Showing papers on "Industrial relations published in 1984"

In Defense of the Contract at Will

Abstract: The persistent tension between private ordering and government regulation exists in virtually every area known to the law, and in none has that tension been more pronounced than in the law of employer and employee relations. During the last fifty years, the balance of power has shifted heavily in favor of direct public regulation, which has been thought strictly necessary to redress the perceived imbalance between the individual and the firm. In particular the employment relationship has been the subject of at least two major statutory revolutions. The first, which culminated in the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935,1 set the basic structure for collective bargaining that persists to the current time. The second, which is embodied in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,2 offers extensive protection to all individuals against discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin. The effect of these two statutes is so pervasive that it is easy to forget that, even after their passage, large portions of the employment relation remain subject to the traditional common law rules, which when all was said and done set their face in support of freedom of contract and the system of voluntary exchange. One manifestation of that position was the prominent place that the common law, especially as it developed in the nineteenth century, gave to the contract at will. The basic position was well set out in an oft-quoted passage from Payne v. Western & Atlantic Railroad:

Labor and Labor History in Africa: A Review of the Literature

Abstract: No subject has in recent years so intruded into the scholarly literature on Africa as the African worker. Labor has become a fundamental issue to those who seek to develop African economies or to revolutionize African polities. The elucidation and debate about the relationship of labor to historical and social issues is currently under way over an impressive range of places and in a number of languages. It is thus highly appropriate at this juncture to assemble some of the themes that emerge most sharply in contemporary writing on Africa. A broad range of opinion would concede that the worker, when organized in the pursuit of specific objectives or as a class, necessarily takes on a special political importance. One aspect of the literature on African labor is thus political, studying in particular the organizations workers have created, their significance and direction. Whether or not such organization exists, labor has a fundamental economic role to play. In bourgeois economics, labor is generally categorized as a factor whose productivity, contribution, and wages need to be assessed to understand the broader picture. Marxist economics gives labor a fundamental position; it is from the surplus extracted from the worker that the ruling class ultimately lives while the form of extraction determines more than purely economic relationships. In particular, Marxists thus emphasize as well the broader social significance of labor. They have been responsible for introducing laborrelated questions to a broad range of historical and societal discussions typical of much recent literature on Africa.

Labour relations decision making within multinational corporations

Abstract: The extent of parent company involvement in subsidiary level industrial relations varies widely among different multinational corporations. This study examines the procedures adopted in a sample survey of thirty foreign-owned MNCs operating in the UK and the reasons for such inter-firm variations.

Challenges and Choices Facing American Labor

Abstract: After decades of stability, labor-management relations are undergoing dramatic changes. The contributions collected in this book provide the best and most up-to-date summary of the extent and causes of this upheaval in industrial relations. They discuss challenges to union organizing, employer strategies for union avoidance, corporate investment and decision making, labor market and technological developments, developments in collective bargaining, unions and quality-of-work-life programs, and a comparison of labor movements in Canada and the U.S.An outgrowth of the Sloan Project, a three-year study of U.S. industrial relations in transition sponsored by the Sloan Foundation, this book brings together an impressive group of labor economists and industrial relations scholars, drawing on a variety of strong, incisive empirical studies.The contributors include Thomas A. Kochan, Michael J. Piore, Henry S. Farber, Richard B. Freeman, Janice A. Klein, David Wanger, Anil Verma, Lee Price, Robert B. McKersie, Paul Osterman, Harry C. Katz, Peter Cappelli, John T. Joyce, Nancy R. Mower, and Noah M. Meltz.Thomas Kochan is Professor of Industrial Relations, The Sloan School, MIT.

Retirement, pensions, and social security

Abstract: American workers are retiring earlier, living longer, and receiving greater retirement benefits for each year out of the labor force than ever before, which has created serious financial pressures on the nation's Social Security system and generated an intense and often heated debate.This book places retirement in an economic context, calculating the income opportunities facing older workers at alternate retirement ages, and estimating how responsive retirement ages are to changes in income opportunities. It is the first book length study to combine evidence on private pension and Social Security institutions with econometric evidence on the determinants of retirement behavior, providing new empirical results that shed light on current policy issues.Retirement, Pensions, and Social Security reveals the importance of earnings, private pensions, and Social Security benefits compared to health, mandatory retirement, and other noneconomic factors in determining retirement patterns; the amounts of private pension and Social Security benefits that workers would receive at alternate retirement ages; the prospective budget sets facing potential retirees from ages 60 to 68; and variation across pension plans in the gains or losses from deferring retirement. It describes regression models showing that retirement patterns can be explained in part by the retirement income streams available at age 60 and by the gain in retirement income if retirement is postponed to age 65, and multinomial logit and ordered logit models which formulate the retirement decision in a utility-based framework while accounting for unmeasured preferences of individuals and nonlinearities in income opportunities. The book predicts the responsiveness of retirement ages and retirement incomes to reductions in Social Security benefits, using several different prediction methods including a new one published here for the first time. And it explains the differences in average retirement ages among workers in different pension plans in terms of differences in the economic rewards for deferring retirement and differences in workers' taste for income and leisure.Gary S. Fields is a professor at Cornell University's Department of Labor Economics, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the Department of Economics. Olivia S. Mitchell is an associate professor at Cornell University's Department of Labor Economics, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Challenges and Choices Facing American Labor

Abstract: After decades of stability, labor-management relations are undergoing dramatic changes. The contributions collected in this book provide the best and most up-to-date summary of the extent and causes of this upheaval in industrial relations. They discuss challenges to union organizing, employer strategies for union avoidance, corporate investment and decision making, labor market and technological developments, developments in collective bargaining, unions and quality-of-work-life programs, and a comparison of labor movements in Canada and the U.S.

The History Of The British Coal Industry, Volume 2: 1700-1830: The Industrial Revolution

Abstract: The history of the British coal industry from 1700 to 1830 is discussed in terms of the development of coal-mining, the ownership and management of collieries, technology, the transport of coal, capital, markets, the organization of coal marketing, the economics of mining, the organization of mining labor, wages and industrial relations, the mining community, and the coal industry and the economy. A glossary of mining terms is provided, along with definitions of weights and measures used in the period.

The Skills of Management

Abstract: 1. Managers and their background 2. Identifying the Manager's job 3. The Manager and the organization 4. Managerial style 5. Delegation 6. Motivation 7. Payment systems 8. Communication 9. Selection 10. Appraisal, training and counselling 11. Disciplinary handling and dismissal 12. The manager and employee relations 13. Meetings and chairing.

Ballots and trade union democracy

Abstract: The Thatcher government has pledged to bring in statutory provision for ballots in certain trade union elections and for the calling of industrial action. This book examines the current use of ballots in union elections and their effect on participation and leadership selection. Previous discussion of trade union ballots has been based upon unfounded assumptions, limited evidence and incorrect inference from American experience. This is the first analysis of the role of ballots in union elections and collective bargaining based on empirical research in Britain. The authors show how ballots are, at the moment, underused and only one of the ways in which unions consult their members. They also explore the circumstances likely to lead to balloting under current legislation and its consequences. The book provides a most detailed look at the history, current practice and future possibilities for the use of ballots in trade unions. It will inform both the industrial relations and legal practitioner and teacher, as well as those, on both sides of the industrial fence, seeking either to promote or ward off change in industrial union practice.

The Relationship Between Organizational and Union Commitment Among Federal Government Employees.

Abstract: This study examines the extent of dual union-organization commitment among a sample of 286 federal government employees. Unlike prior studies, this study was specifically designed to reflect the re...

Human Resources and Industrial Relations in China: A Time of Ferment:

Abstract: This study of current industrial relations practices in mainland China draws on the relevant literature and particularly on the authors' discussions with managers and government and union officials in the steel industry during a visit to China in March 1983 The authors describe the recruitment, selection, placement, and training of blue-collar and managerial employees; the increasing use of financial incentives; and the “iron rice bowl” approach to discipline, which generally excludes discharge They also discuss employee participation in management through workers' councils and trade unions and the sometimes conflicting functions of unions as both “arm of the state” and workers' representatives

The disclosure of company information to trade unions: The relevance of the ACAS Code of Practice on Disclosure

Abstract: In the light of recent empirical work, this paper examines the place of information disclosure in the development of both management industrial relations strategies and domestic trade union strategies involving the use of information at site and company level. The need to link information to specific issues, and the importance for both management and trade unions of institutional development, are then considered and illustrated in relation to some of the issues that emerged during the period of study. Finally, taking account of the research findings, some suggestions are put forward for the development of the ACAS Code of Practice on Disclosure of Information.

New technology, work organizations and industrial relations

Abstract: This paper argues that the effects of the new microprocessor technology such as FMS, CAD/CAM, CNC systems and so on, on industrial relations are relatively indeterminate, given that new production-systems may permit a range of organizational and manpower solutions. Examples are cited from a number of cross-national empirical studies, relating to selected countries in Western Europe. The first deals with the impact of technology on industrial democracy; the second, with the effect on skill-polarization and hence on employee-involvement. The problems of assessing causal relations are then discussed and the paper concludes that whatever the impact of technology on industrial behaviour, the impact of formal participative norms appears to be greater.

Human Resources Management in Japanese Large-Scale Industry

Abstract: Current interest in Japanese business and industry has produced an outpouring of 'learning-from-Japan'prescriptions for meeting the Japanese challenge (e.g. Ouchi 1982, Pascale and Athos 1982, Vogel 1980; also a veritable flood of newspaper and magazine articles). But learning from Japan requires a good deal of learning about Japan, about Japanese history, tradition and culture, the economy-aspects of Japan that are hardly expressed in prescription contributions offered to either prac titioners or scholars. It is the purpose of this paper to selectively examine basic elements of Japan's industrial relations system in an historic and cultural context as well as contemporary arrangements. The discussion is limited to a composite depiction of essential aspects of human resources management in typical Japanese firms employing 500 or more workers. Overwhelmingly, this is the pool from which knowledge has been generated by both Japanese and foreign scholars studying this topic.