Prizes in an industrial union environment

This paper proposes a short-run cross-sectional theory of how employers in an industrial union work environment try to foster and reward greater efforts and more productivity by individual workers by offering a “prize” in the form of shift premiums, overtime pay, and accident risk premiums. The theory is evaluated empirically with a set of micro data from a large industrial establishment. We found that the effect of such prizes is to steepen the upward portion of the earnings profile, dampen the compression of earnings in a union environment, and increase earnings differentiation.     

Dose-Response Analysis Using Spreadsheets

The task of fitting dose-response models to experimental data can be performed using a spreadsheet with a built-in optimization engine. This paper shows how the task of point and interval estimation can be performed using Microsoft EXCEL. A case study is presented on the carcinogenic dose-response behavior of chloroform.     

The Role of Probation Officers in Determining Gender Differences in Sentencing Severity*

This study examines the relationship between gender and sentencing severity in the criminal justice system. Analysis focuses (1) on the extent to which gender influences sentencing and (2) on the part played by probation officers' presentence investigations in accounting for these differences. We find males are more likely than females to receive harsh sentences. The gender effect is diminished, but not ellmnished, in multivariate analyses, when controls are introduced for other sociodemographic and legal variables. The length of pretrial detention and the amount of charge reduction also have little impact on the magnitude of this relationship. Presentence recommendations by probation officers, however, have a major effect. Independent of other potential influences, being female greatly increases the likelihood of receiving a non-incarceration sentence recommendation which, in turn, is the primary predictor of final criminal court dispositions. A large portion of the gender effect in sentencing enters during the presentence stage, apparently because probation officers (the court officials who prepare the presentence reports) are influenced by traditional ideas about gender roles. Qualitative data suggest that they believe the sources of crime are different for women and men and that imprisonment is more appropriate as a treatment for men.     

American union law: Sources of conflict

Japanese union-management relations are reputed to be cooperative, while American union-management relations are perceived to be adversarial. This study examines three sources of the adversarial union-management relations in the United States: union history, the Norris-LaGuardia Act, and the Wagner Act, as amended. Union history is a tale of conflict between workers who wished to cartelize and other workers who wished to be independent. It is not, primarily, a tale of conflict between capital and labor. The Norris-LaGuardia Act institutionalized conflict, and the Wagner Act enshrined it. To improve American unionmanagement relations significantly, so that American firms can be more effective international competitors, it is necessary, though not sufficient, to repeal both pieces of legislation.     

Against Time: Scheduling, Momentum, and Moral Order at Wartime Los Alamos

Abstract This article examines scheduling as a source of institutional momentum in the Los Alamos atomic weapons laboratory during World War Two. As well as allowing coordination of the large and geographically dispersed sites of the atomic bomb project, the scheduling regime operated as a system of social control, suppressing opposition to the use of the weapon. The analysis suggests the importance of historical and ethnographic attention to how schedules inscribe instrumental rationality in the quotidian life of modern organizations.