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Full-Text Articles in Labor Relations

Managing Union Management, Ken Margolies Sep 2012

Managing Union Management, Ken Margolies

Ken Margolies

[Excerpt] Management is a function, as well as a class of people. In this article, network member Ken Margolies discusses the management function within unions. It’s a subject he knows pretty well, having written a thesis about it. However, despite some great work by Ken and others, we are still a long way from a union theory of management. We know that command-and-control leads to endless problems, but we are still scratching our heads over what to do instead. Perhaps one place we could start is within our own organisations – labor unions. It seems unlikely that we can meet …


Absenteeism And The Overtime Decision, Ronald G. Ehrenberg Jul 2012

Absenteeism And The Overtime Decision, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] Upon reading the congressional hearing on the Overtime Pay Penalty Act of 1964, one cannot fail to be impressed by the emphasis that management places on absenteeism as a primary cause of overtime. The argument given is basically quite simple: Large firms, it is claimed, attempt to account for absenteeism by hiring standby workers; however because of the stochastic nature of the absentee rate, it is impossible for them to have replacements always available. Hence overtime must be worked by existing employees in order to meet production schedules. One concludes from this argument that the randomness of absenteeism is …


Flexibility And Fairness In Liberal Market Economies: The Comparative Impact Of The Legal Environment And High Performance Work Systems, Alexander Colvin Jun 2012

Flexibility And Fairness In Liberal Market Economies: The Comparative Impact Of The Legal Environment And High Performance Work Systems, Alexander Colvin

Alexander Colvin

This paper compares management flexibility in employment decision-making in the United States and Canada through a cross-national survey of organizations in representative jurisdictions in each country, Pennsylvania and Ontario respectively, that investigates the impact of differences in their legal environments. The results indicate that, compared to their Ontario counterparts, organizations in Pennsylvania have a higher degree of flexibility in employment outcomes, such as higher dismissal and discipline rates, yet do not experience any greater flexibility or simplicity in management hiring and firing decisions. One explanation for this result may lie in the finding that organizations in Pennsylvania experience greater legal …


[Review Of The Book Labour History And The Labour Movement In Britain], George R. Boyer Jan 2012

[Review Of The Book Labour History And The Labour Movement In Britain], George R. Boyer

George R. Boyer

[Excerpt] While this volume contains some important pieces, it is uneven in quality, and several of the papers, in my opinion, should have been omitted. Given the very high price of the book, the fact that it omits Pollard's important papers on factory discipline and his chapter from the Cambridge Economic History of Europe, and the ready availability in journals of the best papers, I cannot recommend it to anyone but librarians who happen to have unlimited sources of money. One can only hope that in the future Ashgate or another publisher will reprint, at reasonable prices, Sidney Pollard's excellent …