Current Issue:  October 2009 (Vol. 63, No. 1)

Articles

Still a Coordinated Model? Market Liberalization and the Transformation of Employment Relations in the German Telecommunications Industry. By Virginia Doellgast. Vol. 63, No. 1 (October 2009), pp. 3-23.

Abstract: This paper examines recent changes in collective bargaining and employer strategies in the German telecommunications industry following market liberalization in the late 1990s. Germany's distinctive co-determination and vocational training institutions encouraged large firms to adopt employment systems in technician and call center workplaces that relied on high levels of worker skill and discretion. However, organizational restructuring is undermining these gains, as firms use outsourcing and the creation of subsidiaries to escape or renegotiate company-level collective agreements.  These trends have substantially weakened unions and contributed to the further disorganization of coordinated bargaining structures. Findings are based on interviews with union and works council representatives, managers, and employees at Deutsche Telekom and its major competitors conducted between 2003 and 2007, as well as secondary analysis of company documents and industry reports.

Strategic Choices in Pluralist and Unitarist Employment Relations Regimes: A Study of Australian Telecommunications. By Peter Ross and Greg J. Bamber. Vol. 63, No. 1 (October 2009), pp. 24-41.

Abstract: Using interview data collected between 1992 and 2009, the authors explore how deregulation of the Australian telecommunications sector and re-regulation of the labor market affected employment relations (ER) strategies at Telstra, Australia’s for­mer telecommunications monopoly. Labor market re-regulation reversed much of the previous institutional support for union activity, and unions struggled to adjust to this changed institutional context. Telstra’s ER strategies included large-scale downsizing and outsourcing. It moved dramatically toward unitarist (anti-union) ER approaches, with a shift away from collective bargaining toward individual employment contracts. This history raises a more general question of the extent to which employers make strategic ER choices autonomously and the extent to which such choices reflect the influence of the national institutional context. The authors conclude that while the changing institutional context—in this case, primarily government regulation—facili­tated Telstra’s strategic choices, management ideology was an important intervening variable in determining such choices.

Is Digital Technology Reshaping Employment Systems in U.S. Telecommunications Network Services? By Jeffrey H. Keefe. Vol. 63, No. 1 (October 2009), pp. 42–59. 

Abstract: The four major telecommunications local networks and network services—fixed wire line, wireless, cable television, and the Internet—are undergoing transformations propelled by network digitalization, service competition, and corporate consolidations. Using data from surveys conducted in 1998 and 2003, together with field interviews, site visits at major telecommunications firms, and discussions with industry experts, regulators, and analysts, the author examines how these forces reshaped technician employment systems across these formerly specialized telecommunications networks and services. The principal finding is that despite rising inter-network competition and common digital technologies, most of these networks’ fundamental employment systems continued with little change. Consistent with predictions from an evolution­ary perspective on institutional change, the three facilities-based networks—wireless, cable television distribution, and wire line—maintained distinctive employment systems “imprinted” by their respective institutional histories, while the Internet Service Provid­ers exhibited fragmentation reflecting their meteoric rise and the industry’s current business difficulties and uncertain future.

Joint Responsibility Unionism: A Multi-Plant Model of Collective Bargaining under Employment Security. By Richard Block and Peter Berg. Vol. 63, No. 1 (October 2009), pp. 60–81.

Abstract: The authors develop a general model of local-level bargaining in the multi-plant firm. According to this model, when the parent firm has the ability to allocate produc­tion differentially across plants, the local union may be motivated to work with local management to reduce production costs and increase profitability, in order to increase plant employment or minimize reductions in plant employment. A case study using data from General Motors’ Lansing Grand River Assembly (LGRA) and United Auto Workers Local 652, collected in part from interviews conducted in 2003–2008, shows how the parties established a joint responsibility system of collective bargaining that encouraged the union to reduce production costs and increase profitability by accept­ing responsibilities traditionally borne by management. The authors also demonstrate that General Motors, consistent with budget, capacity, and political constraints, invested in LGRA and assigned new product to LGRA, thus supporting the hypothesized incen­tive structure.

The Exceptional Decline of the American Labor Movement. By John Godard. Vol. 63, No. 1 (October 2009), pp. 82–108.

Abstract: This paper adopts a historical/new institutionalist perspective to explain why the decline of the American labor movement has been exceptional in comparison to other labor movements, and especially its Canadian counterpart. Under this perspective, national founding conditions and traditions become embedded in institutional norms that shape national institutional environments and trajectories, substantially constraining labor movements and hence accounting for their development and future. The author argues that the founding conditions of the United States gave rise to “mobilization biases”—biases affecting the various parties’ relative ability to mobilize resources, and thus ultimately privileging some interests over others—that explain both why the labor movement developed as it did and why it has declined. He concludes that, in view of these biases and the norms underpinning them, the American labor movement’s future (unlike the future of its European counterparts) lies in perpetual struggle rather than the pursuit of a long-term accord.

Unions and the Adoption of High Performance Work Systems: Does Employment Security Play a Role?  By Wenchuan Liu, James P. Guthrie, Patrick C. Flood, and Sarah MacCurtain. Vol. 63, No. 1 (October 2009), pp. 109-127.

Abstract: Previous research on the association between unionization and the adoption of high performance work systems (HPWSs) has yielded inconsistent results. Using data from a 2004 multi-industry survey of firms operating in the Republic of Ireland, the authors examine the relationship between employee union membership rates and relative use of HPWSs. They also test arguments that employment security may affect the receptiveness of unions to such HR practices. The results indicate that as union representation increased, there was a significant decrease in the use of high performance work systems. Evidence also suggests that providing employment security significantly ameliorated this negative impact.

Faculty Salaries in Ontario: Compression, Inversion, and the Effects of Alternative Forms of Representation By Felice Martinello. Vol. 63, No. 1 (October 2009), pp. 128-145.

Abstract: The author estimates the incidence of salary compression and inversion, and the effects of different forms of collective representation (unions and special plans, with and without binding arbitration), for faculty at Ontario universities over the 1970–2004 period. The data show large decreases in the salary differential between full and associ­ate professors and severe compression and inversion in age-salary profiles in the 2000s. Union representation had no effect on salaries compared to no formal representation. Special plans without binding arbitration led to lower salaries, while special plans with binding arbitration yielded higher salaries, but all of the estimated effects were small. Average salaries were lower the higher the proportion of female faculty in the 1970s, but this effect became statistically insignificant by the early 1990s. Finally, faculty salaries responded to the cost of living in the university’s city, and were higher, on average, in universities with higher average research productivity.

Single Women's Labor Supply Elasticities: Trends and Policy Implications. By Kelly Bishop, Bradley Heim, and Kata Mihaly. Vol. 63, No. 1 (October 2009), pp. 146-168.

Abstract: This paper uses CPS data to examine changes in single women’s labor supply elas­ticities in recent decades. Specifically, the authors investigate trends in how single women’s hours of work and labor force participation rates responded to both wages and income over the years 1979–2003. Results from the base specification suggest that over the observation period, hours wage elasticities decreased by 82%, participation wage elasticities by 36%, and participation income elasticities by 57%. These results imply that changes in tax policy had a much larger effect on the labor supply and labor force participation behavior of women in this subpopulation in the early 1980s than in recent years.

Book Reviews

What Do Unions Do? A Twenty-Year Perspective. Edited by James T. Bennett and Bruce Kaufman. Reviewed by Alex Colvin. pp. 169–170.

Frankfurt School Perspectives on Globalization, Democracy, and the Law. By William E. Scheuerman. Reviewed by Jerome Braun. pp. 170-172.

The Changing Face of Medicine: Women Doctors and the Evolution of Health Care in America. By Ann K. Boulis and Jerry A. Jacobs. Reviewed by Forrest Briscoe. pp. 172-173.

The Race between Education and Technology. By Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz. Reviewed by Michael Rizzo. pp. 174-176.

Gender, Work, and Wages in Industrial Revolution Britain. By Joyce Burnette. Reviewed by Deborah Oxley. pp. 176-178.

Last updated 9/25/09