How unions affect minority representation in building trades apprenticeship programs

I use program-level data to compare the relative representation of blacks and Latinos in the construction industry apprenticeship programs organized with and without trade union participation. Econometric analysis shows that there are significant differences between the black and Latino experiences. The black share is higher in union-management joint programs, but the Latino share appears to be higher in the unilateral employer programs. Although both groups have lower representation in the higher status (electrical and mechanical) and higher paying occupations, the Latino share is more sensitive to earnings.     

How unions affect management decisions: Evidence from public schools

This paper explores empirically the formal mechanism by which unions can influence management decisions on resource allocation and, thus, affect productivity. Instead of using a dummy variable to capture all union effects, contracts are broken down into various provisions to test whether they constrain management decisions. Analysis of data from New York school districts reveals that the number of provisions as well as specific provisions included in a contract significantly affect internal budgetary allocations.     

The Texaco racial discrimination case and shareholder wealth

We analyze the wealth ejfects of the Texaco racial discrimination lawsuit both on the shareholders of Texaco and its major U.S. competitors. Employing a comprehensive data set which included every case docket entry and every Wall Street Journal article on the case as an experimental stimulus, our findings suggest that the overall cost of the case to Texaco shareholders exceeded $500 million, that Texaco's tribulations had little, if any, impact on the share prices of its major competitors, and that Wall Street Journal coverage of the case was highly correlated with significant changes in Texaco stock prices. This last finding provides significant support for Hite 's suppostion that newspaper editors “key ” on ex post stock price changes in selecting the events to be covered in the next day's edition. The authors are grateful to Kee Chung for helpful comments on earlier drafts and also acknowlege the help-ful assistance of the staff of the law library at the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at The University of Memphis.     

Pensions and the uses of ignorance by unions and firms

Pensions are contingent claims contracts that are often fashioned by collective bargaining under conditions of asymmetric information and market power. Pensions are not an employer’s or a union’s optimal contract; they represent compromise. Employers use pensions to minimize labor costs and to adjust to market changes. Pensions help unions improve and protect their members’ work lives and help unions to survive as institutions. When workers’ estimations of their pensions differ from their employers’ estimations a moral hazard can exist. Less mobile workers and those with less influence subsidize the pension benefits of other workers or reduce an employer’s costs. Econometric results based on data from the President’s Commission on Pension Policy show that certain workers, namely women, overvalue their plans, which provides an opportunity to lower labor costs and redistribute benefits. Unions have a contradictory effect on information. The author thanks participants in the Cornell University Collective Bargaining workshop and the Harvard Labor Economics workshop. I especially thank James Medoff for his comments.     

How right-to-work laws affect wages

I examine the wage effects of Right-To-Work (RTW). Using state-level data, I estimate that, ceteris paribus, RTW states have average wages that are significantly higher than non-RTW states. This result is robust is across a wide variety of specifications. An important distinctive of this study is that it controls for state economic conditions at the time states adopted RTW. States that adopted RTW were generally poorer than other states. Failure to control for these initial conditions may be the reason that previous studies have not identified a positive wage impact for RTW. I thank Kevin Grier for valuable comments and Lawrence Mishel of the Economie Policy Institute for constructive criticisms on an earlier version of this research.     

How union mergers affect membership participation

Using data from a survey of union members, we explore how an amalgamation of two Swedish unions affects membership participation. The research literature on the topic is mostly anecdotal and speculative, suggesting that mergers might have detrimental effects on membership participation because they create large unions with centralized governance and administration. But in this study, we do not find a broad-based decline in membership participation measured before and after merger as well as in relation to a comparison union that did not merge. These results are discussed in terms of the national context of union mergers in Sweden and the ways that mergers are negotiated, presented, and implemented to preserve membership participation. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Third International Conference on Emerging Union Structures: Reshaping Labour Market Institutions, Canberra, Australia in December 1997. The data collection for this project was supported by funds from the National Institute for Working Life in Stockholm.     

How unclear terms affect survey data

Although writing clear questions is accepted as a general goal in surveys, procedures to ensure that each key term is consistently understood are not routine. Researchers who do not adequately test respondent understanding of questions must assume that ambiguity will not have a large or systematic effect on their results. Seven questions that were drawn from questions used in national health surveys were subjected to special pretest procedures and found to contain one or more poorly defined terms. When the questions were revised to clarify the definition of key terms, significantly different estimates resulted. The implication is that unclear terms are likely to produce biased estimates. The results indicate that evaluation of survey questions to identify key terms that are not consistently understood and defining unclear terms are ways to reduce systematic error in survey measurement.     

How state exceptions to employment-at-will affect wages

Little research has been conducted on the effects of state adoption of exceptions to the common law doctrine of employment-at-will, which states that both employees and employers have the right to terminate an employment relationship at any time for any reason. I examine how these exceptions affect wages and find that, as predicted, the two are inversely related. All three commonly adopted exceptions are negatively related to the wage rate, with state adoption being associated with up to a three percent reduction in wages.     

Black self-organization in trade unions

This paper considers the significance of self-organization for black and minority workers in trade unions. It embodies a review of the theoretical and empirical evidence in support of black self-organization within unions; that is, a strategy of relative autonomy rather than separatism or submersion within a race-blind union. The theoretical support is derived from arguments concerning identity, participation and power. Much of the empirical material is based upon interviews with black and white lay members and shop stewards from three branches (‘Helthten’, ‘Shaften’ and ‘Mounten’) of the National and Local Government Officers union (NALGO) and with NALGO national officials between 1989 and 1990.     

How accommodations affect the duration of post-injury employment spells

I examine the effects of accommodations on the duration of employment spells using a sample of workers reentering the work force after an occupational injury. Unlike previous research, I analyze the post-injury employment history, i.e., more than one employment spell. The results indicate that accommodations have a smaller effect on employment duration than previous studies for workers who have not left their jobs. In addition, only certain types of accommodations, flexible work schedules and modified workplaces, are associated with significant increases in employment duration. The implications of these estimates for disability policy are also briefly discussed.     

Detecting a change in wealth concentration without the knowledge of the wealth distribution

Consumption is commonly used as a proxy for permanent income. We go a step further by establishing the link between the distribution of consumption and that of permanent income in terms of dominance orderings. We introduce two new dominance orderings, the Generalized Top Lorenz test and the related affluence ordering. If consumption is a concave function of permanent income, we get an indirect and robust method to detect a change in permanent income concentration when the full stream of income receipts along the life cycle is unknown and only consumption data are available. Our application on US data for the period 1980?C2002 points out the difficult start in life of people belonging to the ??Baby loser generation?? (people born in the sixties) with respect to the previous and following cohort.     

How minimum wages affect schooling-employment outcomes in Canada, 1993–1999

Based on longitudinal data from the Master File of the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) for Canada for 1993-1999, we provide multinomial logit estimates of the effect of minimum wages on the probability of being in one of four schooling-employment states as well as transitions across the states. We find that minimum wage increases led to large and statistically significant reductions in the employment of teenagers but had no net effect on their school enrollment or on the individual transition probabilities. We also find no substantial substitution of students for nonstudents or students leaving school to queue for the higher minimum wage jobs.     

Childhood mental health and adult family relationships: How ADHD shapes experiences with intimate unions and parenthood

Increasingly recognized as a chronic condition that can endure across the life course, childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with less stable family formation and more strain around intimate unions (dating, cohabitation and marriage) and parenthood. This article reviews and evaluates multidisciplinary research on childhood ADHD, intimate unions and parenthood, with the purpose of motivating future sociological research in this area. The paper is organized into three general sections. First, I provide an overview of information on ADHD including its diagnosis and treatment, cross-disciplinary etiologies, and sociodemographic correlates. Next, I blend sociological perspectives on labeling and stigma, social stress, and the life course to consider the role of ADHD-related stigma in shaping associations of childhood ADHD with family formation processes (intimate unions and parenthood) and family functioning (relationship quality and communication) in adulthood. Finally, I discuss opportunities for future sociological research on childhood ADHD and adult family relationships that have the potential to contribute both to empirical research on childhood ADHD and adult family relationships, as well as to sociological research at the intersection of family and health.     

Discipline and due process in labor unions

This article examines the implications of bureaucratization for discipline and due process within labor organizations. Two perspectives on these relations were developed from the literature on union governance and tested with data from union constitutions and other secondary sources. The extent of due process protections was positively related to both bureaucratization and the number of grounds for discipline. The results support the solidarity perspective, which posits a convergence of union leaders’ and members’ interests.     

Graduate student unions in the United States

Graduate student unions have been attracting considerable academic and practitioner attention recently, especially since the New York University decision in 2000. Given the declining fortunes of the union movement, it seems as if the academic sector has the potential of becoming a vital new organizing frontier. However, there is scant research on this issue. We trace the origins and evolution of graduate student unions in the United States, discuss the relevant statutory and case law, analyze pertinent collective bargaining and strike issues, and suggest avenues for future research.     

A relational analysis of migration in old age: How transnational ties affect migration decisions

Recently, the role of personal ties in migration decisions has received considerable attention. However, this aspect has seldom been studied in the context of retirement. This paper addresses this gap by shedding light on the composition of personal networks, types of mobility patterns and retirement locations for four groups of older adults. To this end, two methodological approaches are employed: (1) a qualitative Social Network Analysis to examine the composition of older adults' personal networks and (2) thematic coding to analyse the relational aspects of migration decisions. This paper draws on 29 semi-structured interviews conducted in Spain and Switzerland in 2020 and 2021. The findings demonstrate that pre-retirement migration trajectories shape personal network composition. Moreover, personal ties play a critical role in older adults' mobility patterns and choices of retirement location. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the impact of personal networks on migration decisions of older adults.