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.     

The production of criminological experiments

This article examines the production of crime and justice field experiments during the 1990s. Data were collected on the characteristics of criminological experiments funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the principal research agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, during the 10-year period from 1991 through 2000. The analyses find that, whereas the funds available for research and evaluation at the NIJ increased during this period, the number of projects and the amount of funds awarded supporting field experiments declined. The article describes the characteristics of the experiments funded and assesses the extent to which the reduced support can be attributed to the characteristics of NIJ research funding, research topics, researchers, or criminal justice operational agencies.     

Collective bargaining and the determinants of teachers’ salaries

Using a national sample of public high schools, we find that bargaining spillovers play an important role in teachers’ labor markets. The spillover variable consistently indicates a larger bargaining effect than does the collective bargaining coverage dummy. We estimate that a 10 percent increase in the state density of teachers’ unions increases the highest teacher salaries by 2.6 percent and the lowest by 0.2 percent. Consistent with prior research, teacher union density was most strongly associated with highest salaries and had a nonsignificant positive association with lowest salaries. Teachers’ unions also affect the structural determinants of teachers’ salaries, offering some additional evidence supporting a median voter model. The proportion of unionized teachers with higher levels of education and experience (i.e., the highest paid) is positively related to highest salaries. Finally, our results confirm the importance of demand factors in teacher wage determination. The authors thank Shawn Windsor for his excellent research assistance and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on a previous draft of this paper. The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research provided the primary data set used in this paper. The U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics compiled the original data set. We gratefully acknoledge the assistance of Eric Hanushek and Lori Taylor who also provided data used herein. This research was funded in part by a grant from the McGill Faculty of Management Research Committee.     

Exclusive representation and american industrial democracy: An historical reappraisal

Exclusive representation in the public sector has been defended on the basis of private sector experience, which purportedly demonstrates that stable, orderly, peaceful collective bargaining is otherwise impossible or impracticable. Nevertheless, nonexclusive collective bargaining was the norm in most industrial nations when the Wagner Act was passed in the 1930s, and it still is the rule outside the U.S. Historical evidence is presented for the thesis that exclusivity was adopted in the private sector primarily in order to pave the way for a corporative state. Peaceful, orderly collective bargaining by “responsible” unions in a competitive economy was a minor, secondary consideration. Editor’s Note: This Symposium was jointly sponsored by theJournal of Labor Research and the National Institute for Labor Relations Research and was held February 10, 1984 at the Westpark Hotel, Rosslyn, Virginia.     

Contract length,wage indexation,andex ante variability of real wages

This paper proposes a new measure for the insurance value of a cost of living escalator (Cola) — theex ante uncertainty of real wages over the life of the contract. We use a sample of 3,224 U.S. collective bargaining agreements to find that indexation lowers and large contract duration raises this uncertainty. The positive association of Colas and contract length implies that when workers obtain a Cola, a portion of itsceteris paribus insurance value is diminished through the resulting longer contract length.     

Teachers’ collective bargaining outcomes and tradeoffs

This study uses data from Illinois and Iowa public school districts to examine the factors that influence the wage and nonwage bargaining outcomes negotiated by teachers’ unions. Tradeoffs between wage and nonwage outcomes and among nonwage contract provisions are also examined. The results provide some evidence that tradeoffs exist between wage and nonwage outcomes. The findings also reveal differences in outcome and tradeoff patterns across the states for issues unrelated to union security. I am grateful to the Illinois State Board of Education, the Iowa Department of Public Instruction, and the Iowa Public Employment Relations Board for providing the data analyzed in this study. I am also grateful to the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations at the University of Illinois and the Columbia University Graduate School of Business for research support, and to Jack Fiorito, David Lewin, Susan Schwochau, Donna Sockell, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

Protective service unions’ political activities and department expenditures

This paper examines how police and firefighter unions’ political activities influence departmental expenditures. Unlike prior research, we measure unions’ political activity independently of union bargaining power. Results indicate that a protective service union’s electoral activities positively affect departmental expenditures, and these effects are attributable to union political power rather than multilateral collective bargaining power. The authors thank Steve Blumenfeld, Wally Hendricks, Asghar Zardkoohi, and an anonymous referee for their excellent comments and suggestions.     

Recommendations for the elder abuse, health, and justice fields about medical forensic issues related to elder abuse and neglect

Increased interest in pursuing criminal and civil actions against alleged perpetrators of elder abuse and neglect has revealed that efforts to assist victims and hold perpetrators accountable are often hampered by the lack of knowledge about the detection and diagnosis of elder abuse and neglect and by the lack of resources for development of research and assistance in these matters. This report sets forth recommendations for the elder abuse, health, and justice fields about medical forensic issues related to elder abuse and neglect. The recommendations were developed by a "working group" of experts representing an array of disciplines that address the problem of elder abuse and neglect pursuant to a grant project funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the research, development, and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The project was conducted by the American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging, with the assistance of the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. This was the final project report submitted to NIJ; it has been updated to include information about the availability of reports and products from other grant projects that are discussed in the report.     

Recommendations for the elder abuse, health, and justice fields about medical forensic issues related to elder abuse and neglect

Increased interest in pursuing criminal and civil actions against alleged perpetrators of elder abuse and neglect has revealed that efforts to assist victims and hold perpetrators accountable are often hampered by the lack of knowledge about the detection and diagnosis of elder abuse and neglect and by the lack of resources for development of research and assistance in these matters. This report sets forth recommendations for the elder abuse, health, and justice fields about medical forensic issues related to elder abuse and neglect. The recommendations were developed by a "working group" of experts representing an array of disciplines that address the problem of elder abuse and neglect pursuant to a grant project funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the research, development, and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). The project was conducted by the American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging, with the assistance of the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. This was the final project report submitted to NIJ; it has been updated to include information about the availability of reports and products from other grant projects that are discussed in the report.     

Mandatory agency shop laws as an explanation of Canada-U.S. union density divergence

X. Conclusion During a period of strength the Canadian labor movement was able to secure enduring legislation providing for their institutional protection. In the 1940s Justice Rand justified his decision by invoking the spirit underlying the operationalization of a collective bargaining regime. In the 1990s the Canadian Supreme Court continued this tradition by refusing to hollow out unions’ rights to a secure financial base and autonomy in decision making. Between the 1940s and the 1990s, the unions' voice was heard in legislatures throughout the country through the NDP. Canadian unions now benefit from, among other things, first-contract arbitration, job protection for striking workers, and a card process of union certification. Thus, although current Canadian attitudes towards unions show considerable detachment, the embeddedness of legal protections helps hold such challenges as RTW in Alberta at bay. During the same years, American labor was unable to translate its strength of numbers into gains in public policy: in fact, as union density peaked, legislation such as the Taft-Hartley Act and Landrum-Griffin Act eroded union institutional protections. An earlier version of this article appears as “Union Security in Canada,” in The Internal Governance and Organizational Effectiveness of Labor Unions, edited by S. Estreicher, H. C. Katz, and B. E. Kaufman, Kluwer Press. We are grateful for their permission to reproduce portions of the chapter. Comments from Dennis Nolan (University of South Carolina) and John Godard (University of Manitoba) are greatly appre-ciated. The article benefited from their excellent suggestions. Research assistance from Fred Jacques is acknowledged. We follow the Canadian spelling of “labour” for accuracy when it is used in citations, quotes, and titles.     

LABOR MARKET STRUCTURE AND UNION WAGE LEVELS

This paper uses disaggregated data taken from union collective bargaining agreements to test several hypotheses on the impact of labor market structure on the wage levels of union members in U. S. manufacturing. The structure of collective bargaining, specifically the bargaining unit, is shown to play an important role in the determination of wage levels although this role is in some cases different than has generally been believed.     

Information technology, unions, and the new organization: Challenges and opportunities for union survival

The rapid transformation of the U.S. business environment has radically changed the character of organizations where unions seek to represent workers. Many of the structural elements that have provided critical support to union representation in collective bargaining have been significantly altered, or lost altogether. We have argued that information technologies have been a pivotal force of change in business organizations and have identified a set of key structural elements of these transformed organizations. It is our belief that while the new organization creates significant challenges for private sector unions, it also creates an opportunity for unions to develop new roles and new opportunities to prosper in the next millennium.     

Decomposing culture: an analysis of gender,language, and labor supply in the household

Despite broad progress in closing many dimensions of the gender gap around the globe, recent research has shown that traditional gender roles can still exert a large influence on female labor force participation, even in developed economies. This paper empirically analyzes the role of culture in determining the labor market engagement of women within the context of collective models of household decision making. In particular, we use the epidemiological approach to study the relationship between gender in language and labor market participation among married female immigrants to the U.S. We show that the presence of gender in language can act as a marker for culturally acquired gender roles and that these roles are important determinants of household labor allocations. Female immigrants who speak a language with sex-based grammatical rules exhibit lower labor force participation, hours worked, and weeks worked. Our strategy of isolating one component of culture reveals that roughly two thirds of this relationship can be explained by correlated cultural factors, including the role of bargaining power in the household, and the impact of ethnic enclaves and that at most one third is potentially explained by language having a causal impact.     

Does strike insurance matter? Evidence from the airline industry’s mutual aid pact

Despite a conducive environment, airline strike insurance did not significantly affect flight attendants’ and mechanics’ earnings and depressed pilots’ earnings by a barely statistically significant 3 percent. These results cast doubt on previous assertions that the demise of strike insurance, precipitated by the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act, improved unions’ relative bargaining power. Furthermore, the ineffectiveness of one of the most promising strike insurance pacts could explain the small number of such agreements in U.S. industries. The author may be contacted at the Department of Economics, Université du Québec à Montréal, CP 8888 Station A, Montréal, Québec, H3C 3P8, Canada. The author is grateful to Bill Dickens, Denise Jarvinen, Ted Keeler, Jonathan Leonard, James Peoples, Kenneth Train, and Marc Van Audenrode for many helpful comments. The author also thanks the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, and the PAFACC at the Université du Québec à Montréal for generous financial support.     

Union merger incentives and pecuniary externalities

The collective bargaining process is influenced by the market structure that exists on both sides of the bargaining table. That structure, in turn, is affected by the merger activity of both firms and unions. Until recently, however, union merger incentives have remained unexplored. This paper surveys the principal theories that explain these incentives and develops a new theory of union mergers based on pecuniary externalities between unions. We are grateful to Ethel Jones, Jim Long, and an anonymous referee for useful comments on a prior draft of this paper. The usual caveat applies.     

Methamphetamine and the changing face of child welfare: practice principles for child welfare workers

Methamphetamine use and production is changing child welfare practice. Methamphetamine is a significant public health threat (National Institute of Justice, 1999) reaching epidemic proportions (Anglin, Burke, Perrochet, Stamper, & Dawud-Nouris, 2000). The manufacturing of methamphetamine is a serious problem for the child welfare system, yet child welfare has not addressed the needs of children living in homes where methamphetamine is manufactured (U.S. Department of Justice, 2002; DOJ, 2003; Altshuler, 2005). This article presents key issues for child welfare workers related to the use, production, and effects of methamphetamine on children and families, and identifies practice principles for child welfare workers in order to ensure safety for victims, parents, and workers themselves.     

Unionism and prices in the food retailing industry

It is frequently asserted that labor organizations have dominated the collective bargaining process in some industries, extracting higher wages than in the absence of unionism. One reason may be that oligopoly exists in the relevant product markets, so that firms obtain greater-than-normal returns regardless of the outcome of wage negotiation. Also, work stoppages may negatively affect market share, causing firms to be reluctant to resist labor demands. Under these circumstances, union share and product market concentration would be expected to be positively related to product price. This proposition is tested explicitly for the food retailing industry and confirmed. Opinions presented are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect views of the Economics and Statistics service or the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The helpful comments of Harry Harp and Gerald Grinnell are gratefully acknowledged.     

Emotional displays in children's television programming

The facial expressions of emotion and the circumstances under which the expressions occurred in a sample of the most popular children's television programs were investigated in this study. Fifteen-second randomly selected intervals from episodes of five television programs were analyzed for displays of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise. In addition, the contexts in which the emotions occurred were examined. Results indicated that particular emotional expressions occurred at significantly different frequencies and that there was an association between emotional displays and emotion-contexts. The high rate of emotional displays found in television shows has implications for the development of knowledge regarding emotional display rules in viewers.We are grateful to Sharon Galligan for assistance in coding part of the data and to Carolyn Saarni and Amy Halberstadt for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. This research was supported in part by a grant from the National Institute of Disabilities and Rehabilitation Research, #GOO85351. The opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the U.S. Department of Education.     

The long-run and short-run impacts of global competition on U.S. union wages

Union opposition to trade liberalizing agreements suggests that international trade harms organized labor. Using union contract data, we assess both long- and short-run impacts of international trade on U.S. collective bargaining outcomes. Results indicate that, in the short run, increases in either imports or exports reduce union wages. This is attributed to risk aversion on the part of both unions and management. In the long run, however, trade has little net impact on average union wage settlements. In forming their opposition to more open U.S. trade policies, unions appear more concerned with short-run impacts of trade and are willing to trade-off immediate wage gains in lieu of future employment possibilities. We thank Dan Rickman, Bill Levernier, and the anonymous referee for their useful comments.