Recently in Labor Unions Category

Source: Human Rights Watch, September 2, 2010

From the summary:
This 130-page report details ways in which some European multinational firms have carried out aggressive campaigns to keep workers in the United States from organizing and bargaining, violating international standards and, often, US labor laws.
See also:
Press release

Source: Steve Wilson and Kevin Buckler, American Journal of Criminal Justice, published online 5 August 2010
(subscription required)

From the abstract:
Researchers have argued that the creation of citizen oversight often involves debate between those that support its use and the police which do not. Police unions, for example, have a long history of objecting to the creation of oversight, especially during collective bargaining. Minority demands for police reform, on the other hand, can lend support for its implementation, especially after a highly publicized case of misconduct between the police and minority citizens. Using a retrospective approach, this study examined the extent to which these opposing forces influenced the existence of oversight. Findings suggest that departments that engage in collective bargaining were no more likely to use an oversight agency than departments that did not engage in collective bargaining. Cities with large percentages of African Americans, however, were more likely to have an existing oversight agency.

Source: Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2010

From the Berger-Marks summary:
Study shows advantage for Asian Pacific American women

Being a member of a union adds about $2 an hour to an Asian Pacific American woman's paycheck, compared with her nonunion counterpart. That's the big news from a new report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

It jibes with another CEPR study, "Unions and Upward Mobility for Immigrant Workers," that found a big union advantage in pay and benefits for all immigrant workers.

One of every eight Asian Pacific American women--12.8 percent-- is a union member or is represented by a union at her workplace. More than two out of three are immigrants and about half (46.6 percent) work in the public sector.

Source: Ann Mari May, Elizabeth A. Moorhouse, and Jennifer A. Petersen, Industrial & Labor Relations Review, Vol. 63, No. 4, July 2010
(subscription required)

From the abstract:
The authors investigate the impact of unionization on the representation of women faculty at public Carnegie Doctoral/Research-Extensive institutions in the United States from 1993-94 through 2004-05. Using institutional-level data from the American Association of University Professors and controlling for institutional characteristics that influence the gender composition of faculty, the authors find that significant differences exist in the proportion of women faculty in total and by rank in unionized versus non-unionized settings. Specifically, unionized public research universities have a higher proportion of women faculty overall and more women at the ranks of associate and full professor than do non-unionized schools. The authors suggest that this issue is better understood using a segmented labor market approach since previous studies conducted on the subject may have obscured differences by rank. This study reflects the historical priorities of the faculty union in formalizing tenure and promotion procedures, especially important for women faculty.

Source: Elisabetta Magnani and David Prentice, Industrial & Labor Relations Review, Vol. 63, No. 4, July 2010
(subscription required)

From the abstract:
Do unions really impede manufacturers' output flexibility? If so, in what ways? The authors propose a methodology for quantifying George Stigler's concept of output flexibility and for decomposing the effects of unionization on average cost differences between union and non-union plants. Using a recently compiled data set on U.S. three-digit manufacturing industries from 1973 to 1996, they adapt this methodology to simulate the effects of unionization on flexibility and average costs for average-size plants. Simulation results indicate that higher unionization was associated with higher average costs and lower flexibility than low unionization. Higher average costs appear to have been primarily due to higher fixed costs, such as higher benefits.

Source: Henry S. Farber, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), NBER Working Paper No. w16160, July 2010
(subscription required)

From the abstract:
The standard theoretical solution to the observation of substantial turnout in large elections is that individuals receive utility from the act of voting. However, this leaves open the question of whether or not there is a significant margin on which individuals consider the effect of their vote on the outcome in deciding whether or not to vote. In order to address this issue, I study turnout in union representation elections in the U.S. (government supervised secret ballot elections, generally held at the workplace, on the question of whether the workers would like to be represented by a union). These elections provide a particularly good laboratory to study voter behavior because many of the elections have sufficiently few eligible voters that individuals can have a substantial probability of being pivotal. I develop a rational choice model of turnout in these elections, and I implement this model empirically using data on over 75,000 of these elections held from 1972-2009. The results suggest that most individuals (over 80 percent) vote in these elections independent of consideration of the likelihood that they will be pivotal. Among the remainder, the probability of voting is related to variables that influence the probability of a vote being pivotal (election size and expected closeness of the election). These findings are consistent with the standard rational choice model.

Source: Paul Abowd, Mark Brenner, Labor Notes, July 22, 2010

The stock market may be climbing, but city and state budgets across the country are stuck in a downward spiral.

From California to Maine, double-digit deficits have left civil servants with a giant bull's-eye on their backs, as politicians across the spectrum have pushed furloughs, layoffs, wage cuts, and farther-reaching measures like pension modifications as the main way to close yawning budget gaps.

Source: Steven Mellor and Lisa M. Kath, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, published online: 16 July 2010
(subscription required)

From the abstract:
We modeled a macro-level relationship at a micro-level level to examine the effectiveness of anti-unionism in psychological terms. We reasoned that fear of reprisal for disclosing union interest in the work environment was an affective response to perceived anti-unionism and hypothesized that fear of reprisal would disrupt the prediction of expression of this interest among nonunion employees (N = 1,010). With financial strain as a predictor of interest and fear of reprisal as a moderator, disruption was found. The results of the model are discussed in terms of the unintended consequences of anti-unionism, which, we argue, can include stress effects among employees and healthcare cost effects among employers.

Source: Berger-Marks Foundation, 2010

In March 2010, the Berger-Marks Foundation invited 30 women activists to New Orleans for a candid conversation across generations about how unions can attract young workers, especially women, and support them in key leadership roles.

Out of frank discussions over two days comes this report, "Stepping Up, Stepping Back: Women Activists 'Talk Union' Across Generations" by Linda Foley, Foundation president. In it, problems are faced openly and solutions are suggested. Its content comes from work done in small groups, which separated into three age clusters, and plenary sessions. As Foundation trustees, we took notes as silent observers. We hope that unions will find this report useful and that it will contribute to academic research on intergenerational activism
See also:
- Summary
- Bibliography

Source: David Moberg, In These times, Vol. 34 no. 7, July 2010

Democrats and unions fail to make job creation a national priority.