Labor Relations Commons^™

Means To An End: An Assessment Of The Status-Blind Approach To Protecting Undocumented Worker Rights, Shannon Gleeson

Shannon Gleeson

This article applies the tenets of bureaucratic incorporation theory to an investigation of bureaucratic decision making in labor standards enforcement agencies (LSEAs), as they relate to undocumented workers. Drawing on 25 semistructured interviews with high-level officials in San Jose and Houston, I find that bureaucrats in both cities routinely evade the issue of immigration status during the claims-making process, and directly challenge employers’ attempts to use the undocumented status of their workers to deflect liability. Respondents offer three institutionalized narratives for this approach: (1) to deter employer demand for undocumented labor, (2) the conviction that the protection of undocumented workers …

Introduction: The Enduring Power Of Collective Rights, In Labor Law Stories, Catherine L. Fisk, Laura J. Cooper

Catherine Fisk

No abstract provided.

Community Workforce Provisions In Project Labor Agreements: A Tool For Building Middle-Class Careers, Maria Figueroa, Jeffrey Grabelsky, Ryan Lamare

Jeffrey Grabelsky

[Excerpt] Project Labor Agreements are comprehensive contracts between a construction client and a consortium of unions. They have been used in the construction industry for over 60 years to achieve uniform labor standards, stability and high quality for large construction projects, and are currently evolving to address broader social and community issues. Community Workforce Agreements are PLAs that contain social investment or targeted hiring provisions to create employment and career path opportunities for individuals from low income communities.

Pioneering examples of CWAs included the Los Angeles Community College District PLA (signed in April of 2001), providing for 30 percent of …

Two Paths To The High Road: The Dynamics Of Coalition Building In Seattle And Buffalo, Ian Greer, Barbara Byrd, Lou Jean Fleron

Ian Greer

[Excerpt] Labor-community coalitions are not a new concept. Unions approach such coalitions now, as in the past, as one way to enhance their bargaining power with an employer. Such coalitions are temporary and often issue-based. In recent years, however, some local labor movements have begun to look at coalitions in a broader way – as a means of improving their public image and building power in the political arena. This broad-based approach requires the development of coalitions for the longer run, not just for temporary expediency. This paper develops the notion of a high road social infrastructure as a way …

Labor And Urban Crisis In Buffalo, New York: Building A High Road Infrastructure, Ian Greer, Lou Jean Fleron

Ian Greer

With inequality growing and competitive market forces on the march, can unions play a constructive role in solving the problems of capitalist economic development? Should they try? In this study of coalition building in Buffalo, New York we find that regular procedures of problem solving involving multiple coalition partners – what we call a high-road social infrastructure – have developed in the city. We discuss the progression of union approaches to economic development, including in-plant and regional labor-management partnership, community coalitions and the creation of labor-led nonprofit organizations. In response to long-term economic and social crisis, a group of union …

Labor And Regional Development In The U.S.A.: Building A High Road Infrastructure In Buffalo, New York, Ian Greer, Lou Jean Fleron

Ian Greer

[Excerpt] In a country where worker representatives lack broadly institutionalized roles as "social partners," how can they play a constructive role in solving the problems of regional development? In Buffalo, New York, regularized, labor-inclusive procedures of problem solving involving multiple coalition partners – what we call a high-road social infrastructure – has emerged. Socially engaged researchers and educators have played a role in spreading lessons and organizing dialogue. Despite the emergence of regional cooperation, however, successful development politics are hampered by many of the same problems seen in European regions, including uncertainty about the best union strategy, hostility from business …

Working Through The Past: Labor And Authoritorian Legacies In Comparative Perspective, Teri L. Caraway (Ed.), Maria Lorena Cook (Ed.), Stephen Crowley (Ed.)

Maria Lorena Cook

[Excerpt] Democratization in the developing and post-communist world has yielded limited gains for labor. Explanations for this phenomenon have focused on the effect of economic crisis and globalization on the capacities of unions to become influential political actors and to secure policies that benefit their members. In contrast, the contributors to Working through the Past highlight the critical role that authoritarian legacies play in shaping labor politics in new democracies, providing the first cross-regional analysis of the impact of authoritarianism on labor, focusing on East and Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Legacies from the predemocratic era shape labor’s …

Innovation In Isolation: Labor-Management Partnerships In The United States, Kirsten S. Wever, Rosemary Batt, Saul Rubinstein

Rosemary Batt

In the United States, as in other advanced industrial countries, worker participation in management has taken on increasing importance, placing pressures on employers and unions to change how they deal with employees/members, and with each other. This paper examines two of the most impressive cases in the U.S.: the partnerships between General Motors (G.M.) and the United Autoworkers union (U.A W.) at Saturn and between BellSouth and the Communication Workers union (C.W.A.). We outline the evolution and the basic features of these innovations, as well as highlighting certain ongoing problems. These problems, we argue, confront the parties to employment relations …

Insurgency And Institutionalization: The Polanyian Countermovement And Chinese Labor Politics, Eli D. Friedman

Eli D Friedman

Why is it that in the nearly 10 years since the Chinese central government began making symbolic and material moves towards class compromise that labor unrest has expanded greatly? In this article I reconfigure Karl Polanyi's theory of the countermovement to account for recent developments in Chinese labor politics. Specifically, I argue that countermovements must be broken down into two constituent but intertwined "moments": the insurgent moment that consists of spontaneous resistance to the market, and the institutional moment, when class compromise is established in the economic and political spheres. In China, the transition from insurgency to institutionalization has thus …

Collective Bargaining In American Industry: A Synthesis, Clifford B. Donn, David B. Lipsky

David B Lipsky

The preceding eight chapters deal with the current status of collective bargaining in eight U.S. industries. The differences between collective bargaining for police officers and auto workers or between professional athletes and college professors are obvious and illustrate the richness and variety of contemporary collective bargaining. Despite that diversity, however, the eight industries exhibit important similarities in collective bargaining. The common themes that link most, if not all, of the industries examined in this volume are perhaps less obvious, but a careful reading of the preceding chapters reveals that there have been a number of common factors affecting collective bargaining …

Introduction To [Collective Bargaining In American Industry: Contemporary Perspectives And Future Directions], David B. Lipsky, Clifford B. Donn

David B Lipsky

[Excerpt] Of course, collective bargaining in this country has always been an institution rich in diversity. The nature of each collective bargaining relationship came about through a variety of influences both internal and external to the bargaining process. The internal factors include such things as the ideology of labor and management, the way the unions and employers were organized, and the history of the relationship between the parties. The external factors include the state of the economy and the nature of the laws and court decisions that regulate bargaining practices. Nonetheless, this diversity has never been more in evidence than …

The Interactive Effects Of Recruitment Practices And Product Awareness On Job Seekers’ Employer Knowledge And Application Behaviors, Christopher J. Collins

Christopher J Collins

In this paper, I draw on research from the literatures on marketing and recruitment to identify how recruitment practices and company product awareness are related to job seekers’ application behaviors through three aspects of job seekers’ employer knowledge. Based on results from a within-subjects design with data from 123 recruiting companies and 456 student job seekers, my findings suggested the relationships between recruitment strategies and application intentions and decisions are moderated by product awareness. Specifically, low-information recruitment practices are significantly and positively related to application behaviors through employer familiarity and employer reputation when product awareness is low rather than high. …

Exploring Applicant Pool Quantity And Quality: The Effects Of Early Recruitment Practice Strategies, Corporate Advertising, And Firm Reputation, Christopher J. Collins, Jian Han

Christopher J Collins

Drawing on marketing and recruitment theory, we examined relationships between early recruitment practices, organizational factors, and organization-level recruitment outcomes, predicting that low-involvement recruitment practices, high-involvement recruitment practices, corporate advertising, and firm reputation would positively affect the quantity and quality of organizations’ applicant pools. We also predicted that corporate advertising and firm reputation would moderate the effects of the two recruitment strategies. Data for 99 organizations collected from multiple sources provided some evidence that early recruitment practices, corporate advertising, and firm reputation each had direct effects on applicant pool quantity and quality. More importantly, we found that low-involvement recruitment practices were …

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…"

Student, Staff, And Employer Incentives For Improved Student Achievement And Work Readiness, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

“This article proposes a strategy for banishing mediocrity and building in its place an excellent American system of secondary education. Before a cure can be prescribed, however, a diagnosis must be made.”

Making Vocational Education More Effective For At-Risk Youth, John H. Bishop

John H Bishop

"Occupationally specific vocational training pays off for disadvantaged students, but only if graduates work in the jobs they were trained for. Implication: Vocational educators must help make sure that the skills they teach are used."

Ensuring A Decent Global Workplace: Labor Rights Belong In Trade Agreements, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] Linking workers' rights to international trade is an idea whose time has come and stayed, despite the best efforts of free trade ideologues to chase it away. In looming congressional debates about "fast track" negotiating authority, the Bush administration and Congress confront powerful demands from workers, trade unionists and a wider public for rules protecting human rights and labor rights, not just corporate investments, in trade agreements.

An Assessment Of The Singapore Skills Development System: Does It Constitute A Viable Model For Other Developing Nations?, Sarosh Kuruvilla, Christopher L. Erickson, Alvin Hwang

Sarosh Kuruvilla

In this paper, we briefly describe the institutional background to Singapore’s successful national skills development model. We devise a tentative framework to evaluate national level skills development efforts, and we use it to assess the Singapore model. We argue that the model has the potential to constantly move towards higher skills equilibria, and in those terms, it is successful. However, we question the long-term sustainability of the model, and whether it is transferable to other developing nations. We outline several useful principles that other nations might use in organizing their own skills development systems.

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…"

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, …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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, …