Contract Status Research Articles

New Australian Working Time Minimum Standards: Reproducing the Same Old Gendered Architecture?

This article focuses on the minimum working time standards in the ‘safety net’ created by the Fair Work Act 2009. We draw on an analysis of on-paper minima in the 10 National Employment Standards and in two Modern Awards covering paid care workers . We argue that the gendered legacy of poorer working time provisions in non-standard jobs held by many Australian women workers has been reproduced in the architecture of the new Fair Work regime. Our case study suggests that the permanent full-time norm of employment continues to permeate working time regulation, despite the fragmentation of the standard employment relationship with the growth in casual and part-time work. Not only does casual status limit the access of many women workers to particular National Employment Standards, but there remain significant and gendered differences in award minimum working time standards, particularly for casual and part-time care workers, in comparison with the conditions and protections provided in one of the key male industry awards. Further, a hierarchy of working time standards for care workers has been reproduced, underpinned by differences in contract status, job classification and work location. This leaves those at the bottom of this hierarchy with little working time or income security.

Understanding differences in access and use of healthcare between international immigrants to Chile and the Chilean-born: a repeated cross-sectional population-based study in Chile

IntroductionInternational evidence indicates consistently lower rates of access and use of healthcare by international immigrants. Factors associated with this phenomenon vary significantly depending on the context. Some research into the health of immigrants has been conducted in Latin America, mostly from a qualitative perspective. This population-based study is the first quantitative study to explore healthcare provision entitlement and use of healthcare services by immigrants in Chile and compare them to the Chilean-born.MethodsData come from the nationally representative CASEN (Socioeconomic characterization of the population in Chile) surveys, conducted in 2006 and 2009. Self-reported immigrants were compared to the Chilean-born, by demographic characteristics (age, sex, urban/rural, household composition, ethnicity), socioeconomic status (SES: education, household income, contractual status), healthcare provision entitlement (public, private, other, none), and use of primary services. Weighted descriptive, stratified and adjusted regression models were used to analyse factors associated with access to and use of healthcare.ResultsThere was an increase in self-reported immigrant status and in household income inequality among immigrants between 2006 and 2009. Over time there was a decrease in the rate of immigrants reporting no healthcare provision and an increase in reporting of private healthcare provision entitlement. Compared to the Chilean-born, immigrants reported higher rates of use of antenatal and gynaecological care, lower use of well-baby care, and no difference in the use of Pap smears or the number of attentions received in the last three months. Immigrants in the bottom income quintile were four times more likely to report no healthcare provision than their equivalent Chilean-born group (with different health needs, i.e. vertical inequity). Disabled immigrants were more likely to have no healthcare provision compared to the disabled Chilean-born (with similar health needs, i.e. horizontal inequity). Factors associated with immigrants’ access to, and use of, healthcare were sex, urban/rural status, education and country of origin.ConclusionThere were significant associations between SES, and access to and use of healthcare among immigrants in Chile and a higher prevalence of no health care provision entitlement among poor and disabled immigrants compared to the Chilean-born. Changing associations between access and use of healthcare and SES among immigrants in Chile over time may reflect changes in their socio-demographic composition or in the survey methodology between 2006 and 2009.ResumenIntroducciónLa evidencia internacional indica menor acceso y uso de servicios de salud por parte de inmigrantes, pero sus factores desencadenantes varían significativamente dependiendo del contexto. Algunas investigaciones se han desarrollado en este tema en América Latina, desde una perspectiva cualitativa. Este estudio cuantitativo exploró el auto-reporte de acceso y uso de servicios de salud de inmigrantes en Chile y los comparó con la población chilena.MétodosAnálisis secundario de datos de encuesta nacional CASEN 2006 y 2009. Inmigrantes fueron comparados con chilenos en características demográficas (edad, sexo, urbano/rural, composición del hogar, etnia), estatus socioeconómico (educación, ingreso, situación contractual), tipo de previsión (pública, privada, otra, ninguna), y uso de varios servicios de atención primaria. Análisis descriptivo, estratificado, y modelos de regresión ponderados para entender factores asociados al acceso y uso de servicios de salud en STATA 11.0.ResultadosSe observó un aumento de reporte de inmigrantes y de la desigualdad en el ingreso de inmigrantes entre 2006 y 2009. Hubo una disminución en la tasa de inmigrantes sin previsión y un aumento en el acceso al sistema privado. Los inmigrantes usaron más frecuentemente la atención prenatal y ginecológica, y menos la atención del niño sano. No hubo diferencia en el uso de citología vaginal o el número total de atenciones recibidas en comparación con los chilenos. Los inmigrantes en el quintil inferior de ingresos reportaron 4 veces más la ausencia de prestación de salud que los chilenos (inequidad vertical). Similares resultados se observaron al comparar inmigrantes con discapacidad con chilenos con discapacidad (inequidad horizontal). Los factores asociados con el acceso y uso del servicio de salud por parte de los inmigrantes fueron el sexo, urbano/rural, educación y país de origen.ConclusiónSe observó una asociación significativa entre estatus socioeconomico, migración y acceso y uso de asistencia sanitaria. Los resultados de este estudio pueden deberse a verdaderos cambios en la composición de los inmigrantes y sus patrones de uso del sistema de salud chileno, pero también pueden deberse a cambios en la metodología y recolección de datos entre encuestas 2006 y 2009. Este aspecto requiere mayor análisis y debate en la región.

Estimating the Wage Premium of Collective Wage Contracts - Evidence from Longitudinal Linked Employer-Employee Data

Using a large-scale linked-employer-employee data set from western Germany, this paper presents new evidence on the wage premium of collective bargaining contracts. In contrast to previous studies, we seek to assess the extent to which differences in wages between workers in covered and uncovered firms arise from the non-random selection of workers and firms into collective bargaining coverage. By measuring the relative wage changes of workers employed in firms that change contract status, we obtain estimates that depart considerably from previous results relying on cross-sectional data. Results from analysing separate transitions show that leaving industry-level contracts is associated with subsequent wage losses. However, the results from a trendadjusted difference-in-difference approach indicate that the particularly the transitions to no-coverage appear to be associated with negative shocks. Overall, our findings provide no evidence of a ”true” wage effect of leaving wage bargaining, once differences in pre-transition wage growth are accounted for.

On the illusion of organizational commitment among finance professionals

PurposeThis paper seeks to question and discuss the relevance of organizational, customer and professional commitment for effectively managing financial service firms. In particular, it aims to study differences between employed and self‐employed finance professionals.Design/methodology approachThe authors conducted in‐depth interviews with professionals in 30 finance firms in Austria. The interviews aimed to reveal professionals' notions of commitment as it pertains to each interviewee's specific work context, whether self‐employed or employed.FindingsAlthough the financial services sector requires professionals to routinely display both high customer and professional commitment, it appears that organizational commitment is unrelated to performance. While employed finance professionals experience conflicts between organizational and customer commitment (e.g. selling in‐house products that may not perfectly match customers' needs), self‐employed professionals tend to clash between customers' best interests and their own self‐interest (e.g. selling products and services for which they receive the highest commission). All professionals noted that they work in a competitive environment with a focus on individual sales. Individual performance ratings were found to prevent the development of strong branch or team commitment.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough qualitative methods are a starting‐point for identifying serious issues, quantitative studies across larger samples are needed to evaluate the scope of the findings.Practical implicationsThe findings imply that financial services may not benefit much from HRM efforts that strive to obtain firm‐wide or organizational commitment. In large financial service firms the routine turnover of good professionals can be curbed if management starts to pay attention to creating flexible work arrangements, and enabling professionals to commit to customers and their profession.Originality/valueWhile prior research suggests fostering the organizational commitment of employees, this study finds the concept of organization‐wide commitment to be of less importance for managing finance firms. This lack of importance of organizational commitment was found to be independent of finance professionals' contractual status (employed or self‐employed); whereas customer and professional commitment were associated with high performance motivation.

University research scientists as knowledge workers: contract status and employment opportunities

University research scientists epitomise knowledge workers who are positioned to avail of the employment conditions associated with ‘boundaryless careers’. Yet while employment flexibility has been hailed as a positive feature of knowledge work, relatively little is known about the forms such flexibility may take or its impact. This article considers the factors shaping the employment conditions of 40 research scientists working in five university research centres in Ireland. The findings suggest that, for knowledge workers such as research scientists, contract employment can deny them access to many of the employment conditions and opportunities that govern their long-term success as researchers.

Informal hierarchies among workers in low-skill food manufacturing jobs

This article examines the creation of informal workplace hierarchies in the context of recent changes in the UK labour market. Previous studies have identified that deskilling of jobs has removed formal hierarchies among many production workers, and that informal hierarchies based upon factors such as contractual status have formed in their place. The aim of this article is to examine how changes in the labour force mean that new informal hierarchies have developed among migrant and immigrant workers who take these jobs through an agency. Research consisted of 50 semi-structured interviews, coupled with lengthy observation of both work and social settings, at three food manufacturers. The article finds that language and cultural issues create a complex informal hierarchy not only between directly employed and agency workers, but also among and within different groups of migrant and immigrant agency workers.

The Fortieth Anniversary of the Industrial Law Journal

Disruptive technological change, informalisation of work and deepening socio-economic inequality have affected developed and developing countries in recent decades. The ‘fourth industrial revolution’, involving the proliferation of digitalisation, automation, robotics and artificial intelligence, is accelerating the process by creating space for new forms of irregular work. The digital platform economy, epitomised by online providers of goods and services such as Uber, represents a significant stage in this development. Commercial platforms have gained ground by making possible the delivery of goods and services with a minimum of infrastructure and a maximum of flexibility. In practice, if not in principle, this lends itself to the negation of workers’ rights through classifying workers as ‘independent contractors’ even when they are de facto employees, thus posing new challenges for labour law. The article acknowledges the transformative potential of the platform economy as well as the threat it presents to social justice. It examines three responses from the standpoint of reconciling technological advance with the advancement of social justice. The first is the ongoing fight against disguised employment in the form of legal claims by platform workers to be classified as ’employees’ in order to exercise labour rights. The second is an international campaign for the extension of appropriate rights to all workers on commercial platforms, regardless of their contractual status. The third is the development of an alternative paradigm based on worker ownership or collective ownership of platforms, strongly associated with aspirations for social justice. The article considers the strengths and weaknesses of each of these responses. It reflects on their legal and practical implications in light of current technological trends and compatibility with ongoing scientific advance. A possible development, it suggests, is that of ‘convergence’ between the (dominant) commercial platform sector and the aspirations for social justice embodied in the (marginal) collective sector: progressive transformation of the commercial sector, including the establishment of basic rights for all workers, could narrow the gap, giving rise to hybrid forms of enterprise incorporating sustainable features of both. In this process, the promotion of social justice is seen as a precondition for socio-economic sustainability.

Labour Contracts and Performance of Cameroonian Firms

The aim of this study is to evaluate employees' productivity in relation to their contract status. This study uses (a) survey data collected among manufacturing sector firms, having more than 15 employees, in Cameroon between April and May 2006 and (b) information issued by the National Institute of Statistics. Information collected concerned 45 firms spanning the period 2003 to 2005. This study uses the stochastic production frontier, distinguishing employees holding fixed-term contract (FTC) from employees that do not have fixed-term contracts (indefinite-term contract (ITC)). Results are estimated in 2 stages. First, we evaluate the determinants of the utilisation of FTC workers and second, we estimate the level of efficiency and productivity of two types of workers. Empirical results indicate that employees holding FTC are twice more productive than those holding ITC. Likewise, parameters indicating returns to scale are 1.3. This parameter, though not significant, is greater than one indicating constant returns to scale in the firm production function.

Associations between contractual status, part-time work, and intent to leave among professional caregivers for older people: Results of a national cross-sectional survey in Japan

Background Despite a growing number of studies on leaving the organization or long-term care among professional caregivers for older people, little is known about the impact of types of employment on leaving. Objectives To examine the association between the type of employment and intent to leave among Japanese professional caregivers. Design and settings Secondary analysis of data from the 2006 Working Conditions Survey in Long-term Care, a nationally representative cross-sectional survey done in Japan. Participants 10,107 professional caregivers aged 18 years and older. Methods Predictor of intent to leave was type of employment (full-time permanent, full-time precarious, and part-time precarious). Precarious work was defined as employment that failed to meet the standard of full-time permanent employment, including fixed-term, temporary agency, and part-time work. Covariates included demographics, home or facility care, tenure in the profession, national qualification for caregivers, having other jobs, overtime work, and night shift work. We used multinomial logit models to estimate the strength of the association between the type of employment and intent to leave and to explore the possible mechanisms explaining this association. Results In the unadjusted model, when compared to part-time precarious workers, full-time permanent workers (OR = 2.37; 95% CI = 2.06, 2.72) and full-time precarious workers (OR = 2.41; 95% CI = 2.01, 2.88) were more likely to report intent to leave. After adjustment for covariates, these odds ratios were attenuated, but nevertheless remained significant. Overtime work greatly attenuated these odds ratios in both full-time precarious and full-time permanent workers, and having national qualification for caregivers only did in the case of full-time permanent workers. Conclusions In contrast to people in other professions, full-time caregivers are more likely to have intent to leave than part-time caregivers. This study highlights the importance of policy strategies for retaining full-time workers by reducing their overtime work and rewarding caregivers who have national qualifications.

Land Rights Insecurity and Temporary Migration in Rural China

Like most other developing countries, China experiences huge migration outflows from rural areas. Their most striking characteristic is a high geographical and temporal mobility. Rural migrants keep going back and forth between origin villages and destination areas. In this paper, we show that this temporary feature of migration can be linked to land rights insecurity. As village land ownership remains collective and as land use rights can be periodically reallocated, individual out-migration can result in deprivation of those rights. Moreover, the intensity of this insecurity varies according to the village-level management of land and the contractual status of land plots. We use these variations to identify the effect of land rights insecurity on migration behavior. Empirical results based on representative 2002 rural data demonstrate substantial impact.

The Contingent Employment In the Italian Healthcare Sector - Advantages and Troubles of the Human Resource Diversity Management

The firms use a quantity of variables to face their need of flexibility, as for the human resources, there is a continuous huge resort to new temporary contracts, including both LDC – limited duration contracts and TAWs – temporary agency works, which differ from the long-term and permanent employment model (Barker and Christensen, 1998; Volberda, 1999; Costa, 2001; Bergstrom and Storrie, 2003).In Italy, the contingent employment phenomenon (in particular TAWs) is well expressed in the healthcare sector and it is widely spread among many qualified professionals, first of all the nursing staff.In the healthcare sector, contextually to the flexibility need, the organizations find the necessity to have a good health service quality and to equip themselves with motivated, self-contained, high skilled and high committed workers, who feels a strong identification with the organization. However, those necessities, such as the contingent work spreading and the HR valorization, hardly match together and involve a different approach to the HR management. In fact, the massive use of temporary workers implicate an increasing complexity for the healthcare organizations, that have to deal with several types of workers in the same work groups or in the same professional categories. Moreover, the different contractual status may seriously affect the workers behavior as well as the employment relationships and their performances.In Italy, isolated experiences apart, there are no useful results or well-founded experiences to study that phenomenon and to give evidence to the actuality of it, especially in the healthcare sector. In the light of these assumptions, we assume the main challenge that healthcare organizations are going to face is defining a set of diversified and integrated HR management policies. In other words, HR managers will have to develop and define operational HR choices focused on the valorization of the differences, specifically applying the Diversity Management (DM) and working on the idea that their employees are no more the permanent ones (Lorbiecki and Jack, 2000; Barabino, Jacobs and Maggio, 2000, 2001).This study arises as a working paper issued by early literature analysis and early opinions about the contingent employment and the HR management in the healthcare sector, which is the subject of the research carried out by the two authors in their Phd careers.

Potential moderators of the link between rate plan suitability and customer tenure: A case in the Canadian mobile telecommunications industry

In the competitive wireless telecommunications market, customer retention has become a priority to many carriers, as they face high customer acquisition cost and high churn rate. Prior literature has found that wireless customers often subscribe to inappropriate rate plans, and thus overpay for their services. A new database marketing strategy called ‘Rate Plan Optimization’ has emerged, but literature in this area is still limited. This paper aims to strengthen our understanding of this strategy by analyzing the potential moderating effects of customer's frequency of handset change, frequency of rate plan change, customer age and contract status on the linkage between rate plan suitability and customer tenure. The data set covers 1249 wireless users in Canada. The hypotheses are tested by factorial Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). This paper argues that except customer's age, all other factors being analyzed have positive moderating effects on the linkage.

Employment Intermediaries: A Model of Firm Incentives

This paper introduces a micro-simulation of job-worker matching with intermediaries (i.e., temp agencies). While many suggest that firms hire workers through intermediaries to save money on compensation, this paper finds that in a world of limited information and geographically limited job search, intermediaries' human resources ability could be a strong enough incentive, independent of compensation. The study also has some auxiliary findings showing that traditional fee structures encourage firms to use intermediaries for low-skill hires and that firms are more likely to use intermediaries when there is more worker heterogeneity. In the empirical analysis, it becomes clear that studies' estimates of indirect employment in the United States are inconsistent, partly because individuals are uncertain of their contractual status and their employer.

Long-Term Contracts in Major League Baseball

Long-term deals are one tool that both players and franchises use to manage risk. That tool has been much discussed and empirically tested with respect to player shirking, and has more briefly, and only theoretically, discussed with respect to reducing variance in future payrolls. Our work looks at how patterns of use of long-term contracts are affected by changes in contracting rules established through collective bargaining and by expected changes in franchise revenue streams. To accomplish this, we have assembled the most complete dataset of MLB player contracts to date. We analyze changes in contract length and dollar value across players of different ability levels, at different points in their careers (contract status), by position, across CBA agreements, and further examine if new stadiums and new television deals impact contract terms. We confirm the earlier finding that player performance is systematically higher during contract years than during the early portion of a long-term contract. We also find that inclusion of contract length information significantly reduces the unexplained variation in player salaries.

Wages for migrant workers in the Pearl River Delta: determining factors1

本文通过对珠江三角洲农民工问卷调查资料的回归分析， 试图检验在市场转型下的企业 制度和社会环境对农民工工资的影响。研究发现， 人力资本中的教育年限、本企业工龄等变 量对农民工工资有显著的正向影响， 年龄和性别也有显著影响；企业制度中的工种对工资有 显著影响， 表现出明显的等级性。企业所属行业、规模和企业性质对工资没有显著影响， 是 否签订劳动合同和缺工情况同样如此。社会资本变量和社会环境变量对农民工工资水平没有 显著影响。文章由此认为， 农民工的工资是处于分割的二元劳动力市场一端， 是高度市场化 的， 缺乏企业内部劳动力市场或晋升机制， 也少受劳动力市场用工情况变化影响， 没有地区 性差异， 是一个实实在在的、刚性的低工资。 1. The main content of this article was published under the title: “Peasant‐worker wages: human capital, social capital, enterprise systems or social environment – determining models for Pearl River Delta peasant‐worker wages” in Sociological studies (社会学研究, 2007, no. 6, Beijing). This research received support from the 2005 China National Philosophy and Social Science Fund (05&ZD034) and the Sun Yat‐sen University Second 985 “Public Management and Social Development” Philosophy and Social Science Innovative Research Fund. This article attempts to examine the effect of the enterprise system and social environment under conditions of market transition on the wages of migrant workers using regression analysis of Pearl River Delta migrant worker survey data. The research found that among human capital variables, educational level and length of employment in their present firms have a significant positive effect on the wages of migrant workers, while age and gender also have a significant effect; among enterprise system variables, the type of work also significantly influences wages, demonstrating clear stratification. Industry, scale and firm type do not significantly influence wages, regardless of labor contract or labor supply status. Social capital variables and social environmental factors do not have a significant effect on peasant‐worker wage levels. The article therefore concludes that migrant worker wages are highly marketized and are at one extreme of a segmented dual labor market. They lack intra‐firm labor markets and promotion mechanisms, are little influenced by changes in labor market conditions, and show no regional variations. They represent low wages of an extreme rigidity.

Het profiel van vaste en tijdelijke werknemers

The profile of permanent and temporary contract workers: An investigation among Flemish school leavers The profile of permanent and temporary contract workers: An investigation among Flemish school leavers We investigate the employment (jobless – employed) and contractual (temporary – permanent) status of Flemish youngsters three months after leaving school by means of a bivariate censored probit model. Our results clearly show a division among school leavers. Some groups such as women, non-natives, individuals without work experience and/or driving licence and those entering the labour market during an economic downturn have a lower probability to find a job. Moreover, they often have a lower probability to get a permanent contract if they manage to find a job despite their disadvantageous profile. Although the type of the contract partly results from institutional differences, these contractual differences among school leavers also show up after controlling for firm size and sector of employment.

Changing Youth Labour Markets, Welfare Institutions and Young People's Control over Working Time

The objective of this article is to examine the ways in which young people's control over working time is related to phenomena originating in recent trends in European youth labour markets such as the rise in temporary employment and the increasing importance of active labour market policies. The heuristic concept of social chronotopy is introduced to capture the interrelatedness of social time and social space, considering how the value of young people's working time is dependent upon their own contractual status, and the market and welfare institutional context in which they find themselves. In comparative multilevel analyses of survey data, self-reported control over working time is found to be adversely affected by being temporarily employed and finding oneself in a national context of low income replacement for unemployed youth and being confronted with a troublesome youth labour market characterized by the lack of jobs, the lack of permanent jobs, and the lack of spending on active labour market policies.

ARE FIXED-TERM JOBS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH?: A COMPARISON OF WEST-GERMANY AND SPAIN

ABSTRACT In this paper we analyse the health effects of fixed-term contract status for men and women in West-Germany and Spain using panel data. This paper asks whether changes in the employment relationship, as a result of the liberalisation of employment law, have altered the positive health effects associated with employment (Jahoda 1982; Goldsmith et al. 1996). Using information on switches between unemployment and employment by contract type we analyze whether transitions to different contracts have different health effects. We find that unemployed workers show positive health effects at job acquisition, and also find the positive effect to be smaller for workers who obtain a fixed-term job. We also establish surprising differences by gender and country, with women less likely to report positive health effects at job acquisition. For West-Germany, this was found to be a function of the dual-burden of paid and unpaid care within the home.

CUPE on Strike, 1963-2004

CUPE On Strike offers a profile of the 1502 CUPE strikes since the union's inception in 1963 until 2004. In addition to breakdowns by province and industry, it considers strike incidence over time, duration, size of strikes, contract status, results, and the pattern of lockouts and rotating strikes. Like the overall Canadian strike profile, a majority of strikes are in small workplaces and are settled relatively quickly. Not surprisingly, CUPE strikes are clustered in Public Administration, and Health Care and Social Assistance. This demographic might help to explain the fact that CUPE has been involved in fewer wildcats, lockouts and strikes for first contracts than other unions. Although the overall trend for Canada since the 1990s has been a decrease in strikes, a modest shift in the last five years is evident in the data. For CUPE, this means more workers on strike, longer strikes, and more lockouts, all of which suggest an escalation in employer aggression. The Canadian data which highlight increasing public sector militancy and the feminization of that militancy suggest that CUPE will be a key player in the map of labour militancy in the future. This profile of the strike activities of CUPE, the largest union in Canada, makes visible the experience of strikes from the point of view of workers and their unions. Not only does it contribute to a labour militancy perspective on the quantitative data on work stoppages from Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC), it also demonstrates the potential of the data to enrich our understanding of worker militancies.

The Determinants for Labour Contract Length. A French Micro-Econometric Study

Two types of analyses intend to explain the determinants of labour contracts length. A first analysis emphasizes on the contracting costs and the level of uncertainty. The second analysis focuses on the incentive and selection effect of the contract length. This paper test the determinants for contract duration by means of econometric duration models. The estimates are carried out from French data called 'Trajectoires des Demandeurs d'Emploi' (TDE), conducted by the Research Direction of Employment Ministry (DARES). An econometric treatment of the endogeneity of the labour contract status (indefinite-term contract (ITC fixed-term contract (FTC), temporary contract (TC)) and unobservable heterogeneity is carried out. Our results show that wages positively affect employment duration. This confirms the positive effect of contracting costs reported. Moreover, staying in a firm more than two years increases the length of the next contract.