Government Intervention in Public Sector Industrial Relations: Lessons from the Alberta Teachers’ Association

In the public sector, Canadian governments intervene frequently in labor disputes by suspending collective bargaining and curtailing legal strikes. Previous research has focused on the contours of government intervention, such as its overall effects on collective bargaining and strikes. The discussion highlights one actor, a government, restricting the behavior of another actor, a union, using legislation and policy making. As a result, we know less about more micro-level elements and implications of the process of government intervention. I address these themes using a detailed case study of the Alberta Teachers’ Association and the strikes it coordinated in 2002.

Union decline: A view from Canada

Important changes are occurring in the Canadian unions’ political and economic environments. This paper argues that such changes may be detrimental to Canadian trade unions, given their structural and institutional situation. To support this argument, private-sector union and nonunion firms in Alberta are compared. This comparison uncovers some structural (union members’ employment patterns and union firm characteristics) and institutional (union services) attributes of unions. Combined with the politico-economic environments that Alberta unions have faced since the early 1980s, these attributes have led to a decline in union membership. Because these attributes are shared by many other Canadian unions, those unions may increasingly confront some of the same hardships currently plaguing their Alberta counterparts. I am indebted to Brian Bemmels, Alan Murray, and John G. Fricke for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper, and to Mike Jones for his research assistance.     

Employee involvement programs: Should unions get involved?

We test the mediated effects of participation in employee involvement (EI) programs on employee desires for union involvement in the future development and diffusion of EI and the perceived durability of an EI program as a possible moderator of these effects. Results indicate that participants developed more positive attitudes toward the EI program than nonparticipants and, in turn, these attitudes were related to higher desires for union involvement in EI. Additionally, volunteers developed more positive attitudes toward the EI program than nonvolunteers and, in turn, these attitudes were related to higher desires for union involvement in EI. However, the relationship between attitudes toward EI and desires for union involvement in EI was significantly less positive for participants who viewed the EI program as durable.     

Government Behaviors and Union Protest: Systematizing the Relationship

I develop a theory of the relationship between government actions and union political protest that uses conjunctures and structures to explain government-related factors which influence union political protest. Conjunctures are dramatic political developments that have the potential to tilt the status quo in industrial relations against, or in favor of, union vested interests. Here, the core conjunctures are significant debts and budget deficits concurrent with governments preaching severe budget cuts and public sector restructuring that, if implemented, can undercut unions. Structures are the policy tools that governments use to implement their agendas. Together, conjunctures and structures constitute a distinct government logic that influences the likelihood of union protest.     

The effects of workplace unionization on worker responses to HRM innovation

This study develops and empirically tests a theory which explains how workplace unionization affects worker responses to HRM innovation. We hypothesize that union support varies depending on whether the union perceives the innovation as a threat to its power base and institutional security or as an opportunity to increase its status and influence. This differential effect is expected to be curvilinear. Our hypothesis is generally supported by our sample of 230 organizations. Practical and research implications are discussed. We are indebted to Kay Devine and Thomas G. Cummings for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.     

Union responses to quality improvement initiatives: Factors shaping support and resistance

We analyze how, between 1989 and 1996, four unions in a Canadian hospital responded to a two-stage quality improvement (QI) initiative comprising a total quality management effort and a reengineering campaign. Results indicate that union leaders' responses to QI were a function of the extent to which the leaders perceived QI as a threat to their vested interests in union survival and protecting members'well being. The evolution of the relationship between QI and union responses, in turn, was shaped by the extent to which the unions and management accommodated each other's vested interests and by the parties' balance of power. We are grateful to all those who participated in this study for making it possible. The excellent research assistance of Deanna Chevrier is highly appreciated. We are also indebted to Kay Devine, Joseph Gebran, Francis Lau, and Lloyd Steier for helpful comments on versions of this paper. The research was supported by a NOVA Fellowship, Faculty of Business, University of Alberta.     

Can increased educational attainment explain declining Indigenous fertility?

Prior research shows that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are more likely to have children and have more children, on average, than non-Indigenous women. However, like those of the total Australian population, fertility rates of Indigenous women have been declining since the 1970s. The decline has been more significant in recent years. Between 2006 and 2016, an increasing proportion of Indigenous women postponed childbirth from their teens into their 20s and 30s, leading women to have fewer children over their lifetimes. During the same period, there was a rapid increase in educational attainment among the Indigenous population. This paper examines educational gradients in fertility among Indigenous women and whether the observed fertility decline is linked with the increased educational attainment. Using data from the 2006, 2011 and 2016 Australian Census of Population and Housing and applying a shift-share decomposition analysis, we find that education has been a big driver of falling fertility rates in non-remote areas. In remote areas, education has had a much smaller effect (except for youngest women).