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Full-Text Articles in Business

Final Report : The Effects Of Plant Closing Or Threat Of Plant Closing On The Right Of Workers To Organize, Kate Bronfenbrenner Dec 2008

Final Report : The Effects Of Plant Closing Or Threat Of Plant Closing On The Right Of Workers To Organize, Kate Bronfenbrenner

Kate Bronfenbrenner

No abstract provided.


The Evolution Of Strategic And Coordinated Bargaining Campaigns In The 1990s: The Steelworkers’ Experience, Kate Bronfenbrenner, Tom Juravich Dec 2008

The Evolution Of Strategic And Coordinated Bargaining Campaigns In The 1990s: The Steelworkers’ Experience, Kate Bronfenbrenner, Tom Juravich

Kate Bronfenbrenner

"With the refocusing of attention of the labor movement on organizing, an increasing number of scholars have been directing their research toward the nature and practice of current union organizing efforts. These scholars have begun updating a literature that had grown sorely out of touch with the organizing experience of America’s unions and have provided the foundation for a more sophisticated understanding of the organizing process. While we applaud this resurgence in organizing research, there has not been a comparable resurgence in research on collective bargaining…"


Worker Turnover And Part-Time Employment At Ups, Kate Bronfenbrenner Dec 2008

Worker Turnover And Part-Time Employment At Ups, Kate Bronfenbrenner

Kate Bronfenbrenner

Over the last ten years we have seen a dramatic increase in the utilization of part-time workers by the United Parcel Service (UPS). This increase has been coupled with a stunningly high turnover rate of 150 percent among these workers. This study documents the deteriorating work environment for part-time workers at UPS and finds that a lack of full-time opportunities, a pervasive pattern of management mistreatment, and an alarmingly high injury rate are the primary determinants of the high turnover rate.


International Labor Standards, Soft Regulation, And National Government Roles, Sarosh C. Kuruvilla, Anil Verma Sep 2008

International Labor Standards, Soft Regulation, And National Government Roles, Sarosh C. Kuruvilla, Anil Verma

Sarosh Kuruvilla

[Excerpt] In this article, we briefly describe the different approaches to the regulation of international labor standards, and then argue for a new role for national governments based on soft rather than hard regulation approaches. We argue that this new role shows potential for significantly enhancing progress in international labor standards, since it enables governments to articulate a position without having to deal with the enforcement issues that hard regulation mandates. We justify this new role for governments based on the increasing use of soft regulation in the international arena. Of course, this approach is not without its own problems, …


Esop Fables: The Impact Of Employee Stock Ownership Plans On Labor Disputes, Peter Cramton, Hamid Mehran, Joseph Tracy Aug 2008

Esop Fables: The Impact Of Employee Stock Ownership Plans On Labor Disputes, Peter Cramton, Hamid Mehran, Joseph Tracy

Peter Cramton

By the early 1990s employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) had become as prevalent in unionized firms as in nonunionized firms. However, little research has been devoted to examining the implications of ESOPs for collective bargaining, or cross ownership more generally. In this paper, we extend the signaling model of Cramton and Tracy (1992) to allow partial ownership by the union. We demonstrate that ESOPs create incentives for unions to become weaker bargainers. As a result, the model predicts that ESOPs will lead to a reduction in strike incidence and in the fraction of labor disputes that involve a strike. We …


Ethnic Democracy And Its Ambiguities: The Case Of The Needle Trade Unions, Gerd Korman May 2008

Ethnic Democracy And Its Ambiguities: The Case Of The Needle Trade Unions, Gerd Korman

Gerd Korman

[Excerpt] During the years between World War I and World War II the conduct among well-known Jewish labor leaders seems to have foreshadowed events in the history of America’s nationality following the tumult of the 1960’s. In the 1920’s and 1930’s America’s elected or appointed officials still used a pecking order based on assumed inequalities of race, ethnicity, and gender in making policy decisions. They presumed that their private interests, those of the “insiders,” the “leading groups,” or “controlling minorities,” were the only appropriate ones for determining public policy. It was then, especially in the Depression years, when the New …


The Steward’S Role In Bargaining, Ken Margolies Apr 2008

The Steward’S Role In Bargaining, Ken Margolies

Ken Margolies

[Excerpt] Bargaining a new contract is one of the biggest events in the life of a union, and one that offers stewards many opportunities to build a stronger organization. For many stewards, though, the bargaining process consists of responding the three big questions from the members.


Communicating Across Cultures, Ken Margolies Apr 2008

Communicating Across Cultures, Ken Margolies

Ken Margolies

[Excerpt] Communication is the key to so many things a steward does, and good communication skills are something experienced stewards develop. But even experienced stewards have special challenges when the communication is between people of different cultures.


Working It Out, Ken Margolies Apr 2008

Working It Out, Ken Margolies

Ken Margolies

[Excerpt] Every steward knows that it’s almost always better to work out problems with management informally, without having to resort to filing a grievance. And ever steward knows that if you do have to file a grievance, it’s better to win it at the first step than have to go through the headaches that come with moving higher up the food chain, or, even worse, risk leaving things in the hands of an arbitrator.


Time Management For Stewards, Ken Margolies Apr 2008

Time Management For Stewards, Ken Margolies

Ken Margolies

[Excerpt] Too much to do? Too little time to do it? Stewards face that problem every day – and the smart ones do something about it. It’s called time management.


Talking Vs. Communicating, Ken Margolies Apr 2008

Talking Vs. Communicating, Ken Margolies

Ken Margolies

[Excerpt] There is a saying, "When all is said and done, more is said than done." Stewards who attend union meetings to decide how to handle and issue or grievance sessions with management probably agree. Why is it so difficult to get past the talk and make decisions, agreements, and well, get things done?


A Study Of Regulatory Intervention In Labor-Management Relations: School Desegregation In Los Angeles, Dade County, And Boston, Harry C. Katz Apr 2008

A Study Of Regulatory Intervention In Labor-Management Relations: School Desegregation In Los Angeles, Dade County, And Boston, Harry C. Katz

Harry C Katz

"This article analyzes the interaction between public school desegregation and labor relations in Los Angeles, Dade County, and Boston. First enumerating the ways in which desegregation led to specific changes in either personnel policies or collective bargaining agreements in the three school systems, then providing an evaluation of the performance of the court’s regulatory intervention within labor management relations in the three school systems. After comparing regulatory performance, the factors that influence the observed variations in performance are assessed. A distinction is found between those causal factors that are ‘environmental’ and those that are under the direct control of the …


Industrial Relations Performance, Economic Performance, And Qwl Programs: An Interplant Analysis, Harry C. Katz, Thomas A. Kochan, Kenneth R. Gobeille Apr 2008

Industrial Relations Performance, Economic Performance, And Qwl Programs: An Interplant Analysis, Harry C. Katz, Thomas A. Kochan, Kenneth R. Gobeille

Harry C Katz

"This study analyzes the relationship among plant-level measures of industrial relations performance, economic performance, and quality-of-working-life programs. The analysis employs pooled time-series and cross-section data from 18 plants within a division of General Motors for the years 1970-79. The empirical results show strong associations between industrial relations and economic performance measures and limited support for the hypothesis that quality-of-working-life efforts improve both kinds of performance."


Building And Construction Trades Unions: Are They Built To Win?, Jeff Grabelsky Jan 2008

Building And Construction Trades Unions: Are They Built To Win?, Jeff Grabelsky

Jeffrey Grabelsky

[Excerpt] The evidence of labor's declining power in the economic and political arenas is increasingly clear. Despite the tenacious efforts of talented leaders over the past ten years, the labor movement has still failed to turn the proverbial cornet. Some labor leaders now believe that a dramatic change in strategic direction may be necessary to revitalize labor's fortunes. The emerging debate about labor's future touches every sector of the movement. The building and construction trades are no exception.


Health Hazards Manual For Custodians, Janitors And Housekeepers, Nellie J. Brown Jan 2008

Health Hazards Manual For Custodians, Janitors And Housekeepers, Nellie J. Brown

Nellie J. Brown, MS., C.I.H.

[Excerpt] We will look at the principal occupational health hazards and exposures themselves and some of the related issues. We will look closely at the chemical composition of cleaning products to see what components appear to be particularly hazardous, how you are exposed to them, and what you can do to minimize exposure.


Human Resource Management, Service Quality, And Economic Performance In Call Centers, Rosemary Batt, Lisa M. Moynihan Jan 2008

Human Resource Management, Service Quality, And Economic Performance In Call Centers, Rosemary Batt, Lisa M. Moynihan

Rosemary Batt

This paper examines the relationship between human resource practices, operational outcomes, and economic performance in call centers. The study draws on a sample of 64 call centers serving the mass market in a large telecommunications services company. Surveys of 1,243 employees in the 64 centers were aggregated to the call center level and matched to archival data on service process quality, as measured by customer surveys; call handling time, revenues per call, and net revenues per call. Our path analysis shows that human resource practices emphasizing employee training, discretion, and rewards lead to higher service quality, higher revenues per call, …


Net Working: Work Patterns And Workforce Policies For The New Media Industry, Rosemary Batt, Susan Christopherson, Ned Rightor, Danielle Van Jaarsveld Jan 2008

Net Working: Work Patterns And Workforce Policies For The New Media Industry, Rosemary Batt, Susan Christopherson, Ned Rightor, Danielle Van Jaarsveld

Rosemary Batt

This report, based on a study of a group of highly accomplished professionals in New York City, is one of the first to take up labor market issues in the new media industry. It describes the challenges faced by professionals and employers alike in this important and dynamic sector, and identifies strategies for success in a project oriented environment with highly complex skill demands and rapidly changing technology. Our findings suggest three central issues.


The Economic Costs And Benefits Of Self-Managed Teams Among Skilled Technicians, Rosemary Batt Jan 2008

The Economic Costs And Benefits Of Self-Managed Teams Among Skilled Technicians, Rosemary Batt

Rosemary Batt

This paper estimates the economic costs and benefits of implementing teams among highly-skilled technicians in a large regional telecommunications company. It matches individual survey and objective performance data for 230 employees in matched pairs of traditionally-supervised and self-managed groups. Multivariate regressions with appropriate controls show that teams do the work of supervisors in 60-70% less time, reducing indirect labor costs by 75 percent per team. Objective measures of quality and labor productivity are unaffected. Team members receive additional overtime pay that represents a 4-5 percent annual wage premium, which may be viewed alternatively as a share in the productivity gains …


Worker Participation In Diverse Settings: Does The Form Affect The Outcome, And If So, Who Benefits?, Rosemary Batt, Eileen Applebaum Jan 2008

Worker Participation In Diverse Settings: Does The Form Affect The Outcome, And If So, Who Benefits?, Rosemary Batt, Eileen Applebaum

Rosemary Batt

[Excerpt] This paper utilizes extensive surveys of workers in three occupational groups (network craft workers, semi-skilled office workers, and semi-skilled machine operators) in two very different industries (telecommunications and apparel)i to examine the outcomes of workplace innovations. Our central . question has two parts. First, what are the outcomes of off-line employee participation programs versus on-line work reorganization experiments? Second, who benefits from which type of innovation: employees, employers, or both? To answer these questions, we consider the effects of off-line versus on-line innovations on workers' satisfaction with their jobs, on their commitment to the companies they work for, and …


What’S The Problem In Public Sector Workforce Recruitment? A Comparative Analysis Of The Public, Nonprofit, And Private Sectors., Brian Collins Dec 2007

What’S The Problem In Public Sector Workforce Recruitment? A Comparative Analysis Of The Public, Nonprofit, And Private Sectors., Brian Collins

Brian K. Collins

Public sector workforce recruitment is problematic, but the nature of that problem is not clearly defined. Workforce recruitment is essentially a matching problem that requires managers to recruit desired employees in available labor pools. This research asks whether sectoral differences and competition for labor affect whether public managers frame the major problem of workforce recruitment as the size, qualifications, or work ethic of the labor pool. Using survey data from about 2,300 managers from two US states, problem attributions are modeled using multinomial logit. The findings suggest that the public and nonprofit sectors find it more problematic to recruit qualified …