Showing papers on "Job security published in 1980"

Why Workers Want Unions: The Role of Relative Wages and Job Characteristics

Abstract: In this study a model of the determination of individual votes in National Labor Relations Board representation elections was developed and estimated. The major conclusions fall into four areas. First, the perceived advantage of unionization is inversely related to the individual's position in the intrafirm earnings distribution. Second, explicitly measured perceptions of the impact of unionization on the nonwage aspects of the job are important determinants of the vote. Third, concern for the impact of unionization on job security is an important aspect of the unionization decision. Finally, it was found that after controlling for the effects of unionization on various aspects of the employment relationship, blacks are more likely and older workers are less likely to vote for unionization.

Bridges over contested terrain: Exploring the radical account of the employment relationship

Abstract: Richard Edwards' account of the transformation of the employment relationship in the twentieth century is used as a vehicle for integrating the radical analysis into the more conventional treatment Most non-radical analyses rely on idiosyncratic skills to explain the existence of job security and other features of the modern employment relationship Here an alternative explanation is proposed and some of its implications are explored

The proletarianization of nursing in the United States, 1932--1946.

Abstract: There have been many studies of the development of an industrial work force with all its attendant hardships as newly proletarianized peasants were thrown off the land and into factory labor. The author postulates that a similar process occurred in the creation of at least one modern "profession"--nursing--as the traditional autonomy of private practive nursing was displaced by institutional nursing in hospitals and nursing homes. Prior to the Depression, most nurses worked in private duty--as independent entrepreneurs--without the regimentation, rigid division of labor, and intense supervision characteristic of modern hospitals. The collapse of the U.S. economy made it impossible for most nurses to continue to earn a living privately at the same time that hospitals required cheap labor power in order to develop as viable businesses. Despite the promise of job security in hospital work, most nurses resisted the change by criticism, sabotage, walking away from job, and attempts at unionization. Hospitals sought in response to inculcate loyalty by a variety of methods, including screening of applicants, in-service training, and professional ideology. In some instances, hospitals coerced private nurses into "staff" jobs by threatening their ability to secure business on their own. By the end of World War II, the majority of nurses were employed, for the first time, as wage earners for institutions. The entire period was marked by such discord and revolt on the part of nurses, however, that the American Nurses' Association was transformed as an organization in order to avoid massive unionization. The study points out that this unwritten history of nursing has been obscured by professional nursing leaders who are still suppressing revolts of rank-and-file nurses against the conditions of hospital work.

The Emergence of Shop Steward Organization and Job Control in the British Car Industry: A Review Essay1

Abstract: During the decade since the publication of the Donovan Report,2 analysts from all sections of the political and ideological spectrum have come to recognize that structural features of British trade unionism and collective bargaining have played an important role in the progressive decline of the British economy. In particular, the autonomy from central union control enjoyed by shop stewards and the remarkable control exercised on the job by rank and file workers have been identified as major barriers to productivity growth insofar as they render management's efforts at technical and organizational innovation both more difficult and more expensive. 'Informal' work rules and restrictive practices (which are often 'formally' incorporated in collective agreements), such as demarcation lines, seniority systems, overmanning, and limitations on the speed and output of machinery, are the concrete embodiment of these constraints on management's freedom of action, which are in turn generally viewed by workers as indispensible bulwarks of their earnings, job security, and even their social identity. It has often been argued that these characteristics of British trade unionism are largely the result of the formative influence of the craft tradition on its development, with its fragmented bargaining structures and its commitment to local autonomy and craft control; one influential diagnosis went so far as to identify the generalization of craft practices to other groups of workers under conditions of full employment as one of the crucial steps in the transformation of British industrial relations since the Second World War.3 Yet the origins and dynamics of shop steward organization and job control, together with their impact on the national economy, are still much less well understood than such phenomena as the contribution of trade union militancy to the profit squeeze on employers and to inflation generally through wage drift, leapfrogging pay settlements, and the diffusion of wage increases from high to low productivity sectors.4 There is nothing new about the deceleration of productivity growth in British manufacturing industry especially evident in international comparisons nor about vocal attempts to attribute responsibility for the loss of British pre-eminence to the restrictive influence of trade unions. The rate of rise of British productivity, as measured by aggregate statistics of output per man hour, began to fall behind that of the US and other Western European nations in the 1870s; while the post-Second World War period marked a significant improvement on British performance during the previous 75 years, Western Europe and Japan achieved much more substantial

Economic Fluctuation, Job Security, and Labor-Market Duality in Italy, France, and the United States:

Abstract: a growing theoretical and analytical literature that attempts to explain the origins of economic disadvantage and to meet the expressed desires of political leaders for ameliorative public policies. A prominent strand of this literature, especially in the United States but increasingly in Western Europe as well, is built around the hypothesis of a dual labor market. This essay is addressed to several

A Process Model of Organizational Turnover: The Relationship with Job Security as a Case in Point

Abstract: A turnover process model applies Barnard's participation and contribution decisions to various organizational career stages. Job security effects are traced through the model, revealing the need for more complex research approaches. Organizations are affected because, given job insecurity, better workers shy away during recruitment or are predominant quitters.

The Labour Movement and the Left in the United States

Abstract: During the 1960s and early 1970s, majority sentiment on the American left held that the American trade union movement had become a relatively conservative interest group. It fought within the Democratic Party, and in direct bargaining with corporations and government, for an increasingly narrow vision of its interests. For example, when confronted with the demands of blacks for full equality within the unions as much as within society as a whole, labour leaders responded with a dual position. The unions remained committed in general to civil rights at the legislative level, but were primarily protective of their members' immediate interests in higher pay and job security. When these interests were in conflict with the demand for full equality, some unions abandoned all but a legislative commitment to civil rights.

Unions in Higher Education: The Going Gets Tougher.

Abstract: Campus presidents and faculty union chairpersons agree that the primary ac complishment of academic unions to date is the regularizaron of personnel proce dures through a grievance system, even though faculty unions have come about primarily because of a desire for higher salaries and more job security. Evidence with regard to salaries and job security re mains mixed. Interestingly enough, cam pus personnel directors report more facul ty terminations at unionized than at non unionized institutions.* And while it has long been assumed that unions would quickly kill off faculty senates, this hasn't happened. In fact, the demarcation lines between senate and union activity are clearer now than five years ago at most in stitutions with a history of collective bar gaining. At the same time, power con tinues to flow off the campuses, mainly to state legislatures and executive agencies, in much of American higher education, with collective bargaining a major con tributing force. These are some of the key findings of the latest phase in a continuing study of academic governance and faculty collec tive bargaining in higher education that we started at Stanford in the early 1970s. We have combined a follow-up of the earlier survey research with new case studies, extensive contact analysis, and a survey of personnel directors at all higher education institutions conducted by the College and University Personnel Associa tion. The results of the initial study were reported in Unions on Campus and Policy Making and Effective Leadership (Jossey Bass, 1975 and 1978, respectively). We are currently compiling all the study results into several research reports and a new book on decision making in higher educa tion. While generalizations are increasingly