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Union Density (union + density)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	78%
Humanities and Social Sciences	21%

Selected Abstracts

Workplace Risk, Establishment Size and Union Density

BRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2004
Paul Fenn
The health and safety risk faced by individual employees can be treated as an unobservable latent variable which manifests itself at workplace level through reported counts of work-related injuries and illnesses over a given interval. This paper presents results from count data regressions using data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey. The findings strongly support the view that employees in larger establishments have a lower probability of being injured or falling ill. In addition, establishments with a higher proportion of unionized employees, and with health and safety committees, were associated with higher numbers of reported injuries and illnesses. [source]

Trade Union Decline and Union Wage Effects in Australia

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 4 2005
C. JEFFREY WADDOUPS
Union density in Australia fell precipitously in the 1990s. This study investigates how union wage effects may have changed as a result. The findings from 1993 data suggest that union/nonunion wage differentials were very small, especially among workers in high-density industries. By 2001 the overall union wage effect had increased significantly; however, the union/nonunion wage differential was no longer correlated with union density at the industry level. [source]

German Employers' Inputs to Employee Skills Development

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 2 2009
RICHARD CROUCHER
Using organizational level survey data, this article analyzes larger German private employers' inputs to employee skills development, to test the theory that unions and employers' associations raise employer incentives for training. Large German employers maintained their overall contribution between 1995 and 1999. Indicative data for 2004 suggest that this has continued, yet neither membership of employers' associations nor high union densities influenced it. [source]

Trade Union Decline and Union Wage Effects in Australia

Unionisation in the Dublin hotel industry

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Issue 3 2003
Annemarie Piso
Abstract The Dublin hotel industry experiences significantly higher levels of union density than is the case amongst hotel workers in the UK. This paper examines the context in which these different experiences of union density take place. It provides an examination of the historical roots of union organisation within Dublin hotels and explores the factors that have contributed to effective organisation within the industry today. It concludes by arguing that although the structural characteristics of employment in the UK can act as a barrier to union organisation, these can, in certain historical periods, be overcome where there is a shifting balance of power between workers and employers affecting both the hotel industry and society as a whole. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Trade Unions, Wage Bargaining Coordination, and Foreign Direct Investment

LABOUR, Issue 4 2008
Roxana Radulescu
Conventional wisdom is that a high trade union bargaining strength and a system of coordinated wage bargaining reduce the attractiveness of an economy as a location for foreign direct investment, although there is limited evidence for this. The paper takes panel data for 19 OECD economies to examine the relationship between trade union bargaining strength, bargaining coordi nation, and a range of incentives for inward foreign direct investment. It finds a strong negative effect of trade union density on inward foreign direct investment, which is dependent on the degree of wage bargaining coordination. A high degree of coordination weakens the deterrent effect of high union density, which is consistent with the notion that under certain circumstances a coordinated increase in wages can increase profits of the multinationals by hurting domestic firms. [source]

National Culture and Industrial Relations and Pay Structures

LABOUR, Issue 2 2001
Boyd Black
The paper develops an explanatory model of comparative industrial relations and labour market structures based on national culture. The four cultural variables derived by Hofstede (Culture's Consequences, Beverly Hills: Sage, 1984) are used to investigate the relationship between national culture and various dimensions of industrial relations and pay structures. The paper finds national culture to be associated with the centralization of bargaining, the extent of corporatism, the degree of co-ordination in bargaining, the coverage of collective bargaining, trade union density, the extent of worker participation in decision making, and most dimensions of the pay structure. Hofstede's MAS variable, measuring cultural values representing gender social structuring, is associated with both industrial relations institutions and the pay structure. The results provide support for our cultural model. [source]

From Militancy to Clientelism: Labor Union Strategies and Membership Trajectories in Contemporary Chile

LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 2 2010
Indira Palacios-Valladares
ABSTRACT For the past 30 years, Chilean unionism has been shrinking. Through a comparison of the membership trajectories of 26 unions in two firms between 1990 and 2004, this article explains why some unions defied this trend and how their success affected overall union density in their firms. It argues that the unions that experienced the most favorable membership outcomes were those that, at key junctures of firm restructuring, earliest or most aggressively established a partnership relationship with management. However, in a context of great labor weakness, these cases of union accommodation took the form of exclusive patron-client exchanges, which exacerbated collective action problems and further eroded union density. [source]

Decades of Disillusion: Reappraising the ALP-ACTU Accord 1983,1996

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND HISTORY, Issue 4 2007
Geoff Dow
In this article we review the Accord between the Australian Labor Party (ALP) and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), in order to address current uncertainty over the role of unions in politics, particularly in the face of both the Coalition Government's 2006 industrial relations legislation and the ALP's apparent repudiation of the country's longstanding institutional leverage over wages and non-wage policies. The Accord exemplified an explicitly corporatist union strategy and it initially attracted extensive and hostile commentary. However, discussion of the experiment, together with other tripartite approaches to policy formation, has waned in recent years, perhaps suggesting that it was a tactic whose time has passed. Reviewing some major criticisms, we argue that critics have dismissed the Accord too hastily. Although serious problems with the Accord process are acknowledged, the articulation of a broad program of social democratic initiatives is always likely to retain support on the political left. Despite changes in union density and workforce composition, the union movement still possesses capacity to mobilise community support and develop a principled program. [source]

Anarchism, Internationalism and Nationalism in Europe, 1860,1939

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND HISTORY, Issue 3 2004
Carl Levy
This article is part of a broader project on the social history or histories of anarchism. The standard accounts of anarchism (Nettlau, Joll, Woodcock, Marshall etc.) have been combinations of the histories of ideas and political/social movements. A larger project I am engaged in uses another methodology and is reliant upon the vast outpouring of published and unpublished academic writing on social history that has been produced since the 1960s. I will cover only several interconnected themes here: anarchism, internationalism and nationalism in Europe. This article will give a synoptic overview of the internationalism of the European anarchist and syndicalist movements during the "classical" period of anarchism (1860,1939). It focuses on the First and Second Internationals and the birth of the Third. It examines the ideology and culture of Internationalism, which was the nursery of the modern anarchist movement. The linkage between federalist and regionalist republicanism is stressed and the legacy of the Paris Commune of 1871 is highlighted. The desire to secure a global level playing field in labour markets promoted labour internationalism during the First International and a revival of this strategy by anarchists and syndicalists during the era of the Second International. The mismatch of industrial development and union density between industrialised Britain or Germany and artisanal and industrialising France and southern Europe limited internationalism in the 1860s and the 1900s. Equally the patriotic legacy of the Commune of Paris undermined the internationalism of anarchists and syndicalists when war broke out in 1914. In 1917,1918 anarchist and syndicalist internationalism seemed to be revived as Europe entered a period of revolutionary discontent. But very quickly the Bolsheviks and the Soviet Union channelled this wave into the Third International and ultimately the interests of the newly born Soviet State. Anarchist and syndicalist internationalism had little effect on the fortunes of the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War in a world of nation-states and state-centric political parties and movements. [source]

An Analysis of Workplace Representatives, Union Power and Democracy in Australia

BRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 4 2009
David Peetz
The purpose of this article is to illuminate the views and experiences of workplace representatives in Australia in the context of falling union density, and to analyse factors that are most strongly associated with subjective union power at the workplace level, as perceived by delegates. The analysis relies on a large random survey of workplace delegates in eight significant Australian unions. The article describes the situation broadly facing delegates as shown by the survey and analyses a set of factors associated with the power of workers as perceived by delegates. We find that higher levels of reported activism among delegates are strongly associated with greater subjective union power. We also find that self-reported delegate confidence is also strongly associated with perceptions of higher union power, as is delegate's clarity about their roles. The data also show a strong association between perceptions of democracy within the union and union power. Support for delegates from the union office and organizers is also associated with higher levels of union power at the local level. The analysis provides some support for union renewal strategies associated with the ,organizing model' as applied in Australia and some other Anglo-Saxon countries that aim to increase the activism of workplace delegates through education, the provision of support for workplace delegates and more democratic union structures. [source]

Path Dependency and Comparative Industrial Relations: The Case of Conflict Resolution Systems in Ireland and Sweden

BRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2009
Paul Teague
This article uses the theory of path dependency to explain the evolution of employment conflict resolution systems in Ireland and Sweden. It argues that the traditional ,voluntarist' conflict management path followed in Ireland has fragmented as a result of a series of internal developments that have reduced trade union density, increased the importance of employment law in the settlement of workplace disputes and established social partnership as the main wage-setting mechanism. By contrast, the Swedish system has experienced reform within the boundaries of the established conflict management path, which is largely attributable to the still powerful role played by trade unions within the country. Thus, while the operating rules of the system have changed, its core underlying principles , collectivism and self-regulation , remain intact. [source]

Transforming a Trade Union?

BRITISH JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 1 2009
An Assessment of the Introduction of an Organizing Initiative
In 1995 Unison implemented a National Recruitment Plan, and, in 1997, a National Organizing and Recruitment Strategy, with the objective of reversing the decline in union density in the public sector. This article traces the development of these initiatives and assesses their results. The article shows that there is limited involvement of lay representatives in the National Organizing and Recruitment Plan, but that there is a positive relationship between participation in union programmes intended to promote organizing and the performance of individual branches. [source]

High Involvement Work Systems and Job Insecurity in the International Iron and Steel Industry

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCES, Issue 1 2001
Nicolas Bacon
The different factors behind globalization and the emergence of high involvement work practices do not necessarily carry similar implications for labour. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of high involvement work systems upon workers in the steel industry. The authors present results from a series of cross-national sun>eys conducted in 1998 with 39 national trade unions from over 30 countries measuring issues such as job security, ownership changes, numerical flexibility, and union density. The findings are consistent with U.S. data reported by Osterman (1998) indicating that new work practices provide no defense against an environment of heightened Insecurity. Résumé Les différents facteurs qui encouragent la mondialisa-tion et le dévoloppement de nouvelles pratiques de travail, dites "high involvement" (travail en équipes, rotation des fonctions, plus grande autonomie des employés) n'entraînent pas nécessairement des consequences semblables pour la main d'oeuvre. Nous examinons dans cette étude les effets de ces pratiques "high involvement" sur les travailleurs métallurgiques. Les auteurs publient les résultas de sondages interna-tionaux effectués en 1998 auprès de 39 syndicats dans plus de 30 pays, permettant de mesurer la sécurité d'em-ploi, les changements de propriétaire, la flexibilité numérique et la concentration syndicate. Leurs résultats s'accordent avec des donnés provenant des E-U tels que dans Osterman (1988), et démontrent que ces nouvelles de travail ne sont pas une défense contre un environe-ment plus hostile que jamais. [source]