Labor Relations Commons^™

Third Party Access And Refusal To Deal In European Energy Networks: How Sector Regulation And Competition Law Meet Each Other, Michael Diathesopoulos

Michael Diathesopoulos

In this paper, we will analyse the issue of concurrence between competition and sector rules and the relation between parallel concepts within the two different legal frameworks. We will firstly examine Third Party Access in relation to essential facilities doctrine and refusal of access and we will identify the common points and objectives of these concepts and the extent to which they provide a context to each other’s implementation. Second, we will focus on how Commission uses sector regulation and objectives as a context within the process of implementation of competition law in the energy sector and third, we will …

Family Security Insurance: A New Foundation For Economic Security, Workplace Flexibility 2010, Georgetown University Law Center, Berkeley Center On Health, Economic & Family Security, Uc Berkeley School Of Law

Published Reports

A report released by Georgetown Law's Workplace Flexibility 2010 and the Berkeley Center on Health, Economic & Family Security (Berkeley CHEFS) outlining a blueprint for establishing and financing a new national insurance program to provide wage replacement for time off for health and caregiving needs. The report describes the need among working Americans for time off from work to address personal illness, to care for a new child, or to care for a loved one with a serious illness. It argues that the need for time off is no longer an issue for individual families or select industries, but a …

International Labor Rights And The Sovereignty Question: Nafta And Guatemala, Two Case Studies, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] Labor rights advocates in the United States and allied organizations abroad attempting to establish international fair labor standards run up against traditional notions of sovereignty in formulating national labor policies and development strategies. In the same way that entrenched sovereignty principles gradually yielded to international human rights claims after World War E, sovereignty is now being challenged by claims of international laborrights in the field of employment standards and industrial relations. This Article seeks to illuminate this challenge to sovereignty in two case studies of labor rights advocacy. Part I sets the stage with an overview of the growing …

Working Alone: Protecting And Building Solidarity In The Workplace Of The Future, Charley Richardson

Labor Resource Center Publications

This paper explores the foundations of solidarity in the workplace and the challenges to building solidarity in the modern day workplace. The author identifies eight workplace trends that are increasing individual isolation and destroying workplace-based social networks. After comparing two models of social networks, the author suggests specific steps workers and unions can take to protect solidarity at work.

Analysis Of The Administration Of Human Resources: Prepared For The Ipswich Town-School Coordination Committee, Edward J. Collins, Jr. Center For Public Management, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Edward J. Collins Center for Public Management Publications

The Town of Ipswich, acting for its Town-School Coordination Committee, contracted with the Edward J. Collins, Jr. Center for Public Management at the University of Massachusetts Boston to undertake a review of the Human Resources (HR) management, Recreation Department programming, and the Information Technology needs of the Town and School Department. The review was undertaken to assess how collaborative approaches might enhance the effectiveness of each of these municipal functions. The Collins Center has published a report on each of these topics. The overall Project Manager was Senior Associate Richard Kobayashi. The HR report was prepared by Collins Center Associate …

Labor And Media: A Strained Relationship, Mac-Z Zurawski

All Student Theses

The labor movement or union community of America has been in a steady decline for more than a decade. The 1950s saw the pinnacle of success with one-third of the U.S. workforce being unionized. Today only 8% of the private workforce is unionized. One way in which this decline may be perceived as more pronounced is through media alienation. According to journalists across the nation such as Philip M.Dine unions have been alienated by media and its type of union coverage. In this study, I analyze the way in which the New York Times portrays the labor movement during the …

Undue Equation Of 'Savings' With 'Compensation For Services': Case Comment, Belachew M. Fikre

Belachew M Fikre

Individual employer-employee relations are regulated by a regime called 'employment law'. Despite the inadequate semantic clarity in our legal system regarding the usage of the words 'employment law' and 'labour law', the latter is 'understood as the regime that governs workers' efforts to advance their own shared interests through self-organisation and collective protest, pressure, negotiation and agreement with employers. Among the numerous benefits accorded to an outgoing employee is severance payment that somehow provides an interim income during transition from one engagement to another. And this form of benefit represents one variety of the 'third wing' within the regime of …

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…"

From Energy Sector Inquiry To Recent Antitrust Decisions In European Energy Markets: Competition Law As A Means To Implement Energy Sector Regulation In Eu, Michael Diathesopoulos

Michael Diathesopoulos

This paper presents the conceptual path followed by European Union, European Commission and European Competition Network, after the Energy Sector Inquiry (2007) towards the realisation of the objective of an Energy Internal Market, fully functional and open to competition. Firstly, we examine the findings of Sector Inquiry and then we describe how the Third Energy Package - that followed - tried to address the issues highlighted by the Inquiry and how Third Energy Package introduces a promising but complex system, in order to develop sector rules. Following the above, we proceed to a brief but close examination of 10 recent …

Federal Employees Part-Time Career Employment Act Of 1978: Overview, Workplace Flexibility 2010, Georgetown University Law Center

Memos and Fact Sheets

The Federal Employees Part-Time Career Employment Act aims to utilize the potential of persons who do not work a traditional forty-hour workweek. Having found that part-time permanent employment has a number of benefits,i Congress passed legislation extending part-time career employment opportunities throughout the federal government in 1978.

Relational Contract Theory And Management Contracts: A Paradigm For The Application Of The Theory Of The Norms, Michael Diathesopoulos

Michael Diathesopoulos

This paper examines management contracts as a paradigm for the application of relational contracts theory and especially of the theory of contractual and relational norms. This theory, deriving from Macauley's implications, but structured and analysed by I.R. MacNeil gives us a framework for the explanation and understanding of contractual obligations and business relations' rules and practice. After presenting the key literature about the norms theory and especially defining the content of MacNeil's norms, we define management contracts as relations, characterised by a high relational element and we explain why, investigating all their features, which make them a suitable object for …

From A Mirage To An Oasis: Narcissism, Perceived Creativity, And Creative Performance, Jack Goncalo, Francis J. Flynn, Sharon H. Kim

Jack Goncalo

We examine the link between narcissism and creativity at the individual, relational, and group levels of analysis. We find that narcissists are not necessarily more creative than others but they think they are, and they are adept at convincing others to agree with them. In the first study, narcissism was positively associated with self-rated creativity, despite the fact that blind coders saw no difference between the creative products offered by those low and high on narcissism. In a second study, more narcissistic individuals asked to pitch creative ideas to a target person were judged by the targets as being more …

Who Cares? The Role Of Job Involvement In Psychological Contract Violation, Jason S. Stoner, Vickie C. Gallagher

Business Faculty Publications

This study examined survey data from full-time employees employed in a variety of occupations. We empirically examined how psychological involvement with one’s job affects reactions to psychological contract violation. Data for control variables (i.e., age, gender, organizational tenure), the independent variable (i.e., psychological contract violation), and the moderator (i.e., job involvement) were taken at Time 1; and dependent variables (i.e., depressed mood at work, turnover intention) were taken at Time 2. Results illustrated that job involvement was an important construct in understanding individuals’ negative reactions to psychological contract violations. Implications and limitations are discussed, and suggestions for future research are …

Hidden Consequences Of The Group Serving Bias: Causal Attributions And The Quality Of Group Decision Making, Jack Goncalo, Michelle M. Duguid

Jack Goncalo

A long stream of research in attribution theory suggests that groups are biased toward attributing their success to factors that are internal to their group. However, the existing research has confounded two types of attributions that are both internal to the group, but theoretically distinct: (1) Attributions that differentiate between the contributions made by each individual group member and (2) attributions that focus on the group as a whole. This dichotomy is important because, drawing on theories of social influence, we predict that different types of attributions will have different consequences for the quality of group decision making. In experiment …

Past Success And Creativity Over Time: A Study Of Inventors In The Hard Disk Drive Industry, Pino G. Audia, Jack A. Goncalo

Jack Goncalo

We integrate psychological theories of individual creativity with organizational theories of exploration versus exploitation in order to examine the relationship between past success and creativity over time. A key prediction derived from this theoretical integration is that successful people should be more likely to generate new ideas, but these ideas will tend to be less divergent as they favor the exploitation of familiar knowledge at the expense of the exploration of new domains. This prediction departs from the often-held view that people who generate more ideas will also generate ideas that are more divergent. Analyses of patenting in the hard …

Can Confidence Come Too Soon? Collective Efficacy, Conflict And Group Performance Over Time, Jack Goncalo, Evan Polman, Christina Maslach

Jack Goncalo

Groups with a strong sense of collective efficacy set more challenging goals, persist in the face of difficulty, and are ultimately more likely to succeed than groups who do not share this belief. Given the many advantages that may accrue to groups who are confident, it would be logical to advise groups to build a high level of collective efficacy as early as possible. However, we draw on Whyte’s (1998) theory of collective efficacy and groupthink, to predict that when confidence emerges at a high level toward the beginning of a group’s existence, group members may be less likely to …

Contesting The Dinosaur Image: The Labor Movement’S Search For A Future, Richard W. Hurd

Richard W Hurd

[Excerpt] But the increased effectiveness of labor's political activities has not resulted in major improvements legislatively, and now there is a hostile President who opposes nearly every aspect of the union policy agenda. The promise for the future lies in the demonstrated ability to mobilize at the grassroots. But there are recent signs that national unions are breaking ranks and pursuing narrow self interest. The USWA joined with the steel industry to persuade the Bush administration to restrict imports, and even hinted at a possible endorsement for his reelection in 2004 (Murray). The UMWA has praised the president's energy policy, …

Work Support, Work-Family Enrichment, Work Demand And Work Well-Being Among Chinese Employees : A Study Of Mediating And Moderating Processes, Shuwen Tang

Theses & Dissertations

Work and family are the central and salient domains in one’s life. Juggling work and family life has become a challenge for many employees and families (Hammer et al., 2005). This study proposed a theoretical model in which work to family enrichment functioned as the mediator between work support (support from supervisor, co-workers and organization) and work well-being (job satisfaction and psychological health), and also examined whether work demand buffered the impact of work support on work well-being. The inclusion of work to family enrichment extends prior research on Job Demands – Resources model (Demerouti & Bakker, 2007), and allows …

Benevolent Vs. Hostile Sexism Impact On Work Performance For Women In Turkey, Crystal M. Bonneau-Kaya

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

All studies to date that have assessed the direct impact of benevolent vs. hostile sexism on performance outcomes have done so in the context of a Western society. Because of this void in the literature, it remained unknown how living in a low egalitarian and/or non-Western society may impact women's experiences of sexism. The purpose of this study is to address this gap in the literature. This study investigates the impact of benevolent vs. hostile sexism on women in four Turkish textile factories. 210 Turkish female textile factory workers were randomly assigned to the benevolent sexism, hostile sexism, or control …

Media Attention & Executive Pay In The Netherlands, Jordan Otten

Jordan Otten

This report is centered around three research questions on newspaper coverage and executive compensation in The Netherlands. 1) How has the coverage developed over the years? 2) How selective are newspapers in their coverage? And 3) What are the influences of newspaper coverage on executive compensation?

Based on the articles that have appeared in the period 1998- mid 2009, it can be concluded that the attention by newspapers is not only of the most recent years. Newspapers do not systematically focus on the better or worse performing companies and do also not focus on the higher or highest paid executives. …

Mindful Leadership, Lyn Hopper

Georgia Library Quarterly

The author proposes mindful leadership for library officers and staff. She says that such leadership may be difficult to practice amid declining budgets but it is essential for effective leadership. She adds that psychologist Ellen Langer noted that job mindfulness boosts productivity, flexibility, leadership, innovation and job satisfaction. She claims that mindfulness originated from Buddhism by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh to reduce stress and encourage healing.

A Timeline Of The Evolution Of Retirement In The United States, Workplace Flexibility 2010, Georgetown University Law Center

Memos and Fact Sheets

This document provides key highlights in the history of retirement in the United States. It provides some background on how the concept of retirement, and its legal treatment, has evolved. This time-line does not include every law related to pension and retirement plans. Rather, it emphasizes those laws that have come to shape how we view retirement, particularly the tax laws that encouraged employers to establish pension and retirement plans in the first place.

Phased Retirement Data Sheet, Workplace Flexibility 2010, Georgetown University Law Center

Memos and Fact Sheets

This data sheet includes information on current coverage and participation by American workers in pension and retirement plans. It also includes information on what employees say they want in terms of flexible work arrangements and access to pension and retirement funds, as well as what employers say they need with regard to the workforce of the future.

Benefits, Rights And Features Nondiscrimination Testing And Phased Retirement Programs, Workplace Flexibility 2010, Georgetown University Law Center

Memos and Fact Sheets

Various studies indicate that formal phased retirement programs within defined benefit plans are wanted and needed by both employers and employees. Phased retirement programs may be useful for employees who want to reduce their hours during later stages of their careers, but who wish to remain in the workforce. For employers, a phased retirement program may be a useful tool to retain talented employees who may otherwise fully retire.

In designing phased retirement programs, It is not surprising that many employers wish to have significant discretion in deciding which employees they will seek to retain through a phased retirement program. …

Early Retirement Incentive Plans And The Age Discrimination In Employment Act, Workplace Flexibility 2010, Georgetown University Law Center

Memos and Fact Sheets

Early retirement incentive plans (ERIP) “seek to give incentives to older employees to retire before conventional retirement age. The purpose of these programs is to cut back on salaries and benefits to make way for younger workers.” While some ERIPs might constitute a prohibited act under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), the statute provides an affirmative defense for employers who can prove that the plan is voluntary and “consistent with the purposes” of the Act.

Some commentators have suggested that one way to encourage employers to establish bona fide phased retirement programs within their qualified pension plans is …

Phased Retirement Benefits And Final Full Retirement Calculations: Open Issues, Workplace Flexibility 2010, Georgetown University Law Center

Memos and Fact Sheets

This document briefly describes two issues relating to the final, full retirement benefit for individuals who receive a phased retirement distribution from a defined benefit plan: 1) whether and how any phased retirement distribution would offset the final full retirement benefit, and 2) the form of the payment of the final, full retirement benefit.

Faqs About Employees And Employee Benefits, Pamela Perun

Memos and Fact Sheets

This primer is an introduction to the basic laws of employee benefits. It is often assumed that there are legal impediments to employers providing benefits to phased retirees, part-time workers and the contingent workforce. From a benefits law perspective, this is really not true. By statute, self-employed workers are sometimes excluded from plans required to be employee-only but employers face few other prohibitions when designing their plans.

From an employer’s perspective, there are far more impediments to excluding these workers from their benefit plans than including them. Tax law provides incentives to employers who sponsor plans and to workers who …

Workplace Flexibility: A Norm Of The American Workplace, Workplace Flexibility 2010, Georgetown University Law Center

Memos and Fact Sheets

A PowerPoint slide-show that outlines the challenges, options, policies, solutions, and innovations associated with Flexible Work Arrangements.

Selected Resources On Flexible Work Arrangements For Lower-Wage Workers, Workplace Flexibility 2010, Georgetown University Law Center

Memos and Fact Sheets

A list of resources for low-wage workers regarding flexible work arrangements.

Legal And Research Summary Sheet: Phased Retirement, Chantel Sheaks J.D., Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes Phd, Michael A. Smyer Phd

Memos and Fact Sheets

During the first decade of the 21st century, significant attention has been paid to the widely anticipated retirement of the Baby Boom generation from the U.S. workforce. Employers and policymakers have considered important questions such as:

• What percentage of older workers are likely to retire on a full-time basis between the ages of 62-65?

• What might the implications of a “mass exodus” of Baby Boomers mean for different types of businesses?

• Which types of policies and practices might encourage some older workers to extend their labor force participation, thereby enabling employers to retain the knowledge and skills of these experienced …