Employee Choice Research Articles

Workers' Preferences among Company-Provided Health Insurance Plans

Data from four plants of a single company are used to examine differences in health plan selection in 1989 among employees offered a choice of plans. A 10% increase in the traditional fee-for-service (FFS) plan premium reduced the fraction choosing that plan by 4–9 percentage points, and a doubling of the deductible reduced the plan's market share by 3–4 percentage points. Most workers rejecting such a plan chose the high-premium prepaid plans, which offer the lowest cost-sharing provisions. On the other hand, attaching a modest deductible to prepaid plans reduced their market share by 3–4 percentage points and increased participation in the traditional FFS plan, which requires a relatively high premium but low cost-sharing. The authors also find that increases in real salaries and in the age of the work force boosted employee choice of the traditional FFS plan.

Employee choice among unions: the case of nurses in the NHS

This article examines the main factors that shape the choice made by individual nurses in the NHS concerning which union they join. The research methods include surveys, case studies, interviews and participant observation. Among the findings from the work is the relatively strong influence of an individual nurse's discipline or area of training on this particular choice or decision.

Premiums, benefits, and employee choice of health insurance options

Determinants of health insurance choices are estimated from a logit model and data from the National Medical Care Expenditure Survey. Employees offered a choice between traditional health insurance plans chose the high option and the low option in roughly equal numbers. About a quarter of the employees who were offered enrollment in an HMO selected the HMO in preference to a traditional plan. Prices figured significantly in both types of decisions, with the choice between traditional plans about twice as sensitive to prices as the decision to enroll in an HMO. Comprehensive hospital benefits and superior catastrophic protection also appeared to be important factors in the choice of health insurance plans.

Individual employee choice between unions: some public sector evidence from Britain

Here the authors use sample data to identify some of the major influences on why nurses choose to be a member of one union, as opposed to other unions, in the NHS

Employee Choice of Health Insurance

A new specification of health-insurance-plan choice is developed that uses a nonparametric functional form for the loss function used to evaluate insurance premiums and uncertain out-of-pocket expenditure. The approach is implemented on data resulting from one firm's implementation of a new health plan with three distinct health insurance options. Health expenditure differences greater than 500 percent are observed, indicating extremely strong biased selection. Plan choices are consistent with a convex loss function for small losses, which suggests that consumers underweight high-loss/low-probability outcomes relative to low-loss/high-probability ones. Copyright 1989 by MIT Press.

Reassessing technological choices

Some modern technology has made work less meaningful for large numbers of people; it has reduced freedom of choice for both managers and employees and imposed inappropriate decisions on organizations. At the same time, technological advances can be beneficial and make work less onerous and more flexible. The paper will illustrate positive as well as negative aspects of changes in technology by stressing the existence of choice through the use of socio-technical thinking in two case examples. Appropriate choices can lead to greater work autonomy and improved utilization of human competence.

Norris Decision Will Narrow Employee Choices

Norris Decision Will Narrow Employee Choices

Section 8(a) (3) of the NLRA and the Effort to Insulate Free Employee Choice

S ECTION 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer discrimination in regard hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment or discourage in any labor organization.' The purpose of this section is to allow employees freely exercise their right join unions, be good, bad, or indifferent members, or abstain from joining any union without imperiling their livelihood.2 In accord with this policy the Court has held that encourage or discourage membership means also or discourage participation in union activities or fulfillment of union obligations.3 Since almost any employer response union activity will have a tendency or discourage union membership, the development of rules governing application of section 8(a)(3) has necessarily involved an attempt achieve a compromise between the employee's interest in freely choosing whether or not engage in union activity and the employer's interest in running his business as he sees fit.4 Hence, the most sensible method of determining whether section 8(a)(3) applies in a given type of case is by balancing the importance of the employer's interest against the likely degree of encouragement or discouragement of union membership. This approach is widely employed, and there is considerable language in the opinions stressing its importance.5

Employee Choice and Some Problems of Race and Remedies in Representation Campaigns

Employee Choice and Some Problems of Race and Remedies in Representation Campaigns

Local Independent and National Unions: Competitive Labor Organizations

Previous articleNext article No AccessLocal Independent and National Unions: Competitive Labor OrganizationsLeo TroyLeo Troy Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Political Economy Volume 68, Number 5Oct., 1960 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/258365 Views: 9Total views on this site Citations: 8Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1961 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Victor G. Devinatz “Glorified Messengers for Management” or “Legitimate Unionism”? An Analysis of Local Independent Unions in the Post-Company Union Era, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal 18, no.44 (Nov 2006): 231–247.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10672-006-9021-zTimothy J. Bartkiw, Felice Martinello Union Raiding and Organizing in Ontario, Relations industrielles 60, no.22 (Dec 2005): 273–295.https://doi.org/10.7202/011722arFelice Martinello, Robert Hanrahan, Joseph Kushner, Isidore Masse Union Raiding Activity and the Value of Canadian Firms: Do Unions Pick Stock Market Winners?, Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences / Revue Canadienne des Sciences de l'Administration 20, no.22 (Apr 2009): 135–148.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1936-4490.2003.tb00699.xMarcus Hart Sandver, Kathryn J. Ready Trends in and determinants of outcomes in multi-union certification elections, Journal of Labor Research 19, no.11 (Mar 1998): 165–172.https://doi.org/10.1007/s12122-998-1008-0Charles G. Smith, Hugh D. Hindman, Stephen J. Havlovic A Discriminant Analysis of Employee Choice in a Multiunion Representation Election, Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences / Revue Canadienne des Sciences de l'Administration 14, no.33 (Apr 2009): 235–245.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1936-4490.1997.tb00133.x References, Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society 31, no.11 (Jan 1992): 216–228.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-232X.1992.tb00306.xChris Riddell The Nature of Union Raiding: Evidence from British Columbia, 1978–1998, (): 269–293.https://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-6186(06)15006-4Leo Troy Labor representation on American railways, Labor History 2, no.33 (Jul 2008): 295–322.https://doi.org/10.1080/00236566108583880