Labor Relations Commons^™

Unions’ Impact On Firms’ Financial Decision Making: A Look At Right-To-Work Laws And Their Impact On Firms’ Leverage Decisions, Rachana Muvvala

CMC Senior Theses

I study the impact of unions on firms’ financial decision making by exploring their capital structure, specifically leverage. I test two opposing hypotheses to understand the relationship between unions and firms’ leverage: (1) the bargaining hypothesis which suggests that firms use higher leverage as a bargaining device with unions, and (2) the crowding-out hypothesis which suggests that firms have lower leverage because unions crowd out their debt capacity due to their perceived riskiness. Focusing on the 2007 to 2022 period, I examine right-to-work (RTW) laws, since they are exogenous shocks that decrease union power in five different states. Then, I …

Janus V. Afscme, Revisited, Benjamin Derek Morse

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the days after the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Janus v. AFSCME (2018)—a 5-4 conservative majority decision deeming the imposition of public union agency fees unconstitutional under the First Amendment—observers declared the end of public-sector unions. The Times called the ruling a “Sharp Blow ''[1] to organized labor. A Washington Post headline deemed the decision a “major blow”[1] [2] In the former piece, the Time’s Supreme Court correspondent wrote that “most of the labor movement’s strength these days is in the public sector. The [Janus] ruling contained a final blow for public …

“The New Pinkertons”: Anti-Union Consultants And Surveillance Tech Thwart Organizing, Jo Constantz

Capstones

In 2020, just 6.3% of U.S. private-sector workers were union members, despite the fact that 68% of Americans approve of labor unions, the highest since 1965, and nearly half of non-union workers say they would join.

After World War II, wage growth kept pace with GDP growth, but then began to diverge in the 1970s, according to a study by the RAND Corporation. After 1975, incomes of the bottom 90% rose more slowly than the economy as a whole, while incomes of the top 10% grew faster. The declining wage growth coincided with and is closely related to a drop-off …

Invisible Hand Or Collective Command: Unionized Effect On State Wages, Michael Felix

Business and Economics Presentations

No abstract provided.

Toward Fair And Sustainable Capitalism: A Comprehensive Proposal To Help American Workers, Restore Fair Gainsharing Between Employees And Shareholders, And Increase American Competitiveness By Reorienting Our Corporate Governance System Toward Sustainable Long-Term Growth And Encouraging Investments In America’S Future, Leo E. Strine Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

To promote fair and sustainable capitalism and help business and labor work together to build an American economy that works for all, this paper presents a comprehensive proposal to reform the American corporate governance system by aligning the incentives of those who control large U.S. corporations with the interests of working Americans who must put their hard-earned savings in mutual funds in their 401(k) and 529 plans. The proposal would achieve this through a series of measured, coherent changes to current laws and regulations, including: requiring not just operating companies, but institutional investors, to give appropriate consideration to and make …

Runaway: A History Of Postwar New York In Four Factories, Andy Battle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At midcentury, New York City was among the preeminent manufacturing centers in the United States. Within a generation, this manufacturing economy suffered an extraordinary collapse. Beginning in the 1950s, workers and their unions began to use the term “runaway” to describe factories that pulled up stakes in New York and set them back down in other climes. This dissertation explores the deindustrialization of New York City through case studies of “runaway” plants, or factories that left New York for the American South or abroad between the years 1945 and 1975.

In general, the manufacturers that remained in New York at …

Bargaining For Adjuncts: An Assessment Of Adjunct Union Growth In The Saint Louis Region, Jameson Ramirez

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

Minimum-wage labor is no longer confined to sectors once associated with low-skill occupations. In college classrooms across the United States, we are witness to the rise of a “gig-economy” among faculty positions where highly skilled work is being completed by part-time workers known commonly as adjuncts. Despite performing highly-skilled work, adjuncts are compensated at the levels of low-skilled workers. Lack of access to benefits, capricious contract agreements, and a general sense of feeling dispensable are common themes to the adjunct experience. The aim of this paper is to address the concerns of adjuncts and suggest some workable solutions to their …

Unionization And The Development Of Policies For Non-Tenure Track Faculty: A Comparative Study Of Research Universities, Karen Halverson Cross

Karen Halverson Cross

This paper examines how policies at several research universities support and professionalize their full-time, non-tenure track (NTT) instructional faculty, and considers the influence of NTT faculty unions on policy development at these institutions. Faculty handbooks, collective bargaining agreements (CBAs), and other policy documents at a few institutions with and without CBAs were analyzed for the presence of institutional, NTT faculty-supportive policies. One unionized and one non-unionized institution were selected as sites for interviews with faculty and administrators. The paper finds CBAs to be a significant source of NTT faculty-supportive policies, and the union to provide important procedural safeguards against arbitrary …

Unionization And The Development Of Policies For Non-Tenure Track Faculty: A Comparative Study Of Research Universities, Karen Halverson Cross

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

This paper examines how policies at several research universities support and professionalize their full-time, non-tenure track (NTT) instructional faculty, and considers the influence of NTT faculty unions on policy development at these institutions. Faculty handbooks, collective bargaining agreements (CBAs), and other policy documents at a few institutions with and without CBAs were analyzed for the presence of institutional, NTT faculty-supportive policies. One unionized and one non-unionized institution were selected as sites for interviews with faculty and administrators. The paper finds CBAs to be a significant source of NTT faculty-supportive policies, and the union to provide important procedural safeguards against arbitrary …

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

Ian McCullough

Labor Unions And Occupational Safety: Event-Study Analysis Using Union Elections, Ling Li, Shawn Rohlin, Perry Singleton

Center for Policy Research

This study examines the dynamic relationship between union elections and occupational safety among manufacturing establishments. Data on union elections come from the National Labor Relations Board, and data on workplace inspections and accident case rates come from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The results indicate that union elections improved occupational safety. First, workplace inspections trended upwards before the election, then decreased immediately after the election, due almost entirely to employee complaints. Second, accident case rates were relatively stable before the election, then trended downwards after the election, due to accidents involving days away from work, job restrictions, and job …

Unions And The Labor Market For Managers, John Dinardo, Kevin F. Hallock, Jörn-Steffen Pischke

Kevin F Hallock

We examine the relationship between the employment and compensation of managers and CEOs and the presence of a unionized workforce. We develop a simple efficiency wage model, with a tradeoff between higher wages for workers and more monitoring, which requires more managers. The model also assumes rent sharing between workers, managers and the owners of the firm. Unions, by redistributing rents towards the workers, lead to lower employment and lower pay for managers. Using a variety of data sets, we examine the implications of the model for the relationship between the employment and wages of managers and unionization. We find …

The Impact Of Unions On Information Asymmetry, Caroline Burke

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Prior literature documents a positive association between union power, calculated using industry-level union data, and information asymmetry. Prior literature also finds a mitigating effect from employee ownership on the negative association between union power and voluntary disclosure. Using a sample of company observations for fiscal years 2008 through 2010, I examine the effect of company-specific measures of employee unionization on market-based measures of information asymmetry (proxied for by insider trading activity, analyst following, and analyst dispersion). I also examine whether employee ownership impacts the effect of company-specific measures of employee unionization on my market-based measures of information asymmetry. I find …

Panel Handout: Microaggressions And Implicit Bias On Campus - Microaggression Theory: A Selected Bibliography 2016, Barbara Diamond

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Panel Handout: Microaggressions And Implicit Bias On Campus - Implicit Bias: A Selected Biography 2016, Barbara Diamond

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Workshop: Microaggressionsand Implicit Bias On Campus - Microaggressions And Disability, Barbara Diamond

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Panel: Dual Credit And Enrollment Issues At Community Colleges - A Case Study: Erie Community College, Kristin Klein Wheaton

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Panel: Dual Credit And Enrollment Issues At Community Colleges, Alec Thomson

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Panel Handout: Best Practices In Arbitration Of Higher Education Issues, Rosemary Townley

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Panel Handout: Year In Higher Education, Jerry Cutler

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Panel Handout: Pensions And Health Insurance Savings For Contingent Faculty, William Shimer

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Panel Handout: Collective Bargaining Issues Concerning Post-Doctorates - Rutgers And Aaup Post-Doc Cba

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Panel Handout: Collective Bargaining Issues Concerning Post-Doctorates - The Postdoctoral Experience Revisited

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Panel: Collective Bargaining Issues Concerning Post-Doctorates - Breaking The Silence: The Unionization Of Post-Doctorate Workers At The University Of California, Sayil Camacho, Robert Rhoads

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Panel: Collective Bargaining Issues Concerning Post-Doctorates, Karen Rosenberg

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Panel: Collective Bargaining Issues Concerning Post-Doctorates, Sayil Camacho, Jerome Kukor, Amy Lee, Karen Rosenberg

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Annual Legal Update (2016), Aaron Nisenson

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Workshop: Best Practices In Labor-Management Committees In Higher Education, Sally Klingel

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Panel: Transforming The Collective Bargaining Process At Florida Gulf Coast University, Elizabeth Elliott

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Panel Handout: Discrimination And Harassment Issues In Higher Education, Jason Walta

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.