Labor Relations Commons^™

Tackling Under-Declared Employment In The European Union: Input Paper To Thematic Discussion Of European Platform Tackling Undeclared Work, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Evaluating Policy Approaches Towards Undeclared Work: Some Lessons From Fyr Of Macedonia, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Workplace Dignity In A Total Institution: Examining The Experiences Of Foxconn’S Migrant Workforce, Kristen Lucas, Dongjing Kang, Zhou Li

Kristen Lucas

In 2010, a cluster of suicides at the electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn Technology Group sparked worldwide outcry about working conditions at its factories in China. Within a few short months, 14 young migrant workers jumped to their deaths from buildings on the Foxconn campus, an all-encompassing compound where they had worked, eaten, and slept. Even though the language of workplace dignity was invoked in official responses from Foxconn and its business partner Apple, neither of these parties directly examined workers’ dignity in their ensuing audits. Based on our analysis of media accounts of life at Foxconn, we argue that its …

Between Support And Shame: The Impacts Of Workplace Violations For Immigrant Families, Shannon Gleeson

Shannon Gleeson

Purpose - This study examines the conditions that lead to workplace violations for low-wage immigrant workers, and how family life shapes their decision to speak up. I also highlight how both employer abuse and the claims making process can impact individuals and their families.

Methodology/approach - This research adopts a mixed-method approach that includes a survey of 453 low-wage workers seeking pro bono legal assistance and 115 follow-up interviews with claimants. I also conduct a five-year ethnography of both a monthly state workshop provided for injured workers and a pro bono legal aid clinic in a predominantly Latino agricultural community …

Workers, Families, And Immigration Policies, Shannon Gleeson

Shannon Gleeson

[Excerpt] Unauthorized immigration to the US has a long and varied history shaped by a number of shifts in immigration policy. Of the global immigrant stock, 10–15 % is estimated to be undocumented (20–30 million; International Organization for Migration 2008). Today, undocumented immigrants comprise roughly 40 % of the immigrant flow to the US. Although immigrants often come to this country as a result of complex factors that were initiated or supported by the US—including free trade agreements and wars that devastated immigrants’ home countries and their national economies—once they become unauthorized, they find themselves in extremely vulnerable positions. Besides …

Re-Conceptualizing The Economic Incorporation Of Immigrants: A Comparison Of The Mexican And Vietnamese, Shannon Gleeson

Shannon Gleeson

Using data from the 2000 5 per cent Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, this article advocates three shifts in our theoretical and empirical approaches to understanding immigrant economic incorporation. First, through a comparison of Mexican and Vietnamese immigrants, these findings highlight the importance of an immigrant population’s relationship to the state for economic outcomes, and cautions against analyses that aggregate the foreign-born population. Second, through a joint analysis of unemployment and poverty outcomes, these findings call for researchers to be specific about the varied aspects of ‘‘economic incorporation’’ and distinguish between factors that drive labor market access, and those that …

Narratives Of Deservingness And The Institutional Youth Of Immigrant Workers, Shannon Gleeson

Shannon Gleeson

This article speaks to the special issue’s goal of disrupting the deserving/undeserving immigrant narrative by critically examining eligibility criteria available under two arenas of relief for undocumented immigrants: 1) the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provides temporary deportation relief and work authorization for young adults who meet an educational requirement and other criteria, and 2) current and proposed pathways to legal status for those unauthorized immigrants who come forward to denounce workplace injustice, among other crimes. For each of these categories of “deserving migrants,” I illuminate the exclusionary nature each of these requirements, which pose challenges …

Helping The Growing Ranks Of Poor Immigrants Living In America’S Suburbs, Els De Graauw, Shannon Gleeson, Irene Bloemraad

Shannon Gleeson

Ask Americans to draw a mental map of who lives where, and they will likely say that immigrants and the poor live in large cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, while middle-class whites make their homes in the surrounding suburbs. But these mental maps are often inaccurate. Today, more poor people live in suburbs than in central cities, and more than half of all metropolitan-area immigrants reside in suburbs. Immigration, job growth, and residential choices are making our nation’s suburbs more economically and culturally diverse. How are suburban leaders responding to disadvantaged immigrants in their …

Leveraging Health Capital At The Workplace: An Examination Of Health Reporting Behavior Among Latino Immigrant Restaurant Workers In The United States, Shannon Gleeson

Shannon Gleeson

This article examines the choices made by a sample of Latino immigrant restaurant workers in regard to their health management, particularly in response to illness and injury. I draw on 33 interviews with kitchen staff employed in the mainstream restaurant industry in San Jose, California, and Houston, Texas, in 2006 and 2007. I argue that workers must consider complex power relationships at work in weighing the advantages of calling in sick, using protective equipment, seeking medical care, or filing a workers' compensation claim. These decisions implicate direct and opportunity costs, such as risk of job loss and missed opportunities for …

Context, Coalitions, And Organizing: Immigrant Labor Rights Advocacy In San Francisco And Houston, Shannon Gleeson, Els De Graauw

Shannon Gleeson

[Excerpt] In the pages that follow, we first situate immigrant labor rights struggles in scholarship on the “right to the city.” We then present San Francisco and Houston, focusing on their immigration histories, current demographic profiles, and contexts for advancing immigrant labor rights. We next describe the parallel types of organizations that have advocated for stronger wage and labor rights in San Francisco and Houston and the similar principles that have motivated them to advocate with local government. In discussing the wage and labor rights campaigns in each city, we draw out key differences in the policy changes that advocates …

A New Approach To Migrant Labor Rights Enforcement: The Crisis Of Undocumented Worker Abuse And Mexican Consular Advocacy In The United States, Xóchitl Bada, Shannon Gleeson

Shannon Gleeson

This paper examines the genesis and evolution of consular efforts to enforce the workplace rights of immigrant workers in the United States. We draw on a survey of 52 Mexican consulates in the United States, in-depth interviews with the initial cohort of 15 consular participants in the Semana de Derechos Laborales/Labor Rights Week, and several key informants who helped coordinate these efforts in the community. Our findings confirm a shift from “limited” to “active” engagement over the last decade on the part of the Mexican government (Délano 2011), placing special emphasis on the role played by non-governmental actors in producing …

'They Come Here To Work': An Evaluation Of The Economic Argument In Favor Of Immigrant Rights, Shannon Gleeson

Shannon Gleeson

Advocates commonly highlight the exploitation that hard-working undocumented immigrants commonly suffer at the hands of employers, the important contribution they make to the US economy, and the fiscal folly of border militarization and enhanced immigration enforcement policies. In this paper, I unpack these economic rationales for expanding immigrant rights, and examine the nuanced ways in which advocates deploy this frame. To do so, I rely on statements issued by publicly present immigrant rights groups in six places: California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Texas, and Washington, DC. I also draw on interviews with immigrant advocates in San Jose, CA and Houston, …

An Institutional Examination Of The Local Implementation Of The Daca Program, Els De Graauw, Shannon Gleeson

Shannon Gleeson

In June 2012, President Barack Obama created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to offer qualified young undocumented immigrants a two-year renewable stay of deportation and the ability to apply for a work permit. DACA is a federal administrative directive, not a congressional law, and unlike the last major legalization program in 1986, no federal resources have been allocated for its implementation. The case of DACA thus raises questions about how new rights granted by executive prosecutorial discretion are actually implemented in local communities and how they are experienced by the intended beneficiaries in different localities. More specifically, …

International Migration In Macro-Perspective: Bringing Power Back In, Marcel Paret, Shannon Gleeson

Shannon Gleeson

This paper challenges the inward looking perspective of recent immigration research by situating migration to the United States within a global and historical context. This macro-stratification perspective breaks out of the confines of national contexts to explore how international migration is shaped by global power divides. We argue that in order to fully understand international migration, it is necessary to account for both the emergence of global power structures and the historical domination of Europe. We develop our argument by first outlining the significance of global power divides, with a particular focus on the United States. We then demonstrate how …

Academic Librarians And Labor Unions: Attitudes And Experiences, Ian Mccullough

Ian McCullough

Tackling Undeclared Work In Croatia: Knowledge-Informed Policy Responses, Colin C. Williams, Peter Rodgers, Ruslan Stefanov

Colin C Williams

KEY POINTS

Organizational Performance In Services, Rosemary Batt, Virginia Doellgast

Virginia Doellgast

The question of performance in service activities and occupations is important for several reasons. First, over two-thirds of employment in advanced economies is in service activities. Second, productivity growth in services is historically low, lagging far behind manufacturing, and as a result, wages in production-level service jobs remain low. In addition, labor costs in service activities are often over 50% of total costs, whereas in manufacturing they have fallen to less than 25% of costs. This raises the question of whether management practices that have improved performance in manufacturing, such as investment in the skills and training of the workforce, …

Metatheory And Friendly Competition In Theory Growth: The Case Of Power Processes In Bargaining, Edward J. Lawler, Rebecca Ford

Edward J Lawler

[Excerpt] This paper analyzes the theoretical development taking place in a program of research on power processes in bargaining (see Bacharach and Lawler 1976, 1980, 1981a, 1981b; Lawler and Bacharach 1976, 1979, 1987; Lawler, Ford, and Blegen 1988; Lawler and Yoon 1990; Lawler 1986, 1992). The theoretical program takes as its starting point a situation where individuals, groups, organizations, or even societies with conflicting interests voluntarily enter into explicit bargaining. Explicit (as opposed to tacit) bargaining assumes the mutual acknowledgment of negotiations, conflicting issues along which compromise is possible, and open lines of communication through which parties can exchange offers …

Power Dependence And Power Paradoxes In Bargaining, Samuel B. Bacharach, Edward J. Lawler

Edward J Lawler

[Excerpt] What this article (and our larger program of work) is designed to demonstrate is that these very simple ideas represent a particularly suitable starting point for understanding the power struggle between parties who regularly engage in negotiation. Specifically, in this article we show that the approach contains certain paradoxes regarding the acquisition and use of power in an ongoing bargaining relationship. The dependence framework treats the ongoing relationship as a power struggle in which each party tries to maneuver itself into a favorable power position.

Introduction To A Special Issue On Inequality In The Workplace (“What Works?), Pamela S. Tolbert, Emilio J. Castilla

Pamela S Tolbert

[Excerpt] While overt expressions of racial and gender bias in U.S. workplaces have declined markedly since the passage of the original Civil Rights Act and the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission a half century ago (Eagly and Chaiken 1993; Schuman, Steeh, Bobo, and Krysan 1997; Dobbin 2009), a steady stream of research indicates that powerful, if more covert forms of bias persist in contemporary workplaces (Greenwald and Banaji 1995; Pager, Western, and Bonikowski 2009; England 2010; Heilman 2012). In line with this research, high rates of individual and class-based lawsuits alleging racial and gender discrimination suggest that many …

Is U.S. Public Sector Labor Relations In The Midst Of A Transformation?, Harry C. Katz

Harry C Katz

In this article the author assesses whether a fundamental transformation is underway in public sector (state and local government) labor relations in the United States by revisiting the arguments made by the author and Kochan and McKersie (1986) regarding the transformation of labor relations in the private sector. The author argues that the economic pressures that led to a transformation of private sector labor relations starting in the 1980s have not played a comparable role in recent developments in the public sector because of the political nature of labor relations in that sector. Other insights are drawn from a comparison …

Power Processes In Bargaining, Edward J. Lawler

Edward J Lawler

This is a theoretical article that integrates and extends a particular program of work on power in bargaining relationships. Power is conceptualized as a structurally based capability, and power use as tactical action falling within either conciliatory or hostile categories. The core propositions are (1) the greater the total amount of power in a relationship, the greater the use of conciliatory tactics and the lower the use of hostile tactics; and (2) an unequal power relationship fosters more use of hostile tactics and less use of conciliatory tactics than an equal power relationship. Distinct research on power dependence and bilateral …

Time Pressure And The Development Of Integrative Agreements In Bilateral Negotiations, Peter J. D. Carnevale, Edward J. Lawler

Edward J Lawler

A laboratory experiment examined the effects of time pressure on the process and outcome of integrative bargaining. Time pressure was operationalized in terms of the amount of time available to negotiate. As hypothesized, high time pressure produced nonagreements and poor negotiation outcomes only when negotiators adopted an individualistic orientation; when negotiators adopted a cooperative orientation, they achieved high outcomes regardless of time pressure. In combination with an individualistic orientation, time pressure produced greater competitiveness, firm negotiator aspirations, and reduced information exchange. In combination with a cooperative orientation, time pressure produced greater cooperativeness and lower negotiator aspirations. The main findings were …

Structural Power And Emotional Processes In Negotiation: A Social Exchange Approach, Edward J. Lawler, Jeongkoo Yoon

Edward J Lawler

This chapter focuses in the abstract on when and how repeated negotiations between the same actors foster positive feelings or emotions and, in turn, an affective commitment to their relationship. However, we have in mind applications to pivotal dyads within organizations and also to the emergence of "friction” or "stickiness” in market relations. Implicit in the idea that negotiations in pivotal dyads shape institutional patterns is the notion that repeated negotiations between the same two actors are likely to become more than instrumental ways for the particular actors to get work done. We suggest a simple process by which dyadic …

Resolving Conflict Through Explicit Bargaining, Elizabeth Heger Boyle, Edward J. Lawler

Edward J Lawler

This article analyzes the impact of conciliatory initiatives on conflict resolution in two-party bargaining. It specifically develops and tests a theory of unilateral initiatives derived from Osgood's (1962) notion of Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension Reduction (GRIT). The major propositions of the theory indicate that, given a pattern of mutual resistance or hostility, unilateral initiatives and tit-for-tat retaliation in response to punitive action will produce more conciliation and less hostility by an opponent. To test the theory, a bargaining setting was created in a laboratory experiment in which parties exchanged offers and counteroffers on an issue across a number …

Bargaining Toughness: A Qualification Of Level-Of-Aspiration And Reciprocity Hypotheses, Edward J. Lawler, Bruce K. Macmurray

Edward J Lawler

This research examined the interaction of initial bargaining stance and later concession strategy in dyadic bargaining. Experimental procedures pitted subjects against a programmed opponent and manipulated three variables: initial stance of the opponent across the first two bargaining rounds (tough vs. soft), deadlock vs. no deadlock, and subsequent concession strategy (tough, matching, soft). The results revealed that: (a) with a tough initial stance, a matching strategy produced greater yielding than tough or soft strategies; while in the context of a soft initial stance, a tough concession strategy produced more yielding than a matching or soft concession strategy; and (b) a …

Comparison Of Dependence And Punitive Forms Of Power, Edward J. Lawler, Samuel B. Bacharach

Edward J Lawler

This paper deals with the impact of power on tactical action in conflict. The theory and research is organized around two conceptual distinctions: one between power based on dependence versus punitive capability, and the other between relative power (i.e., power difference) and "total power" in a relationship (i.e., across actors). The paper will argue that these distinctions are important on both theoretical and empirical grounds. Theoretically, they are important to explicate the connection between conceptions of power that stress the coercive foundation of power (Bierstedt 1950; Tedeschi, Schlenker & Bonoma 1973) and those that treat power as dependence (Bacharach & …

Data Improvement And Labor Economics, Kevin F. Hallock

Kevin F Hallock

The expansion of available data for research has transformed empirical labor economics over the past generation. This paper briefly highlights some of the changes and describes a few examples of papers that illustrate the advances. It also documents the changing ways data have been used in the Journal of Labor Economics over the past 30 years, including a trend toward a higher fraction of papers using any data and, among those papers using any data, a higher fraction using nonpublic data, a higher fraction using international data, and more frequent use of multiple data sources. Finally, this paper describes work …

Estimating Pay Gaps For Workers With Disabilities: Implications From Broadening Definitions And Data Sets, Kevin F. Hallock, Xin Jin, Linda Barrington

Kevin F Hallock

Purpose: To compare pay gap estimates across 3 different national survey data sets for people with disabilities relative to those without disabilities when pay is measured as wage and salary alone versus a (total compensation) definition that includes an estimate of the value of benefits.

Method: Estimates of the cost to the employers of employee benefits at the occupational level from an employer survey data set are matched to individual-level data in each of the 3 data sets. Multiple regression techniques are applied to estimate wage and salary and total compensation gaps between full-time men with and without …

A Discussion Of Social Protection And Private Insurance, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] This is a thoughtful and thought-provoking paper, informative and interesting. I learned a lot from reading this and have already passed it on to others. In my comments, I would like to do four things: highlight the major points and the rationale for them, raise a few quibbles, put forth some additional issues, and propose a possible resolution of a dilemma raised in the paper. But let us first try to be clear about what we are talking about. Professor Pestieau characterizes social insurance as being mandatory, universal, and redistributive. I would define it slightly differently: “Social insurance is …