Employee Unions Research Articles

Job satisfaction and employee’s unionization decision: The mediating effect of perceived union instrumentality

Purpose: Given the current lack of literature in the background of China labor force, this study aims to investigate the relationships among job satisfaction, perceived union instrumentality, and unionization from a reference-frame-based perspective and explore the referred relationships in the context of Chinese labor market. Design/methodology/approach: The study introduces perceived union instrumentality as a mediator to the relationship between job satisfaction and unionization. The applicability of western theories was tested in the Chinese context by a questionnaire survey on 390 employees who were working in private sectors of Jiangsu Province in China. Four hypothesis were proposed and tested by data analysis to verify the model. Findings and Originality/value: The study found that most aspects of job satisfaction were negatively correlated with unionization and perceived union instrumentality, while perceived union instrumentality had a positive relationship with unionization. Perceived union instrumentality was also found to have a mediating effect on the relationship between job satisfaction and unionization. Originality/value: The paper adapted and tested a number of western industrial relation theories in the backdrop of China, contributing to the gap in Chinese-context research by examining the relationships between job satisfaction, unionization and union instrumentality of Chinese employees. It pays a regular contribution to labor union studies both inside and outside China.

Enough Blame to Go Around: The Labor Pains of New York City's Public Employee Unions

Book Review| February 01 2016 Enough Blame to Go Around: The Labor Pains of New York City's Public Employee Unions Enough Blame to Go Around: The Labor Pains of New York City's Public Employee Unions. Steier, Richard. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2014xx + 281 pp., $24.95 (paper); $24.95 (e-book) Ruth Milkman Ruth Milkman Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Labor (2016) 13 (1): 158–160. https://doi.org/10.1215/15476715-3342839 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Ruth Milkman; Enough Blame to Go Around: The Labor Pains of New York City's Public Employee Unions. Labor 1 February 2016; 13 (1): 158–160. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/15476715-3342839 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsLabor Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2016 by Labor and Working-Class History Association2016 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Organizing across divides: Union challenges to precarious work in Vancouver’s privatized health care sector

The outsourcing of housekeeping, laundry and food services in Vancouver’s health care sector has created a new tier of low-paid, precariously employed workers in the private sector, the majority of whom are immigrants and women of colour. Through an in-depth case study of the Hospital Employees Union (HEU), this article examines how movement-oriented union strategies, such as living wage campaigns (LWCs), enable unions to challenge the nexus between social and economic disadvantage. My findings show that alternative union models promote inclusive forms of class solidarity; however, unions must contend with internal conflicts that divide workers along racial–ethnic boundaries and employment status.

Top Human Resources Managers Views on Trade Union Action in Brazilian Corporations

Abstract This article presents the perception of human resource (HR) top managers at strategic level in Brazilian corporations regarding labor union activity. It is a quantitative study about the perception of 354 experienced HR top managers on the unionization of employees, influence of the union on the organization, recognition of the union for labor negotiations and the existence of an advisory committee (workers’ council) within organizations. The theoretical approach addresses both the fields of study on HR and Industrial Relations (IR). The research shows low unionization and management perceptions that unions have little influence on organizations. On the other hand, the HR managers recognize the union influence for collective bargaining purposes and for defining general terms of employment. These contradictions are related to the fact that collective bargaining is mandatory in Brazilian legislation. In general terms of employment, Brazilian legislation is too rigid, prescriptive and detailed. This strong state of regulation reserves to the union an automatic participation in the negotiation process with employers, although this trade union action is somehow inefficient. In this scenario, the perception of HR managers of a relative union influence, although inefficient, is an expected consequence.

Improving Security Through Reducing Employee Rights

In the name of security, there have recently been many reductions or amendments of rights. The most widely publicized and discussed of these, in the United States, have concerned civil liberties. Less well-known, but also important, are reductions of employee rights, particularly rights of representation and employment security.Even these rights have a constitutional aspect. Government employee unions have claimed the new legislation violates employees’ due process rights under the United States’ Constitution. And, in fact, under American constitutional law, whether a government employee has a right to due process does depend on how much employment security is granted that employee by statute.I make no claim, however, that these rights are as long-established or highly valued as civil liberties. Private sector employees, as most airport screeners were until recently, have had representation rights for less than 70 years. United States government employees have had representation rights for only about 40 years, and those rights have been codified only since 1978.

Right-to-Work Laws, the Southernization of U.S. Labor Relations and the U.S. Trade Union Movement’s Decline

This article provides a framework for explaining why the right-to-work (RTW) movement is thriving in the twenty-first century’s second decade while outlining how RTW has negatively impacted the U.S. trade union movement. I argue that the recent growth of the RTW movement is due to the Southernization of U.S. labor relations that has led to not only an assault on private sector unionism but on public employee unionism as well. After presenting recent developments concerning RTW legislation, the roots of the Southernization of U.S. labor relations are discussed followed by sections outlining the historical development of the Southernization of both the U.S. working class and U.S. politics before presenting the effects of the Southernization of U.S. labor relations. The article’s penultimate section reports on the major economic effects of RTW legislation, primarily through outlining three RTW hypotheses and the associated empirical evidence. The final section proposes a methodology for potentially dealing with the RTW movement given the Southernization of U.S. labor relations.

Erratum

Labor Studies Journal Interactive Issue: Volume 40, Number 3, September 2015, guest edited by Joe Berry. In the printed version of the above issue, the special issue title is incorrect. It should read: 40 Years Later, the Impact of Harry Braverman’s Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century Instead of: Labor’s Defense of Public Employee Unionism and Fight Against Right-to-Work Laws in the Midwest

Harris v. Quinn and the Contradictions of Compelled Speech

In Harris v. Quinn, the Supreme Court held that unionized home care workers have a First Amendment right to refuse to pay their fair share of the cost of services that the union is statutorily required to provide. The Court thus transformed what had been a legislative debate about so-called right-to-work laws, which about half of states have adopted, into a constitutional requirement for one narrow category of public sector employees. The problem with transforming this policy argument into a First Amendment requirement is that treating fair share payments to a union as compelled speech raises First Amendment rights of both supporters and opponents of the union. If expenditures on union representation are speech–as the majority in Harris thinks they are–then the union’s obligation to provide free representation compels speech by the union and its members. While, in our view, the requirement to pay for legal services is not compelled speech, the Court’s entire agency fee jurisprudence, including Harris, insists that it is. On the Court’s analysis, then, laws and contracts that require unionized employees to pay for union representational services compel speech of dissenters exactly to the same extent that their prohibition compels speech of unions and their members. Moreover, to the extent that a union must rely on member dues that it would otherwise spend on political activities to cover the costs of services for free riders, the duty of fair representation owed to nonpayers would violate the First Amendment rights of the union by siphoning off money that would otherwise be used to support these activities. Accordingly, the Court must alter its usual analysis of the constitutionality of agency fee agreements and recognize that union representation requires balancing competing freedom of speech and association interests. Once the First Amendment rights of unions and union members are recognized, agency fee or fair share provisions emerge as a constitutionally sound accommodation of the interests of dissenters, unions, and union members. 1 The authors are, respectively, Chancellor’s Professor of Law and a JD candidate at the University of California, Irvine School of Law. They gratefully acknowledge comments from Nick Hartmann and research assistance from Christina Tsou. 1 Fisk and Poueymirou: Harris v. Quinn and the Contradictions of Compelled Speech Published by The Keep, 2015

Occupational Pension as Second Pillar Provision in the EU Policy Context

The ageing population in the European Union (EU) and the effects of the financial and economic crisis has strained the sustainability of public pension schemes in Member States (MS). To ensure adequate incomes for people after retirement, many MS are putting increasing emphasis on supplementary forms of retirement income. These include occupational pension schemes that provide retirement income based on employment earnings during working life. Whilst MS are responsible for the design of their pension systems, occupational pensions affect, or are affected by, various EU policies and concerns. Free movement of workers means that workers should preserve rights in occupational pensions when they move to another MS. EU-wide companies need “cost-efficient” ways to provide pensions to workers in different MS. The European Commission has proposed, or will, improvements in both areas. Furthermore, workers also need cost-effective protection against risks (including employer insolvency) and reliable pension information to make good retirement decisions. Increasing reliance on occupational pensions may put women at risk of poverty in old age. Though MS will continue to support a very wide variety of approaches to occupational pensions, the EU can contribute to ensuring that citizens enjoy an adequate and sustainable income in old age. This paper aims to give an insight into how occupational pension stands as “second pillar” provision in the EU policy context. Key issues in pension provisions in the European Union (pensions and employer insolvency, risk management, and gender) have also been discussed. Secondary data have been used in the paper and they have been analyzed using descriptive research method, with appropriate examples of occupational pension provisions in the European Union.The paper concludes that occupational pensions: a) are an efficient way of saving for supplementary pensions, and b) can offer wide coverage and economies of scale in governance, and management.

Portuguese

Given the current scenario of marketplace instability and uncertainty the way companies conduct and manage their intellectual capital (IC) is crucial. Numerous studies have highlighted the role of IC as a key driver of organizational performance due to its centrality as an asset in the value creation process, but few have analysed the relationships between IC and the staff satisfaction. Thus, we intend to answer the following question: how the three dimensions of intellectual capital (human capital, structural and relational) are perceived by credit union employees and which is the respective effect on job satisfaction? In this sense, it was pretended to determine the influence of each IC’s dimension on job satisfaction in this financial institution. This paper presents a structural model of the relationships linking the dimensions of IC – human, structural, and relational capital – to job satisfaction. In order to evaluate this model, empirical data was obtained from a questionnaire based on Bontis (1998) and applied to 109 employees of a credit cooperative in northeaster Brazil (UNICRED - Joao Pessoa). Results suggest that structural capital has a close influence over satisfaction and also plays the role of mediator between human capital and satisfaction. On the other hand, relational capital exerts no significant influence over satisfaction

Organization matters: Trade union behavior during peace and war

This paper employs a comparative institutional analysis to explain the origins of different trade union organizational structures in Germany and Great Britain as of 1913 and their macroeconomic implications. It shows that complementarities between the structures of employer and union organizations account for these differences. Therefore, I model coordinated industrywide unions and centralized employer organizations in Germany and fragmented unions and decentralized employer organizations in Britain as two equilibria of a union–employer game. I use World War I as a natural experiment to study the impact of union structure on union strategies and bargaining outcomes during the war in a union–government game and discuss long-run ramifications of the bargaining outcomes.

Academic Collective Bargaining: Patterns and Trends

Educational services, particularly higher education, has slowly and methodically become one of the most heavily unionized segments, with much greater representation than traditional labor segments. Despite these changes, the increase in academic collective bargaining has not been well documented. Consequently, the purpose of the current paper is to examine recent trends in academic collective bargaining and to compare these trends with the current unionization and collective bargaining situation in other major industries in the United States. We begin with a comparative analysis of unionization in the United States by industry. The summary data we present indicate that the educational services industry is the third largest industry category in the United States and is the most highly unionized industry in the nation. Next, we tighten our focus to examine recent patterns and trends in academic collective bargaining. The data suggest that colleges and universities are a major sector in the overall employment landscape of the United States with academic collective bargaining representing one of the most important growth segments within the U.S. labor movement. In short, higher education unionization is expanding at a faster rate than overall union growth with the expansion of graduate student employee unionization as an area of special interest.

The perceptions of unionised employees on grievance and disciplinary matters at a higher education institution in South Africa

This article examines the perceptions of unionised members on the handling of grievance and disciplinary matters against management of a higher education institution. Using a sample of thirty-four unionised members in one of the higher education institutions in South Africa, the study found that unionised members perceived the management of higher education institution as abusing its power against unionised employees. The management treats unionised employees negatively based on race and further denies unionised members an opportunity to engage freely on issues of labour. The other finding is that unionised members feel strongly to belong to the unions in spite of the union’s leadership’s lack of knowledge and poor representation of its members against the management of a higher education institution. The findings suggest that unionised members felt undermined and disregarded by management whilst they are not happy on how their own leadership handles the grievance and disciplinary matters.

The Effects of Union and Non-Union Forms of Employee Representation on High-Performance Work Systems

This paper investigates the effects of union and non-union employee representation (ER) on the use of high-performance work systems (HPWS) in the French context. We use micro-data from a nationally...

Focus: Labour rights under attack by Park Geun-Hye government

INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 10 Volume 22 Issue 1 2015 Four attacks in 2013 exemplify the administration’s hostility to labour FOCUS ❐ SOUTH KOREA W hile successive Korean governments have been hostile to organised labour, and workers generally, the current government led by President Park, Guen-Hye has taken anti-union hostility to a new level. President Park, the daughter of Park, Chung-hee (the military strongman who took power in coup d’etat in 1961 and ruled Korea as President until assassinated in 1979), has moved quickly to crack down on militant unions upon assuming office on 25 February 2013. She has also moved to ban leftleaning political parties, such as the Unified Progressive Party. The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (‘KCTU’) has gone so far as to call for her to step down, and has organised general strikes opposing her government’s policies. It is now roughly two decades since Korea joined the ILO and the OECD, in both cases committing to bring its laws and practices into line with international standards on fundamental workers’ rights including on collective bargaining and freedom of association. Progress made in this direction is now being dramatically reversed. Four attacks in 2013 exemplify the administration’s hostility to labour. ■ On 24 October 2013, the Ministry of Employment and Labour (‘MOEL’) unilaterally revoked the registration of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers Union (‘KTU’). Its decision was based on the fact that the union’s constitution allowed dismissed and retired members to remain members and leaders. Around 40 members of KTU were dismissed during the previous administration for their activities including expressing their opinion on the governments’ education policy and/or for donations to progressive political parties. These workers, whose dismissals were also questioned by the ILO, are considered members of the KTU. Korean labour law provides that dismissed workers are not eligible to remain members or to be leaders – in direct contravention of international law and specifically criticised by the ILO. Though the union secured a temporary injunction, the court eventually upheld the government action in June 2014, ending collective agreements and forcing union officials to end all representational activity and return to the classroom . The KTU then appealed to the High Court seeking an injunction and challenged the constitutionality of the ban on dismissed teachers joining unions to the Constitutional Court. The High Court granted an injunction on 19 September 2014 and the constitutional complaint was accepted. The legal status of the KTU was immediately restored and the Education Ministry has refrained from further action awaiting the decision of the Constitutional Court. ■ For over a decade, the Korean Government Employees Union (‘KGEU’) has attempted to register without success1 . Among the reasons was the fact that the union constitution, like that of the KTU, allows dismissed workers to remain as members of the union2 . The latest attempt at registration began on 27 May 2013, when the KGEU submitted a new application to the MOEL. The MOEL requested supplemental information by 22 July. In July, negotiations between the parties continued during which the KGEU proposed amendments to its Constitution. The KGEU believed that these amendments had been accepted by the government and convened a congress to revise the Constitution. On 22 July, the union submitted the supplementary materials to the MOEL. On 2 August, the MOEL returned the application and again denied the registration, stating that the constitution could still be interpreted to allow dismissed workers to retain membership. In November 2013, the government raided the KGEU headquarters and searched the union’s computer servers, alleging that the union violated Korean law requiring civil servants to remain politically neutral – a provision also criticised by the ILO. The union continues to function as an illegal organisation. In response to government plans to move forward with a rail privatisation plan, which was strongly opposed by the public, the members of the Korean Railway Workers Union (‘KRWU’) voted in overwhelming numbers to strike starting December 2013. The last time the KRWU struck, in 2009, the government declared the strike illegal despite the union following the letter of the law – which in Korea places substantial limitations on the right to strike in the transportation sector. The government...

Labour Demands, Regime Concessions: Moroccan Unions and the Arab Uprising

This article investigates how public employee unions mobilised to take advantage of Morocco's Arab uprising. Leveraging their positions as operators of public institutions, these unionists exploited the unrest to strategically advance their interests. Two points emerge from this account of state—labour relations in Morocco. First, a spike in labour contestation began in early 2010, presaging the unrest that rocked Moroccan cities in 2011. Second, the unions secured their demands through traditional tactics of labour mobilisation—joining street protests, exaggerating material demands, and threatening negotiation walkouts. This strategy, however, became more efficacious during the Arab uprising. Fearing urban riots that had historically grown from labour protests since the 1980s, regime elites conceded to union demands, many of which they had previously rejected in the 2000s.

The future of trade unions in Croatia – various stakeholders’ perspectives

This article explores different stakeholders’ perceptions of the future of trade unions in Croatia. Findings reveal that respondents (managers, HR experts, trade union officials, government representatives and employees) are not optimistic about the future of trade unions in Croatia, agreeing that they will face many obstacles in the near future, such as a lack of consensus between the five trade union federations, a lack of agreement among the unions within a federation, and further union disintegration. However, survey respondents believe that there are many strategies capable of revitalizing the union movement in Croatia, including networking, ‘organizing unionism’ and union modernization.

Union politicization in Sri Lanka: dimensions and measurement

Through trade unions are mostly viewed as employee organizations protecting employee‟s interests, they have political dimension too. Politicization of employee unions has added an extra complexity not only to their behavior, but also to their impact on organizations in industrial relations. Therefore, this political dimension of employee unions has to be taken into account in studies on unions. Researchers have identified two dimensions of union politicization namely political instrumentality and political ideology. Measurement of union politicization should incorporate both the political instrumentality and political ideology dimensions of union politicization. However, past researches have used either the political instrumentality or political ideology in measuring union politicization depending on their research context. The aim of this study is to test the goodness of measure of the union politicization in Sri Lankan Context. Data was collected from 136 public sector employee selected using stratified random sampling. Exploratory factor analysis and reliability testing were applied for testing the validity and reliability of the measurement. It was found that both political instrumentality and political belief dimensions are validly and reliably held in explaining the union politicization in Sri Lankan context. Further, results and implications are discussed so that it can be used for future research on union politicization.

Toward Worthy Performance: A Case Study on Western Union's Training Program

Western Union has been a leader in the telegraph and money transfer industry for more than a century. However, in 2006, when the last telegram was sent, the company needed to overhaul its focus and retrain its global workforce. This case study analyzes Western Union's employee training and development program circa 2012 and uses Kirkpatrick's four levels of evaluation model to assess the program's overall training effectiveness.

Political Impotence . . . Union-Made: Enough Blame to Go Around: The Labor Pains of New York City’s Public Employee Unions

Political Impotence . . . Union-Made: <i>Enough Blame to Go Around: The Labor Pains of New York City’s Public Employee Unions</i>