Copyright (c) 2009 Cornell University ILR School All rights reserved. http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs Recent documents in Faculty Publications - Collective Bargaining, Labor Law, and Labor History en-us Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:32:28 PST 3600 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/36 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/36 Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:21:19 PDT Authors argue that industrial relations systems change due to shifts in the constraints facing those systems, and that the most salient constraints facing IR systems in Asia have shifted from those of maintaining labor peace and stability in the early stages of industrialization, to those of increasing both numerical and functional flexibility in the 1980s and 1990s. The evidence to sustain the argument is drawn from seven "representative" Asian IR systems: Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, India, and China. They also distinguish between systems that have smoothly adapted (Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines) and systems that have fundamentally transformed (China and South Korea), and hypothesize about the reasons for this difference. Sarosh Kuruvilla http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/35 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/35 Wed, 05 Apr 2006 10:51:09 PDT "This paper traces the evolution of employment relations in the U.S. auto industry over the post World War II period with particular emphasis on recent developments. There is a strong movement toward growing variation in employment relations within both the assembly and parts sectors of the auto industry. Variation appears both through the spread of more contingent compensation and team systems of work organization. There is also wide variety across plants and industry segments in basic employment systems including low wage, human resource, Japanese-oriented, and joint team-based approaches. Declining unionization is a particularly strong influence in the parts sector although nonunion operations have no spread to the assembly sector. While these trends are well illustrated by developments in the auto industry, they are trends common to other parts of the U.S. economy." Harry C. Katz http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/34 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/34 Mon, 03 Apr 2006 10:04:26 PDT "This paper analyzes how expenditures of the city of San Francisco were altered in response to changes in municipal labor costs over the period 1945 through 1976. A hybrid of the "demands" and the "organizational" models of budgeting is used to measure the budgetary response to changes in the relative prices of labor inputs. Descriptive and econometric evidence reveals significant adjustments both among and within departments in reaction to changes in relative labor costs. The empirical evidence demonstrates that the city's budgetary process is guided by simple allocative rules modified by price-responsive adjustments." Harry C. Katz http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/33 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/33 Mon, 03 Apr 2006 09:14:25 PDT "The point of departure for any discussion of deindustrialization must be respect for the despair and betrayal felt by workers as their mines, factories, and mills were padlocked, abandoned, turned into artsy shopping spaces, or even dynamited. While economists and business leaders often speak in neutral, even hopeful, terms such as "restructuring," "downsizing," or "creative destruction," metaphors of defeat and subjugation are more appropriate for the workers who banked on good-paying industrial jobs for the livelihoods of their families and their communities." Jefferson Cowie http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/32 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/32 Mon, 13 Mar 2006 10:51:29 PST "This study develops a model of bargaining that demonstrates that an interest arbitration procedure will encourage negotiated settlements to the extent that risk aversion dominates the preferences of the parties and there is uncertainty regarding the arbitrator's behavior. The authors conclude that it is likely that risk aversion does dominate preferences, but the evidence is not conclusive. They also argue that uncertainty may be reduced over time for various reasons, leading to increased use of arbitration and a convergence between the terms of negotiated and arbitrated agreements." Henry S. Farber http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/31 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/31 Mon, 13 Mar 2006 10:34:48 PST "This study analyzes the relationship among plant-level measures of industrial relations performance, economic performance, and quality-of-working-life programs. The analysis employs pooled time-series and cross-section data from 18 plants within a division of General Motors for the years 1970-79. The empirical results show strong associations between industrial relations and economic performance measures and limited support for the hypothesis that quality-of-working-life efforts improve both kinds of performance." Harry C. Katz http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/30 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/30 Mon, 13 Mar 2006 08:21:25 PST "An introduction to a special, multi-part report on training and workforce preparedness." Harry C. Katz http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/29 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/29 Mon, 13 Mar 2006 07:55:45 PST "The author reviews evidence that the bargaining structure is becoming more decentralized in Sweden, Australia, the former West Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, although In somewhat different degrees and ways from country to country. He then examines the various hypotheses that have been offered to explain the significant trend Shifts In bargaining power, as well as the diversification of corporate and worker Interests, have played a part in this change, he concludes, but work reorganization has been more influential still. He also explores how the roles of central unions and corporate industrial relations staffs are challenged by bargaining structure decentralization, and discusses the research gaps on this subject that need to be filled." Harry C. Katz http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/28 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/28 Mon, 06 Mar 2006 12:41:40 PST "Following an overview of US workers' changing relation to free trade in the postwar era, this article offers a critical review of labor's fight against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Breaking the campaign down into a typology of four major themes around which the struggle focused -- fear of job losses, the unfair suppression of labor rights in Mexico, cross-border solidarity, and international labor rights -- it explores the efficacy of these approaches in terms of their ability to build toward a transnational agenda for unions in North America. The article argues that, although many new and creative ideas emerged from the struggle, the overall tone and content of the anti-NAFTA campaign failed to construct a usable transnational political space for the future of organized labor and instead served to nurture nationalistic social identities within the United States." Jefferson Cowie http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/27 http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cbpubs/27 Mon, 27 Feb 2006 08:54:56 PST Michael Evan Gold