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President Reagan's appointees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) have issued many controversial decisions. This has caused a debate between liberals viewing the Reagan NLRB as anti-union and conservatives viewing the recent NLRB decisions as a return to proven and appropriate policies. This paper investigates Reagan NLRB decisions over the years 1982-1986 so as to shed some light on the facts underlying the debate. The analysis reveals that the Reagan NLRB decisions have been either favorable to employers or unfavorable to unions. The NLRB's decisions undoubtedly contribute to the organizing difficulties faced by unions.

Arising naturally in the study of one-dimensional pulse propagation in homogeneous dispersive and/or dissipative media are certain classes of oscillatory and/or diffusion integrals which encompass the canonical diffraction catastrophe integrals due originally to Thorn and Arnold. This is especially evident within the framework of a phase-space asymptotic analysis. Depending on the order of approximation of the exact solution beyond the Liouville or "first-order quasiparticle" limit, one recognizes caustic-like structures smoothed over by hyperdiffusion. Asymptotic series for these structures, which essentially define new basic functions, have been derived, but will not be presented here. Only the salient features of these structures will be reviewed briefly, and they will be illustrated by means of several simple canonical problems. Also, their applicability to other physical areas (e.g., wave propagation in deterministically and/or randomly varying channels, diffraction, etc.) will be pointed out.

This study uses a laboratory experiment to examine empirically the effect of the mandatory permissive distinction on the negotiation of wages, employment guarantees, and advertising expenditures. Results suggest that negotiators spend more time bargaining over a smaller settlement range when an issue is mandatory than when it is permissive. Further, tentative findings provide no evidence that negotiators can circumvent the distinction through the use of tradeoffs across issues or bargaining power.

Surface immunoglobulin D (SIgD) and receptors for C3b (CR1) were demonstrated to be closely associated at the surface of mouse spleen lymphocytes. When SIgD was modulated by incubation at 37 degrees C with heteroantisera (rabbit) or monoclonal alloantibodies specific for delta-chains, the number of splenocytes capable of forming rosettes with EAC1-3b decreased by about 40%, whereas a smaller effect (13%) could be observed when EAC1-3d (indicators for CR2) were used. Antibodies to surface IgM were not inhibitory, ruling out the possibility of nonspecific inhibition of the C receptor sites by antigen-antibody complexes formed at the cell surface. In addition, co-capping of IgD and cR1 was observed on 65% of the cells expressing both markers. In these experiments IgM was shown to redistribute independently from both CR1 and CR2. CR2 and IgD also capped independently. Taken together with the observations that IgD and CR are ontogenetically related and that they have in common certain biologic properties (such as sensitivity to proteolytic enzymes and rate of turnover), these data suggest a functional relationship between the 2 surface receptors. A possible role in the mechanism of B lymphocyte triggering is discussed.

Monochromatic plane-wave illumination of a randomly stratified, laterally homogeneous sediment layer is considered. The deposition process creating the stochastic layering is assumed to be a continuous parameter, finite state Markov chain. A Riccati equation for the plane-wave reflection coefficient is formulated and first-order partial differential equations for relevant probability density functions are subsequently obtained. These equations are solved numerically for a two-material turbidite model similar to the one considered by Gilbert [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 68, 1454-1458 (1980)]. Statistical moments of the reflection coefficient are computed at 25 and 250 Hz as a function of overall sediment thickness. These equations are also used to derive the nonrandom or "smooth" geoacoustic model that is appropriate in the low-frequency limit. United States. Office of Naval Research - Contract No. N00014-76-C-0056P00004

A phase-space asymptotic approach to wave propagation in homogeneous dispersive media is discussed which has several advantages by comparison to conventional techniques, such as the stationary phase method, ordinary ray tracing, etc. This approach, which is based on the wave-kinetic theory, 7/8 is used to examine in detail three types of one-dimensional canonic dispersive media: cubic, quintic and sinusoidal. The analysis is also carried out using standard Fourier techniques for comparison purposes. Lastly, a link is made between the wave-kinetic method and integrals appearing in catastrophe theory. 10/11 M.S.

Surface immunoglobulin D (SIgD) and receptors for C3b (CR1) were demonstrated to be closely associated at the surface of mouse spleen lymphocytes. When SIgD was modulated by incubation at 37 degrees C with heteroantisera (rabbit) or monoclonal alloantibodies specific for delta-chains, the number of splenocytes capable of forming rosettes with EAC1-3b decreased by about 40%, whereas a smaller effect (13%) could be observed when EAC1-3d (indicators for CR2) were used. Antibodies to surface IgM were not inhibitory, ruling out the possibility of nonspecific inhibition of the C receptor sites by antigen-antibody complexes formed at the cell surface. In addition, co-capping of IgD and cR1 was observed on 65% of the cells expressing both markers. In these experiments IgM was shown to redistribute independently from both CR1 and CR2. CR2 and IgD also capped independently. Taken together with the observations that IgD and CR are ontogenetically related and that they have in common certain biologic properties (such as sensitivity to proteolytic enzymes and rate of turnover), these data suggest a functional relationship between the 2 surface receptors. A possible role in the mechanism of B lymphocyte triggering is discussed.

A novel statistical technique introduced by Besieris is used to study solutions of the nonlinear stochastic complex parabolic equation in the presence of two profiles. Specifically, the randomly modulated linear potential and the randomly perturbed quadratic focusing medium. In the former, a class of solutions is shown to admit an exact statistical description in terms of the moments of the wave function. In the latter, all even-order moments are computed exactly, whereas the odd-order moments are solved asymptotically. Lastly, it is shown that this statistical technique is isomorphic to mappings of nonconstant coefficient partial differential equations to constant coefficient equations. A generalization of this mapping and its inherent restrictions are discussed. Ph. D. incomplete_metadata

A survey of fifty years of research on the Wagner and Taft-Hartley Acts reveals that researchers' conclusions about the NLRA and its enforcement have generally depended upon their perceptions of the law's purpose; most researchers do not seem to consult relevant research outside their own disciplines; and some important aspects of the NLRA have received little attention. The authors recommend, among other things, that future studies focus on the law's impact on workers, unions, and employers, rather than on the congressional intent behind the NLRA.

This paper reports estimates of union membership gathered from May Current Population Surveys, from 1973 to 1981. The authors present data by occupation, industry, selected states and SMSAs, race, gender, and educational attainment. The paper both extends and differs from that by Freeman and Medoff, which presents unionism estimates for the private sector for 1968–75. To facilitate longitudinal analysis, this paper reports three-year moving averages of occupational and industry data and annual estimates of demographic classifications. The data include public sector as well as private sector workers, and they exclude workers not covered by the National Labor Relations Act. Also, the authors provide only union-membership estimates, not estimates on workers covered by union contracts. This paper suggests that the percentage of all workers that are unionized in the United States remained fairly constant over the 1973–81 period.

This paper focuses on the legal status of employee-participation programs, such as quality circles, that coexist with but are not controlled by unions — a situation occurring in U.S. industry with considerable frequency despite the objections of some union leaders. Although no cases have yet been heard on this precise question, the author relies upon an analysis of leading cases interpreting the scope of the exclusivity doctrine and the definition of labor organization, as well as the legislative histories of the National Labor Relations Act and the Labor Management Relations Act, to interpret the legal status of these programs. She concludes that if a union filed a 8(a)(5) charge against a unionized firm that is dealing with its employees in a nonunion forum, this charge would probably be upheld; moreover, as a remedy, the participation structure would probably be dissolved. She then suggests changes in public policy to protect participation programs that do not threaten the bargaining agent.

The authors use union contract and laboratory experiment data to assess whether the distinction between mandatory and permissive bargaining subjects affects collective bargaining outcomes. In general, the findings suggest that the distinction has an impact. The contract analysis suggests that bargaining differs across contracts that include permissive items and contracts that exclude permissive items. Further, an analysis of the potential impact of the distinction in a controlled setting indicates that unions negotiate less favorable nonwage bargaining outcomes when an issue's legal status is permissive or unknown than when it is mandatory.

This paper argues that the mandatory-permissive distinction in the scope of the duty to bargain collectively should be abandoned in favor of a policy of classifying all lawful subjects as mandatory. The author shows that in recent applications of the distinction by the NLRB and the courts, many subjects of interest to labor have been declared within the exclusive control of management. She argues that the rationales used by the Board and the courts in these decisions are not compelling, and the mandatory-permissive distinction is even less convincing when its current application is compared to the criteria of an ideal scope of bargaining.