential explanations for these differences using data from the U.S. Census and a national mail survey of Arab‐American women. Contrary to findings for other immigrant groups, differences among Arab‐American women cannot be explained by their human capital characteristics or family resources, but are almost entirely due to traditional cultural norms that prioritize women's family obligations over their economic activity, and to ethnic and religious social networks that encourage the maintenance of traditional gender roles. This study concludes by underscoring the need for additional research on the impact of culture on immigrant women's employment.     

Union organizing expenditures: Determinants and their implications for union growth

This paper explores some implications of the economics of union organizing. Following the literature, it is argued that the economic costs and benefits of organizing are systematically related to the proportion of the union’s jurisdiction already organized. Evidence is presented that unions do allocate a smaller proportion of their budgets to organizing when a greater proportion of their jurisdiction is already organized. Total union organizing expenditures, however, are found to increase over a broad range as the percentage organized increases. The supply of union-organizing services to unorganized workers apparently only declines at relatively high levels of union penetration. These critical levels of unionization have been attained only by a few U.S. labor organizations.     

RISING AUTISM PREVALENCE: REAL OR DISPLACING OTHER MENTAL DISORDERS? EVIDENCE FROM DEMAND FOR AUXILIARY HEALTHCARE WORKERS IN CALIFORNIA

Autism is a development disorder that has increased in prevalence from 0.5 to 14.7 per 1,000 children over 1970–2010. Using annual wages and provider counts from the American Community Survey and information from 21 regional development centers in California, we estimate the labor demand for auxiliary health providers. We focus on this subset of providers because, unlike physicians and psychologists who can diagnose autism, these workers cannot induce their own demand. If the incidence of autism is increasing independently of other mental disorders, then the demand for auxiliary health providers should increase, leading to higher wages and labor supply. Otherwise, the increase in autism diagnosis is merely displacing other mental disorders. We find that a 100% increase in autism cases increases the wages of auxiliary health workers over non‐autism health occupations by 8–11% and the number of providers by 9–14%. Furthermore, we find that one of every three new autism diagnoses is merely supplanting mental retardation diagnoses, but does not displace other mental disorders. These estimates suggest that at least part of the increase in autism diagnoses, about 50–65%, reflects an increase in the true prevalence of the disorder. (JEL L11, J2, J3)     

Seeking Legitimacy: The Professionalization of Life Coaching

This article uses life coaching as a case study for understanding the attempts of one occupational group to define their work as a profession and themselves as professional people. Life coaches' efforts to legitimate their work are examined within the context of the economic downturn and exemplify an emerging employment trend in the American labor market: college‐educated workers pursuing non‐standard work as independent contractors in personalized service occupations. Using in‐depth interviews with life coaches, I focus on the collective and individual strategies workers use in their attempts to carve out new occupational jurisdictions for their services and bolster their professional status. I explore how gender shapes life coaches' experiences and professionalization tactics; further, I predict that these gendered processes will ultimately influence the trajectory of the life coaching industry more generally. My findings highlight the complexity of current employment relations and offer empirical insights into the study of work, occupations, and gender.