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"Many of the traditional regulations of the employment relationship no longer correspond to the real social and economic situation or to the labour market." [Marco Biagi, Italy, in Private Employment [...]

Byline: Patrick Flavin (1), Alexander C. Pacek (2), Benjamin Radcliff (1) Keywords: Labor union; Happiness; Life satisfaction; Democratic; Industrial Abstract: While a growing literature demonstrates the impact of socio-political factors on citizens' quality of life, scholars have paid comparatively little attention to the role political organizations such as labor unions play in this regard. We examine labor organization as a determinant of cross-national variation in life satisfaction across a sample of advanced industrial polities. Our findings strongly suggest that unions increase the life satisfaction of citizens, and that that this effect holds for non-union members as well. Moreover, we also find that labor organization has the strongest impact on the subjective well-being of citizens with lower incomes. We confirm these hypotheses using both individual and aggregate-level data from fourteen nations. We show these relationships to have an independent and separable impact from other economic, political, and cultural determinants. The implications for the study of life satisfaction and of labor unions as political actors in general are discussed. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame, 217 O'Shaughnessy Hall, Notre Dame, IN, 46556, USA (2) Department of Political Science, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA Article History: Registration Date: 12/11/2009 Accepted Date: 09/11/2009 Online Date: 12/12/2009 Article note: Authors' names are listed alphabetically to reflect their equal contribution to the research. Radcliff gratefully acknowledges the generous support provided by the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. The authors also thank Frederick Boehmke for making his 'grinter' program, a Stata utility for graphing the marginal effect of an interacted variable in regression models, publicly available on his website.

Research on union renewal often cites a critical role for lay activism. This study examines determinants of activism and activism intentions among a broadly representative sample of U.S. union members. Hypotheses are developed from theory and previous research on union commitment and participation. Results for current activism are generally consistent with prior work. Extending the model to future intentions to help with organizing, an interesting contrast is that pro-union attitude influences appear much more important than do union instrumentality perceptions. This suggests that 'covenant' rather than 'exchange' concerns are more salient for this form of activism. Findings for ideological orientation support this interpretation. Keywords Unions * Activism * Organizing DOI 10.1007/s12122-010-9092-3

Byline: Caleb Southworth, Department of Sociology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403; email: caleb@uoregon.edu; Judith Stepan-Norris, Department of Sociology, University of California, Irvine, California 92697; email: jstepann@uci.edu Keywords: labor, organizations, aggregation, social movements, historical data, working class Abstract Research on the historical level of union density in the United States is based on data or estimates that represent the sum of union members from different organizations. This results in aggregation bias, where the time-trend in union density is consistent with multiple, divergent trends among organizations. Some unions have experienced membership gains in specific industries or regions with distinct strategies that the analysis of aggregate data misses. No longitudinal data set, based on a random sample of unions, exists. We identify sources for the development of such a data set. Case studies suggest that organizational strategy, financial resources, internal politics, worker attitudes, and competition affect membership; further research on geographic and industry conditions is needed. Purposive sampling, poor understanding of aggregation, and models that do not account for the clustering of unions within larger federations or industries have retarded progress in labor studies.

The working conditions of immigrant construction workers in South Florida are studied, considering the aspects of health and safety. The findings show only a small relationship between unionization and safer conditions.

Using data collected from surveys conducted in 1990 and 2000, we examine changes in the administrative practices of US-based national and international unions. We examine the hiring, human resource, financial, strategic planning, and organizational practices and how they have changed over time. We find that unions are changing their staff hiring practices in ways that contribute to workforce professionalization and that unions are moving toward more formal human resource policies and more systematic financial and strategic planning practices. These developments appear to be a reaction to the unions' changing operating environment and reflect the pressure on union leaders to make effective use of their declining resources. Keywords Union administration * Human resource. Organizational practices

Social scientists studying rural-urban struggles have primarily focused on the issue of urban bias. The issue of rural bias and its potential effects on urban dwellers has received much less attention. This article demonstrates how agrarian political mobilization of rural constituents adversely affected urban workers in India. Agrarian mobilization led to two changes in development policy that undermined the bargaining strength of organized labor. First, remunerative pricing for agricultural products biased the terms of trade in favor of agriculture, resulting in a rise in the product wage. Second, incentives for rural and small-scale industries led to increased product market competition in the manufacturing sector, generating unemployment among urban workers. Under these circumstances, unions could not frequently strike, and, when they did strike, they fought longer to win their demands. The author supports these arguments with a statistical analysis of strike frequency and duration in India from 1976 to 1997. Keywords: rural-urban struggles; labor unions; agrarian mobilization; India; industrial disputes

Anthropological research report on issues related to practical, theoretical, and ethnographic issues from findings based on organized labor unions in the United States are presented.

Byline: Timothy DeGroot (1) Keywords: neural network analysis; unionization Abstract: Upon reviewing the extant literature on determinants of unionism, it becomes clear that many areas that have had a plethora of research attention do not converge upon singularly directional findings. This study explores a potential cause of such an apparent anomaly: nonlinearity of data. An exploratory examination of correlation coefficients among typical union determinant variables seems to show different patterns of relationships at different levels of union demand. Thus, a break from traditional linear data analysis techniques is explored in the interest of explaining more variance with typical, theoretically derived variables by using neural network analysis. Results of analyses on industry level data reveal that using neural network analysis to model union demand explained over four times as much variance as multiple regression analysis. Author Affiliation: (1) Spears School of Business , Oklahoma State University , Stillwater, OK, 74078, USA Article History: Registration Date: 18/10/2005 Accepted Date: 17/10/2005 Online Date: 10/02/2006

Most of the surprisingly small number of studies of union corruption done over the years have focused either on longitudinal analysis of particularly aggressive unions in their prime or on the relationship between union leaders and organized crime characters who have acquired middle names in quotes. Since the 1930s, these studies have usually been based on prosecutorial initiatives of federal or state agencies seeking to rein in Mafia, Cosa Nostra, or Outfit crime families for whom control of unions has been a major income source, not the unions, themselves. I use two new, recently available data sources that allow an overview of the whole spectrum of union corruption, that quantify it, and that differentiate certain aspects of it from the corruption found in other societal organizations. My analysis reveals that union corruption is both broadly practiced and multifaceted, with some forms having brutal ancient antecedents not yet completely lost while others are new and not yet completely developed. Only a few are broadly shared with businesses or other societal organizations. Overall, I identify 25 separate categories of significant union corruption and find that among these embezzlement remains the most common, but kickbacks and malfeasance with respect to pension plan management are of much greater financial concern. Peculation associated with gaining and maintaining high union office together with the bloated perks and emoluments that obtain thereto fuel internal corruption without diminishing the practice of extortion, bribery, conspiracy, selling labor peace, licensing loose contracts, selling job access, and other traditional external corrupt practices. All are a blight on organized labor.

How are unions responding to change? Are they renewing? Drawing on the CRIMT International Colloquium on Union Renewal, this introductory paper presents the overarching themes in this special thematic issue of Labor Studies Journal. After a synoptic overview of the range of cases and methodological issues highlighted by the papers, three sets of issues are presented: the need to enhance basic union efficiency or instrumentality, the importance of union governance and internal organization, and the need to rethink union resources. The development of collective identities, the mobilization of external expertise and networks, and the development of union leadership are identified as key resources in the union renewal process and as important subjects for further research.

This article focuses on the influence of a multinational corporation (MNC) on the reorganization of work and labor relations in two Canadian plants. The MNC used coercive comparisons and created a regime of cooperative competition in an effort to promote rationalization and the adoption of flexible work practices. The research used qualitative techniques including interviews, observations, informal conversations, and the study of company and union documents. The results show that both plants modified work organization and work rules in a way that was consistent with the requirements of the MNC. In one plant, however, the union was seriously weakened and unable to influence the process of change. In the other plant, the union preserved a central role and negotiated the implementation of new work practices. These differences are explained with reference to the local context and union capabilities.

This article presents a conceptual model that seeks to explain why trade union incidence in North America encounters difficulties and how the union movement might approach renewal. Those who use the work of others for profit are considered not only employers, but also 'deployers' of labor; even self-employed workers are often in situations of dependency vis-a-vis their deployer. This gives rise to new possibilities and new forms of collective action, which the trade union movement should either embrace or with which it should collaborate.

A study examining the factors affecting the labour costs in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The study also examines the effect of labour market institutions from 1960 to 1994 on these labour costs.

As international labor solidarity becomes an important counterweight to corporate globalization, practitioners can benefit from guidance that social movement theory provides. This study applies three strands of movement theory to actual and potential cross-border strategies in the Americas. It explores the structural relevance of political opportunities, the mobilization of networks as a resource, and the emphasis by New Social Movement theory on framing and reflexive identity. It discovers that each strand offers important insights, one clarifying limitations, a second demarcating and cultivating supporters, and a third motivating participation. Taken together, the strands comprise a dynamic basis for solidarity that enriches organizing strategies and gains measurable victories.

We test a model based on social exchange theory to explain the patterns of membership voting in a local union officer election. Survey data from members and stewards aggregated by 55 voting units, when combined with the control variable, explained 46 percent of the variance in the incumbent president's re-election. A greater percentage of member votes for the incumbent president were related to higher union loyalty, higher confidence in the grievance procedure, better union-management relations, and more positive perceptions of the union contract, findings that support our model of membership voting., I. Introduction Although unions are democratically-oriented organizations, researchers have neglected issues related to union governance and the democratic process for several decades (Kaufman, 2000b). As a result, Kaufman (2000b: 1) [...]

Byline: Robert C. Hoell (1) Keywords: union commitment; interpersonal trust; employee participation Abstract: Unionized employees have their commitment courted by both their employer and union. They can form a commitment to both, or only one, or neither. It is difficult to predict which commitment might form. It is hypothesized that interpersonal trust and participation attitudes will explain the levels of union commitment formed by union officials. Multiple regression equations and a structural equation model were used to test these hypotheses. Interpersonal trust had a positive yet non-significant effect on union commitment. Participation attitudes had a significant, negative effect on union commitment, opposite that of the hypothesized relationship. The hypotheses are only partially supported. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Management, Marketing &amp Logistics, Georgia Southern University, P.O. Box, 8154, Statesboro, GA, 30460-8154 Article History: Registration Date: 30/12/2004

This paper summarizes research that focuses on the process of 'union renewal' currently underway in many unions. The research is based on survey responses and interviews involving United Kingdom (U.K.) union officers and staff and uses information gathered during late 2000 and early 2001. This paper also addresses the related issue of 'organizing model' adoption in the United Kingdom. Most U.K. unionists see organizing the unorganized as a critical aspect of union renewal, but many are skeptical about the value of the organizing model as a guiding philosophy or model. Most of them are, however, optimistic about their unions' futures, especially when they see their leadership committed to organizing and union renewal. Conversely, where pessimism exists, leadership is often cited as a key problem. A final section of the paper considers the findings in relation to alternative theoretical perspectives on unions.

Under the significant structural obstacles to labor mobilization in market economies and the male domination of labor federations, what motivates female export-processing zone (EPZ) workers to participate in labor organization? Why do female workers participate in traditional labor unions or alternative women's organizations that similarly claim to represent them? This article addresses these questions using original survey data from female EPZ workers in the garment industries of Honduras and Nicaragua. The author applies insights from rational choice theory and identity approaches and examines how gender and class influence female workers' organizing in Central American EPZs. Logistic and ordinal logistic regression estimates show that this group of workers participates in labor organizations because of not individual selective incentives but rather aspects of identity formation. The survey data illustrate that shared interests cannot be assumed for similarly situated popular subjects who experience the multiple facets of their conditions in different ways. Keywords: labor unions; maquiladoras; Central America; gender; garment industry; survey data

We investigate the desire of nonunion workers in Great Britain to become represented by unions. Comparing our results to those from the United States, we find that workers in Great Britain are less likely to desire unionization and express lower dissatisfaction with their influence at work. The determinants of the desire for unionization are estimated controlling for a wide variety of individual and workplace variables. The roles of human resource management and employee involvement are isolated. We identify direct workplace and worker-level effects of these practices in reducing the desire for unionization and an indirect effect operating through the influence of employee relations, a major determinant of the desire for unionization. Also, we identify characteristics of co-workers that are associated with desire for unionization and examine the role information revelation may play in managerial strategies to forestall unions., I. Introduction Using the extensive data of the United States Workplace Representation and Participation Survey, Freeman and Rogers (1999) provide an answer to the provocative question 'what do workers want?' [...]

I assess how employee involvement programs affect union commitment attitudes. Analysis of 229 survey responses indicates that participation attitudes have no effect on union commitment levels; previous participation has a positive effect; and organizational commitment has a negative effect. A similar pattern was observed on four subscales of union commitment: union loyalty, responsibility to the union, willingness to work for the union, and belief in unionism., I. Introduction Employee involvement is usually studied as a precursor to desired organizational outcomes. For instance, a common belief is that installation of an employee involvement program will increase productivity [...]

I. Introduction During the past half century, a remarkable reversal in the fortunes of U.S. unions has occurred. In 1950 private sector unions were a powerful force in the economy, [...]