Interest group tactics and public sector labor relations policy

A framework for analyzing the determinants of state labor relations policies is developed using the notion of tactics. Unions and management have various tactical options, at both the state and local levels, for influencing employment outcomes. The framework explicitly recognizes those options, and thus incorporates actions, such as bringing cases to courts, which have received little attention in previous research. Consideration of local-level tactics reveals additional factors that may influence interest group incentives to seek state-level policy changes. The author thanks Paul Jarley, John Delaney, Jim Bennett, and George Neumann for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. This paper was partially supported by a University of Iowa Old Gold Summer Research Fellowship and a College of Business Administration Summer Research Grant.     

The future of public sector labor-management relations: Part II — The federal sector

Journal of Labor Research -     

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.     

The rise of regulation of the public sector in the United Kingdom

Governments not only regulate business and society but also themselves in the form of regulation of publicly owned and/or funded bodies. Regulation of the public sector involves regulators operating at arms-length from those they regulate using systems of standard setting, monitoring and enforcement. In the past three decades in the UK, regulation has become increasingly important both in terms of absolute resources devoted to the activity and relative to other forms of control (particularly self-control by public sector professionals and control within large integrated bureaucratic structures). These trends have, in part, been fuelled by executive politicians' attempts to control public services and demands from citizens and users for better quality and efficiency. In the past decade, more explicit and extensive review of regulation of the public sector has been undertaken. Whilst not as developed as private sector Regulatory Impact Analyses these reviews have promoted the use of techniques including regulatory enforcement pyramids and risk based regulatory approaches. — Special issue: New patterns of institutions.     

The public relations paradox of erasure: Damnatio memoriae as public relations strategy and tactic

Public relations scholars study how organizations co-create meaning with engaged stakeholders. Not well understood is how and why such co-creation modifies shared meaning, amplifies change, and even “erases” some piece of memory from the public record with the purpose of redirecting and redefining societal narratives. To help establish erasure as a concept for studying public relations, we draw from Freud’s theory of memory to establish a foundation upon which to critique strategic erasure. We adapt Freud’s theory of memory into the intersecting critique of visual rhetoric as public relations by analyzing, via narrative inquiry, remnants of Imperial Rome that have been modified, amplified, but even erased to present Rome’s modern identity. For centuries, even during Imperial Rome, leaders practiced damnatio memoriae —a modern Latin phrase that means “condemnation of memory.” We use this concept to interrogate the public relations identity process Rome’s leaders have used to modify for emphasis and even obliterate Roman elites’ names and images from the texts of public records by destroying, mutilating and modifying statues and monuments as a means for co-creating new public memory. Such analysis reveals how damnatio memoriae helps elites to redefine the “memory” of the Eternal City.     

Integrating evidence based practices into public relations education

Public relations continue to play an essential and changing role in society, requiring the regular reassessment of the education of future public relations practitioners. Academics and practitioners often differ in how they view the public relations field, how they define the discipline, and how they view the major pedagogical approaches. This paper explores the impact of integrating three different perspectives in public relations education including practitioner perspective, client perspective, and the evidence-based perspective. Results from students’ reaction papers and an online questionnaire suggest that integrating an evidence-based approach improves the competence and clarity of communications counsel provided by aspiring practitioners.     

The role of public relations in corporate social responsibility programs in the Colombian electricity sector

This study investigates the role of public relations in managing social responsibility in a group of Colombian electricity sector companies. According to the results, communication professionals who support social responsibility programs do not hold a unified concept of public relations. Furthermore, not all of them acknowledge the currently prevailing model, which regards the practice of public relations as seeking both harmony with its environment and mutual benefit with the public interest.     

How public relations works: Theoretical roots and public relations perspectives

Public relations is often studied from a managerial, instrumental perspective or a psychological, behavioral perspective. To understand the role of public relations in building trust or mistrust and to develop – or destroy – a license to operate, it needs also to be studied as a social phenomenon.     

The heterogeneous effects of COVID-19 on labor market flows: evidence from administrative data

The Journal of Economic Inequality - We investigate the short-term effects of COVID-19 on labor market flows and how they are mediated by labor market policy. Using Italian administrative data on a...     

Appropriate bargaining units for state employees: Potential impacts for labor relations and public administration

This article reviews the literature and empirically examines the long-held assumption that occupational bargaining units for state employees are more appropriate and more in the public interest than are departmental units. The payroll records of Michigan state employees were analyzed on six demographic and organizational variables to test five hypotheses concerning the greater appropriateness of departmental units. Four of the five hypotheses supported the greater appropriateness of departmental units. In addition, because the mean highest job level in departmental units was significantly greater than in occupational units, career mobility and affirmative action programs for employees within occupations were more severely limited. Smith is now with General Motors Corporation. The authors wish to thank Harold Angle, James Perry, and especially Lizabeth Barclay for their helpful comments.     

Personal public relations: identity as a public relations commodity

Public relations for individuals is steadily emerging as a significant area of practice, yet little research and theoretical development is currently undertaken in this area. Within this article public relations for individuals, referred to in this study as personal public relations, is examined. The research identified two approaches deployed by public relations practitioners: a formative mode and an advisory mode. The formative mode is an active constitution of a public identity, whereas the advisory mode is a communication counseling approach. The paper argues that the formative role is more closely aligned to the marketing techniques of promotion and selling, whereas the advisory role fits more closely with the public relations roles of communication counseling and relationship building. Potential guidelines for ethical personal public relations work emerged from the discussion.Dr Judy Motion is a senior lecturer in the Department of Management Communication at the University of Waikato in New Zealand.     

Japanese labor relations: A view from organized labor

Donald F. Ephlin retired in June 1988 as vice-president and director of the General Motors Division of the UAW. He has also directed the UAW’s Ford Division, where he led the union’s bargaining team in negotiations over job security, profit sharing, and worker participation in management. Mr. Ephlin has served as a regional director of the UAW in New England, as an administrative assistant to former UAW president Leonard Woodcock, and as a member of the Presidential Commission on Industrial Competitiveness and the U.S. Department of Labor Task Force on Economic Adjustment and Worker Dislocation. He is now a lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139.     

Some economic effects of the California agricultural labor relations act

The California Agricultural Labor Relations Act (CALRA) evolved in the 1970s because the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) excluded agricultural workers. CALRA effectively placed the United Farm Workers Union in a stronger bargaining position vis-a-vis farmers than the NLRA had done for industrial unions vis-a-vis nonfarm business firms. Society has suffered a net economic loss from CALRA and the events preceding its enactment. Since passage of the act, at least three effects have been verified: Relative to conditions that would otherwise have been expected to exist, consumers are facing higher prices; agricultural workers are earning lower wages; and landowners have suffered losses in land values.     

New-class dissent among social-cultural specialists: The effects of occupational self-direction and location in the public sector

Recent research suggests that new-class dissent is concentrated among the social-cultural specialists Kristol identifies as the principal critics of a business culture. Kohn's research on the micro-foundations of authoritarian conservatism suggests a plausible explanation centered on the subjective effects of occupational self-direction, a variable curiously missing from other models of new-class dissent. An alternative explanation, derived from state-centered theories of the new class, points instead to the concentration of these social-sicence and arts-related occupations outside the commercial economy. Using covariance structure analysis of new survey data, this study finds that occupational self-direction entails a propensity to question systemic inequities and a reluctance to blame the victims of poverty and discrimination. The antibusiness animus of Kristol's counterelites, conversely, arises in spite of, not because of, their highly self-directed work, reflecting instead their concentration in the public and nonprofit sectors.