The effect of experience on faculty attitudes toward collective bargaining: A cross-temporal analysis

We used multivariate analysis to investigate the change in the attitudes and expectations of AAUP members in a Midwestern university. Two models were developed to measure faculty attitudes toward the union, at the time of the election and four years after the election. The effect of experience on faculty attitudes toward the union is captured by comparing the results of the two models. Our findings suggest major differences in faculty attitudes and expectations prior to and after the union’s arrival. The results of our study have essential policy implications for unions in formulating successful strategies and for faculty in developing realistic expectations of collective bargaining.     

The performance effects of collective and individual bargaining: A comprehensive and granular analysis of the effects of different bargaining systems on company productivity

Using representative company‐level data for all Member States of the European Union, the authors analyse the relationship between different processes and institutional structures of collective bargaining and the development of company labour productivity. Their results clearly show that these differences have wide‐ranging effects. While some processes and structures of collective bargaining – specifically sectorally uncoordinated systems – appear to be detrimental to company performance, the opposite can be said about sectorally coordinated systems. Thus, what matters are the processes and institutional structures in which collective bargaining is embedded and not whether bargaining should be conducted collectively or individually.     

The future of public sector collective bargaining in Canada

Conclusion Looking to the future of Canadian public sector labor relations, the glass is half full. Despite regular intervals when government fiscal and economic policy “trump” public sector bargaining rights through legislation, public sector unions and collective bargaining will survive. Public sector compensation and job security will likely continue to be at least comparable to the unionized private sector, and public sector union density should remain stable, at or near its currently high levels.     

An economic analysis of public sector collective bargaining and strike activity

This paper develops a theory of public sector collective bargaining and uses it to investigate the economic determinants of public sector strike activity. The model considers union leaders, union members, bureaucrats, politicians, and voters, with the intention of explicitly recognizing both the constraints placed on the bargaining parties by their constituents and the differences between public and private sector collective bargaining. The empirical results indicate that only in cases where both negotiating parties are motivated by self-interest can we expect frequent strikes and strikes of long duration. The results also suggest that public sector strikes are countercyclical and principally influenced by the business cycle and its impact on state and local revenues.     

The legal status of collective bargaining by public school teachers

This paper examines the characteristics of area populations that predict the content of bargaining legislation for public school teachers. The authors provide evidence suggesting that 1) pro-bargaining legislation is correlated with the representation of union members and related workers who benefit from collective bargaining, and 2) the legislation appears to be demanded by career workers as a means of transferring resources away from teachers with relatively short career horizons. An N-chotomous probit model is used to estimate the form of legislation that ranges from bargaining prohibition to prescribed bargaining. Data for the study were obtained from 95 SMSAs in 35 states. We are indebted to Paul H. Rubin and Elchanon Cohn for their substantial contributions to this project. We also received helpful suggestions from Chris Paul and R. Carter Hill.     

Wage and nonwage outcomes in collective bargaining: Determinants and tradeoffs

Using unskilled labor wage rates and union contract scores derived from a sample of 500 U.S. manufacturing contracts, this study finds that in 1975 there was considerable variation in unions’ abilities to deliver higher wages and desirable nonwage contractual provisions to their members (though it is clear that the stronger unions have bargained high levels of both wages and nonwage items). There are a variety of union power, employee quality, union preference, and employer cost variables which impact upon the bargaining choices made between wages and nonwage provisions, and it appears that union strength tilts the compensation package toward wages. The authors, associate professors at the University of Illinois, are very grateful to Christopher Pawlowicz, Ronald Seeber, and Roger Wolters for their help in gathering data. They also are grateful to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Evaluation and Research of the U.S. Department of Labor and to the Research Board of the University of Illinois for financially supporting this research. Such support in no way implies, however, that the Department or the University endorses the methods or conclusions in this study.     

Wage determination in U.S. manufacturing 1958–1976: A collective bargaining approach

This paper presents a cross-section collective bargaining approach to the analysis of inter-industry wage movements of production workers in U.S. manufacturing over the period 1958–1976. A Hicksian model is used to classify the determinants of wage change according to their likely influence on the concession and strike costs of management and unions. Three variables which are classified as management concession and strike costs are consistently significant in empirical testing: change in value productivity, labor intensity, and the profit rate. On the basis of this finding it is suggested that inter-industry wage changes are generally a function of management concession costs. The authors acknowledge the helpful comments of an anonymous referee.     

Freedom of association and collective bargaining in the platform economy: A human rights-based approach and an ever-increasing mobilization of workers

This paper examines the exercise of the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining by platform workers. It focuses on several significant developments involving the collective organization of platform workers worldwide, and considers the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining as human rights. It contends that the shifting context of work has led to changes in modern workplaces, which, in turn, have generated a novel interest in the adoption of a human rights-based approach towards labour protection. This approach considers that all workers are entitled to rights, such as the right to collective bargaining, which derive from international human rights instruments.     

A bargaining model and empirical analysis of strike activity across industries

This study extends the analysis on the inter-industry propensity to strike found in Leigh (1983) by (1) developing a more elaborate model, (2) developing proxies for all the parameters of the model, and (3) testing the modified model on two new data sets. The results suggest that strikes are more frequent in hazardous industries employing few women and where the average level of schooling is low. In addition, the evidence suggests strikes and wages may be simultaneously determined.     

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.     

A continuous time model of the bandwagon effect in collective action

The paper offers a complex and systematic model of the bandwagon effect in collective action using continuous time equations. The model treats the bandwagon effect as a process influenced by ratio between the mobilization efforts of social activists and the resources invested by the government to counteract this activity. The complex modeling approach makes it possible to identify the conditions for specific types of the bandwagon effect, and determines the scope of that effect. Relying on certain behavioral assumptions, these conditions are only indirectly connected to individual beliefs, so that a given bandwagon effect can be explained and planned without knowing the exact preferences of the players' preferences. Received: 25 February 1999/Accepted: 30 November 1999     

The effect of retirement on home production: evidence from Australia

Review of Economics of the Household - This paper examines the effect of retirement on individuals’ time spent on home production activities. Using rich longitudinal data from Australia and...     

The consequences of family crowding: A theoretical synthesis

This article reviews the literature on crowding in non-family and family settings, identifies flaws in past research, presents a model for the study of crowding, and outlines a theory of crowding. Although the focus of this analysis is on crowding within the family, the model and theory are applicable, in principle, to any context in which too many people live in too little space.Leonard Beeghley is Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Riverside. His research interest focuses on issues in stratification and theory development. The research reported here is the initial stage of an attempt at understanding the effect of crowding on families.Denise Donnelly is a Ph.D. candidate, Department of Sociology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611. Her current area of interest focuses on cross-cultural perspectives on women's status.     

Libertarian collective decision-making: A new framework

A model of collective decision-making is presented which enables us to analyze the allocation of individual rights and liberties. The model broadens the traditional social choice framework. In social choice theory it is usually assumed that individuals have preferences over a set of feasible alternatives and that society reaches a decision on the basis of those preferences only. In the model presented in this paper, decision procedures do not only take information about individual preferences as input, but also information about individual freedom. The specific decision procedures we present and analyze can be characterized as libertarian.This paper was written while I was a visitor at the University of California, Riverside. The visit was made possible by financial support of the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research (NWO). I am extremely grateful to Prasanta Pattanaik for many stimulating discussions on the subject. For helpful comments I also thank Ad van Deemen, Grahame Lock, Huib Pellikaan and Marcel Wissenburg. Finally, I express my thanks to Wulf Gaertner and two anonymous referees.     

A characterization of the Nash bargaining solution

We characterize the Nash bargaining solution replacing the axiom of Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives with three independent axioms: Independence of Non-Individually Rational Alternatives, Twisting, and Disagreement Point Convexity. We give a non-cooperative bargaining interpretation to this last axiom. Received: 4 September 2000/Accepted: 6 September 2001