The internal union political imperative for UAW pattern bargaining

Like many industrial unions, the UAW places great emphasis on pattern-following contract settlements. However, research on the rationales for pattern bargaining has been scarce, and evidence testing these rationales has been absent. The usual rationale for pattern bargaining is to take wages out of competition. However, this paper presents evidence of important internal union political reasons for pattern bargaining. If intra-union wage comparisons cause union members to feel unfairly treated, elected leaders will be challenged. Thus, the UAW leadership pursues pattern bargaining to minimize political conflicts and maintain stability. Unless you know where you came from you don’t have the sense of direction that will lead you to the goals you seek. Walter P. Reuther That word “solidarity” isn’t rhetoric. For a union, it’s everything. Bob White Helpful comments by the Editor and an anonymous referee and financial support from the Jacob K. Javits Fellows Program, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Industrial Relations Section, Princeton University, are gratefully acknowledged. Walter P. Reuther collection, Box 98-2, Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University (WSU). Walter P. Reuther was UAW President from 1946 to 1970. White (1987, p. 51). Bob White was Director of the UAW Canadian Region from 1978 to 1985 and has been President of the National Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of Canada (CAW) since 1985.     

A walk on the applied side: Sociology and training research

This article presents a topic that sociologists rarely research but which holds great promise for the future—training. Sociologists spend a good deal of time investigating education but generally neglect the field of training. Little effort is spent on investigating training, why it’s done, how it’s done, what effect it has, who gets it, when it’s appropriate, or where it takes place. Sociologists tend to leave these issues to psychologists of various specialties or to professional trainers and training developers. The article identifies some major training-related issues, sociological specialty areas that apply to training-related research, areas of research that are of likely interest to sociologists and what sociologists might do to get involved in training research. He is on loan from the Armstrong Laboratory, Technical Training Research Division at Brooks AFB, TX, 78235. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Air Force or the Department of Defense. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Southwest Sociological Association Annual Conference in March 1993.     

The importance of labor-management cooperation

William Brock III has had a distinguished career as a four-term congressman from Tennessee’s Third District (1962–1970), a U.S. Senator (1970–1976), national chairman of the Republican party (1977–1981), U.S. trade representative (1981–1985), and U.S. Secretary of Labor (1985–1987). He has also served on the President’s Task Force on Regulatory Relief, the President’s Advisory Council on Private Sector Initiatives, and many other senior governmental councils and committees. He is currently president of William Brock Associates, a Washington-based consulting firm.     

INQUIRY

The following interview with Awash Teklehaimanot was conducted in June 2005. Dr. Teklehaimanot is Director of the Malaria Program at Columbia University and a member of the Task Force on Malaria for the UN Millennium Project. He is a senior staff member of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, where he provides leadership in the development of the global Roll Back Malaria program. Dr. Teklehaimanot has extensive international experience in public health with particular focus on Africa. He provides technical support to malaria-endemic countries, coordinates a number of WHO-funded research activities in Africa, and spent several years as the director of Ethiopia's National Malaria Control Program. He is a professor of clinical epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, and has been lecturing at the Harvard School of Public Health since 1992.     

INQUIRY

The following interview with Gary Orfield was conducted in May 2004. Gary Orfield is a professor of education and social policy at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. He is the director of the Harvard Project on School Desegregation, and co‐director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project. Professor Orfield is the author of numerous books and publications, and has been consistently involved in government and court proceedings dealing with issues related to his research. He has been called to testify in civil rights suits by the US Department of Justice and many civil rights, legal services, and educational organizations. In 1997, Professor Orfield was awarded the American Political Science Association's Charles Merriam Award for his “contribution to the art of government through the application of social science research.”     

The impact of unionization on labor’s share of income

This study examines the effect of unions on labor’s share of income. Because economic conditions within each industry are important in addressing this issue, this analysis incorporates a more disaggregated approach than has been previously used. Cross-sectional data for the 1950s — a period of more stable unionization — permit an examination of the long-run effect of wage increases on labor’s share. The empirical analysis suggests that higher labor prices have no long-run impact on labor’s share in manufacturing.     

Organization theory in administrative law: A proposal for a design science

A design science for administrative law is proposed. Organization-controlling law should be designed in terms of sociological competence. Architecture and engineering offer a model based on (1) good fit, (2) multi-disciplinary perspectives, (3) analysis and feedback of failures, and (4) a paradigm. The science would begin with characteristics of regulated organizations and categories of law-organization relationships and lead to better design of compliance machineries. However, methodological strictures within mainstream sociology reduce the prospects for this science. Lawrence B. Radine received his Ph.D. in sociology from Washington University in St. Louis in 1973. He is the author ofThe Taming of the Troops (1977) and is associate professor of sociology and director of the Master’s of Public Administration Program at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.     

Free agents’ impact on the labor market for baseball players

This paper evaluates the 1976 free agent rule’s impact on the labor market for baseball players. Free agency has specific consequences for monopsonistic exploitation and racial discrimination in salary determination. It reduces monopsonistic exploitation for all players and increases salary opportunities for black and Latino players. However, this change in a player’s status vis-à-vis a team has generated salary disparities among players based, not on race, but bargaining position. I would like to thank Linda Kammann, Mary O’Brien, and Benjamin Preston for their research assistance. Also I wish to thank John Siegfried and an anonymous referee for their comments. I remain solely responsible for the contents of this paper.     

In and Out of Enactments: A Relational Perspective on the Short- and Long-term Treatment of Substance Abuse

This paper examines the contribution of a psychodynamic relational perspective to the treatment of substance abuse. Two cases of different lengths are presented to illustrate the therapeutic factors that contributed to successful recovery and long-term abstinence. Follow-up information on the successful outcome of both cases was available 7 years after the initiation of treatment. We discuss the critical role that the experience and processing of enactments played in both cases. Carol Ganzer, PhD, MSW, LCSW is on the faculty of the Institute for Clinical Social Work. She is a past president of the Chicago Association for Psychoanalytic Psychology and serves on the editorial boards of Clinical Social Work Journal and Beyond the Couch. She maintains an independent practice of psychotherapy and consultation in Chicago. Eric D. Ornstein, MA, LCSW, is a Clinical Associate Professor at Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago. He is a field liaison in the College’s Field Division and currently teaches crisis intervention and field instruction workshops. He is on the Board of the Illinois Society for Clinical Social Work and Chair of their Education Committee.     

Twilight for organized labor

Conclusion The Old Unionism, organized labor in the private economy, is in irreversible decline. Economic and market factors beyond its control are principally responsible. The absence of effective leadership and its emphasis on political, instead of trade union, goals do not help. The substitution has diverted much of organized labor’s large financial resources to advancing a political agenda which has brought no material gains in membership and market share, but stigmatizes the union movement as a “special interest” group and as the Luddites of the new century: “American labor organizations ... are shaped much more basically by events of the past century than by forces of the past fifteen years” (Dunlop, 1978, p. 79). I am indebted to Ka-Neng Au, librarian at the Dana Library of Rutgers University, Newark, for his accurate and timely assistance with research information and citations of various references.     

Playing politics with policy: A conversation with Steven J. Pfohl

In this conversation, Stephen J. Pfohl and Maureen E. Kelleher discuss Pfohl’s experience as the chair of the Massachusetts Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee. During Pfohl’s tenure, the committee looked at the highly visible and politicized problem of violent teenagers. Pfohl reflects on the experience of chairing a committee made up of diverse representatives, leading them through a policy study process, and delivering a report with policy recommendations to the governor. He also shares insights into the political aspects of policy making. She has consulted with state agencies on various children’s policy issues, and her most recent work on institutional abuse appears inChild Welfare.     

How attorney representation and adjudication affect Canadian arbitration and labor relations board decisions

Few studies have investigated the effects of either attorney representation or attorney adjudication on arbitration board decisions, and none has investigated these effects on labor relations board decisions. I examine the effects of lawyers, as both representatives and adjudicators, on arbitration and labor relations board decisions in an analysis of 272 Canadian discipline cases involving the right to refuse unsafe work. My results show that the employee is more likely to have management’s discipline overturned if she uses a lawyer when the employer does not. However, the employer gains no comparable advantage by hiring a lawyer when the employee does not. In addition, neither side benefits by hiring a lawyer when both do so. Attorneys are also no more or less likely than non-attorneys to overturn or reduce management’s discipline.     

Interview With Michael Kerr

The following article was written by Dr Michael Kerr in response to questions put to him by Barbara Fraser; Linda Mackay and Lu Pease when he visited Australia two years ago. These three family therapists took it upon themselves to prepare this interview in recognition of Dr Kerr's unique vantage point on Bowen Theory and family therapy. Michael Kerr was trained by Murray Bowen in the 1970s and subsequently went on to work as faculty at the Georgetown Family centre. He succeeded Bowen as director of the centre where he has devoted his professional life to the understanding, application and extension of theory. He is the co‐author with Dr Bowen of Family Evaluation: An Approach Based on Bowen Theory (Kerr & Bowen, 1988), which remains the most esteemed text on this theory. He is also the editor of Family Systems: A Journal of Natural Systems Thinking in Psychiatry and The Sciences. Bowen's Family Systems Theory grew out of years of research from the 1950s‐1970s, which included observations of inpatient families with a schizophrenic member and using data from Bowen's own interactions with his family of origin (Bowen, 1978). The theory continues to be influential in family therapy with its most well‐known contributions being the process of triangling, the intergenerational transmission of family patterns and the concept of differentiation of self. (Brown, 1999). The following discussion from Dr Kerr brings a fresh perspective on the current applications and developments of this systems theory     

The Value of Hate in the Countertransference

The author looks at the experience of hate in the countertransference and develops the idea that hate can be of particular value to the treatment process. He begins with an exploration of the therapist’s needs and discusses how unmet self-regulatory needs sometimes lead to feelings of frustration and rage toward the patient. The author explores these ideas as they are connected to Winnicott’s (1949, 1971) work on aggression and Jessica Benjamin’s (1992) work on recognition and destruction. The author espouses a difference between rage and hate, where rage is seen as indicative of unmet needs, and hate is seen as a force that can emancipate the therapist from the encumbrance of unmet needs. Case examples are provided to show the utility of this perspective. Laurence Green, M.S.W., Psy.D. is on the faculty and a member of the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. He is Co-chair of the History Committee of the International Federation of Psychoanalytic Education. He is in private practice in Los Angeles, California working with children, adolescents and adults.     

Maternal morbidity and mortality

The following interview with Dr. Yves Bergevin on the consequences of maternal morbidity and mortality in developing countries was conducted in November 2007. Dr. Bergevin, MD, MSc, FRCPC, FCFP, is Senior Program Advisor for Reproductive Health at the United Nations Population Fund's (UNFPA) Africa Division. He provides the overall program leadership for reproductive health programs in Africa for UNFPA, including HIV Prevention, Maternal Health, Family Planning, and Reproductive Health Commodity Security. Dr. Bergevin has held several senior level positions in global health, including Chief of Health at UNICEF, where he fostered a renewed focus on child survival. Prior to this, he was Principal Advisor for Health, Population, and Nutrition at the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). He is the author of over 100 papers, abstracts, and reports. He has also served as a Member of the Board on Global Health, National Academies of Sciences (USA), a Member of the STOP TB Coordinating Board and of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership Board.     

Formalism in the social sciences,rhetorically speaking

Even formal methods in economics, which sociologists have been tempted to adopt, are “rhetorical,” in the sense of “argued to other scholars, not proven forever and ever.” The rhetoric of inquiry, in other words, is not confined to flowery language. Two examples of formal methods that have defective rhetorics are significance tests (in which the sociologists are far ahead) and existence theorems (in which the sociologists are in danger of imitating the economists’ errors). Much effort in economics is spent on a rhetoric without conclusions. A more humanistic economics — or sociology—would examine all the arguments, whether mathematical or not. He is also director of the Project on Rhetoric of Inquiry.     

Airline deregulation and the airline labor market

The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 has had a significant impact on the airline industry and its labor market. The structure of the airline labor market before the Act is examined in light of certain significant historical events including legislative intervention and regulatory practice. The Act and other coincident extraneous events are considered to show how deregulation and other unrelated economic and technological factors operated as a catalyst, sparking substantial short-term upheaval in the airline labor market. It is argued that in the longer term airline employees have little to fear from deregulation and that deregulation may eventually enhance labor’s position in view of the increased employment opportunities that an expanded market may bring and the abolition of the industry strike insurance scheme. I thank Bo Carlsson, Paul Gerhart, and Paul Salipante for their comments and suggestions.     

A rhetoric in defense of formalism in the social sciences: Comment on McCloskey

McCloskey’s criticism of formalism in economics and other social sciences fails to identify important arguments that justify the practices he criticizes. While it is valuable to expose accepted methods to critical examination, McCloskey’s broad attack implies the rejection of good social science as well as bad. He studies the labor market and population migration.     

The logic of labor quiescence

In 1993, the government of Alberta embarked on an ambitious plan to eliminate the provincial debt by 2010 and balance the budget within four years without raising taxes. The major vehicles to the plan’s achievement were unprecedented budget cuts and pub-lic sector restructuring. Initially, public sector union leaders were defiant, promising an allout struggle to thwart policies that jeopardized the unions’ vested interests in job security and organizational survival. More than five years later, unions have failed to influence in any significant way policy development and implementation. I explore why public sector unions did not mount any collective action to influence the political discourse in Alberta between 1993 and 1998. I am indebted to Nicole Lyotier and Nancy Cranston for their excellent research assistance, Helen Lam for comments on an earlier version of the paper, and all the interviewees for their time and willingness to share valuable information. Financial support for this study was provided by a Nova Fellowship, Faculty of Business, University of Alberta.