Labor Unions Research Articles

The Right to Work and American Inequality

Labor historians describe Right to Work (RTW) as among the most consequential pushbacks against the early twentieth-century ascent of labor unions. Yet research on the economic consequences of RTW remains mixed, with nearly all research centered empirically and theoretically on the time surrounding RTW passage. In the current study, I use 41 waves of longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics between 1968 and 2019 to empirically and theoretically extend the mechanisms that link RTW and economic outcomes. First, following the vast majority of research on RTW, I show the demobilizing effects for labor following RTW passage: mean wages decline, wage inequality increases, and the union premium is halved in the middle and lower portion of the wage distribution. Second, I move theoretical focus beyond the time surrounding law enactment, arguing for a second-order effect whereby RTW institutionalizes a logic of polarized economic distributions and low labor power. To test this mechanism, I develop a novel strategy of comparison across respondents who are differentially mobile across state boundaries. I find individuals who cross RTW contexts experience a unique decline in mean wages and increase in wage variance, but this distinct trend can be explained by state-level institutional variation across RTW and non-RTW states. Thus, RTW is not only consequential in the periods around its passage, but also in establishing a long-standing, high-inequality regime. Results reveal multiple mechanisms by which RTW contributes to the long-run processes of union decline and broadly shared inequality growth.

China’s Transition to Collective Labor Relations: Top-Down and Bottom-Up Mechanisms

Abstract The article analyzes the development, characteristics, and tendency of China’s labor relations and the labor movement in recent years. It points out that China has begun the transition from individual labor relations to collective labor relations with the strike wave in the summer of 2010 as the main turning point. In the process of transformation, there are two kinds of forces and two ways to accomplish the labor movement. One is the top-down labor union movement led by the authorities within the system; the other is the bottom-up labor movement formed spontaneously by workers outside the system. The article particularly analyzes the emergence of, and mutual relationship between these two types of transition, as well as their influence and significance on China’s labor relations.

Labour agitation, newspaper press and radical nationalism in Nigeria: analysis of the Enugu Colliery Shootings

ABSTRACT In the analysis of decolonization process and nationalist struggles for political independence of Africa, labour agitations and the press activism for human rights are common features. But most studies have treated labour crisis and the press activism during the period of decolonization as mere subsets of the linear narrative of independence movement. Drawing on the empirical data of the Enugu Colliery Shootings incident, this paper examined labour agitation as an independent event and reviewed the area of overlap with the nationalist struggles. It re-examined the Colliery Shootings beyond the preponderant nationalist view that lumped every social, economic and political protest of the decolonization period as a single metanarrative of nationalist movements. Lastly, the roles of Nigerian newspapers as mediators in the crises between the labour unions and the colonial government, and the nationalists with the colonial government were appraised. The paper argued that, despite the interconnection of labour agitations with nationalist movements of the period, the former was both characteristically independent and coincidental with the latter. Similarly, not all human rights agitations by the newspapers were independence-focused. Finally, the nationalists, through networking process, benefited from labour agitations and press activism by expanding and molding local protests as independence movements.

The politics of energy privatization in Latin America: Contours and directions

AbstractPrescribed as a measure from international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and networks of creditors to manage debt, privatization of energy in Latin America has been a key policy from the Washington Consensus since the 1980s into the current period. The waves of privatization and neoliberal reforms that have swept Latin America during the 1980s and through the 1990s and 2000s have also brought with them massive resistance from constituencies such as labor unions, indigenous communities, students, and workers in the region. This review essay explores key debates on the politics of energy privatization in Latin America, with attention to three central questions: (1) How do foreign (exogenous) and national (endogenous) factors interact in the diffusion and implementation of energy privatization? (2) Under what conditions are protests against energy privatization effective in reversing these policies? And (3) What are the broader effects of energy privatization in the 21st century? I end this review essay with new directions for research that can help sociologists synthesize insights across political science and economics, and shed light to approaches that can be beneficial to sociologists conducting research on privatization and neoliberal reforms in Latin America in the 21st century.

Ambivalent Bias at Work: Managers’ Perceptions of Older Workers across Organizational Contexts

Managerial bias is a major source of workplace inequality and a central target of employer diversity efforts, yet we know little about the content of stereotypes and where they prevail. Stereotypes can be ambivalent, mixing negative and positive dimensions. Ambivalent stereotypes can rationalize discriminatory decision-making but they may also be more amenable to change. This article examines the prevalence of wholly negative and ambivalent age-based stereotypes across organizational contexts. Data on 551 managers reveals, first, that the modal manager holds ambivalent stereotypes about older workers, with positive perceptions of their personal attributes and negative perceptions regarding their employability. Second, both negative and ambivalent stereotypes are common in the presence of a labour union. Their prevalence declines, however, in different contexts: ambivalent stereotypes decline with increased intergroup contact and negative stereotypes decline when accountability triggers are implmented. Implications for research on work, organizations, older workers, and diversity management are discussed.

The Origins of Collaborative Governance in South Korea: An Analysis of the First Ten Years after Democratisation

South Korea’s transition to democracy in 1987 was driven by social movements. The grand democracy coalition included the opposition party and various civic associations, including student groups, labour unions, and religious organisations. Civil society continued to pressure the post-transitional governments to dismantle authoritarian structures and remove undemocratic practices. Political authoritarianism in South Korea in 1961–1987 was inseparable from the developmental state that delivered the country’s impressive economic development. Government reform after the democratisation entailed the weakening, if not dismantling, of the developmental state, to make public governance and policymaking more transparent, responsive, and participatory. In this paper we examine government reform in South Korea, focusing on the first ten years following democratisation. The Roh Tae Woo government created the Administrative Reform Committee in 1988, and the Kim Young Sam government launched the Presidential Commission for Administrative Reform in 1993. Although both agencies engaged civilians in the reform process, it was the Ministry of Government Administration and the Ministry of Finance and Economy that dominated the designing and implementing of the reforms, which demonstrates that the introduction and implementation of collaborative governance in South Korea was state led. Comparative implications are drawn from the South Korean case.

Congressional Elections and Union Officer Prosecutions

Abstract Politicizing the investigation of politically active groups is harmful for both the justice system and democratic accountability. I test whether members of the U.S. Congress affect the investigation and prosecution of politically active labor unions. Union officers are 1.5 percentage points more likely to be prosecuted when their supported candidate barely loses instead of barely wins (compared to the 3% base rate). Anecdotal evidence and a novel decomposition suggest a role for both union-supported winners protecting allies and union-opposed winners pushing for aggressive prosecution of their opponents. I show that prosecutions undermine unions' strength, and I calculate implications for the incumbency advantage.

Understanding Workers’ Financial Wellbeing in States with Right-to-Work Laws

As public interest in labor unions has increased in recent months, along with an increase in union representation petitions, it is valuable to understand the economic implications of labor unions. Previous empirical studies on the effects of labor unions and collective bargaining processes have focused on several economic outcomes ranging from workers' pay and productivity to firms' profitability, investments, and overall economic performance.

The Effect Of Labor Unions On Nursing Home Compliance With OSHA's Workplace Injury And Illness Reporting Requirement.

All US nursing homes are required to report workplace injury and illness data to the Occupational Safety And Health Administration (OSHA). Nevertheless, the compliance rate for US nursing homes during the period 2016-21 was only 40percent. We examined whether unionization increases the probability that nursing homes will comply with that requirement. Using a difference-in-differences design and proprietary data on union status from the Service Employees International Union for all forty-eight continental US states from the period 2016-21, we found that two years after unionization, nursing homes were 31.1percentage points more likely than nonunion nursing homes to report workplace injury and illness data to OSHA. Data on injuries occurring in specific workplaces play a central role in injury prevention. Further unionization could help improve workplace safety in nursing homes, a sector with one of the highest occupational injury and illness rates in the US.

The later, the better? The ethnic penalty on labor market achievement by migrant generation: evidence from Italy

The socio-economic inclusion of the children of immigrants in the host labor markets is still problematic, and connoted by a general penalization if compared with their native counterpart. Anyway, this issue has been studied only in old migration countries, while it remains largely unexplored in the new receiving ones. From this perspective, Italy represents a very interesting and uncharted case study, where first-generation migrants have already emerged as a particularly disadvantaged group. This work aims at filling this gap, by exploiting the two Eurostat "ad hoc modules" (2008; 2014) European Union Labour Force Survey. By means of multivariate statistical techniques, it will be estimated the gap in employment and socio-economic status among natives and migrants, distinguished according to their generation, and how this gap varies within the second-generation individuals with different parental area of origin.

현행 노조회계시스템의 내용과 회계부정방지방안에 관한 고찰

Public institutions or social organizations that have received financial support from the government must submit accounting-related data for the financial support they have received in accordance with relevant laws or have them accounted for by separate accounting in accordance with relevant laws and have them undergo periodic internal or external audits. there is. However, in Korea’s Trade Union Act, not only is the qualification of a union auditor and the scope of audit data that union members can request unclear, but also the scope of data reporting to administrative authorities is limited to cases requested by administrative authorities. There are limits to preventing fraud and corruption. There are cases of embezzlement or misappropriation of labor union fees by executives such as the head of a labor union, and suspicions of embezzlement of government subsidies are being raised. In order to secure the transparency of labor union accounting, there have been cases where the government has not submitted relevant data even though the government requested the labor union to submit the cover and inlay of the account books and documents based on the Trade Union Act. Therefore, after clarifying the concept of accounting under the Trade Union Act, reviewing the trade union accounting system under the Trade Union Act in Korea, and comparatively examining legislation related to the trade union accounting system in the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, and France, the implications for Korea to seek In addition, since transparency in labor union accounting is a prerequisite for securing democracy and autonomy of trade unions, clarification of labor union accounting standards, introduction of trust management duty and conflict of interest duty system for labor unions, measures to secure transparency in labor union finances, and From the viewpoint of the duty to prepare and submit an annual report, the guarantee of the right to access information to union members, the right to ask questions and the right to request data submission from administrative authorities, and the strengthening of administrative penalties for accounting corruption by trade union executives, etc. We seek to secure a fair and objective accounting system for labor unions.

일본의 노동자협동조합 운영현황 및 활용사례 연구

This study focuses on worker cooperatives, which are attracting attention as an alternative to solving various problems in the region through diversification of work methods amid the accelerated stagnation of the local economy, and examines cases of local regeneration using worker cooperatives in Japan. saw. A brief summary of the analysis results is as follows.
 First, the emergence of worker cooperatives in Japan stemmed from workers’ response to the crisis of job destruction and loss of livelihood in the process of reducing unemployment measures by the Japanese government after the war. In this way, the Japanese worker cooperative movement, which began as a countermeasure against unemployment of middle-aged and elderly people, began in the past in environmental preservation work and warehouse management work in cooperation with local governments and cooperatives, and has recently started in the welfare field(care, childcare, youth, the disabled, and living poverty).
 Second, the characteristics of practice cases using worker coSecond, the characteristics of practices using worker cooperatives in Japan are ① flexibly combined with local self-governing organizations such as social welfare councils and neighborhood associations, and ② supplying services needed by the region within the framework of cooperative labor. At the same time, recently, it has been reproducing new values in the local community by performing various secondary functions beyond simple support. ③ Socialization of cooperative labor in the region through the promotion of cooperative labor platform projects led by local governments, as in the case of Hiroshima City discussed above. effort, etc.
 Third, measures to revitalize worker cooperatives with the enforcement of Japan’s ‘Labor Cooperative Act’ include ① revitalization of joint projects through federations, ② strengthening of government and local government-level actions and financial support to create an ecosystem for worker cooperatives, and ③ The strengthening of organic linkages between labor unions and cooperatives was suggested.

Management of Worker Protection Regarding the Cancellation of the Decision of the Governor of Jakarta in Postponing the Implementation of the Minimum Wage

The purpose of this research is to find out the legal protection for the minimum wage deferral policy. And want to know the cancellation of the decision of the governor of Jakarta on the implementation of the minimum wage. This research method uses normative law. Methods of data collection are observation, interviews with the district court judges and prosecutors involved, documentation studies through existing archives on worker protection laws and official records, and supporting books that focus on labor protection. Decree of the Minister of Manpower and Transmigration No. Kep.231/MEN/2003 concerning Suspension of Implementation of the Minimum Wage. In the Jakarta Administrative Court decision Number 62/G/2021/Ptun.Jkt and Appeal Decision No. 10/B/2014/PT.Tun.Jkt, regarding the setting for the deferral of the minimum wage, needs to be reviewed, also regarding the deadline for the completeness of the files in submitting a deferral of the minimum wage. Agreements between employers and labor unions as a prerequisite for employers to carry out are contrary to law. Unions as legal subjects can sue Ptun. Legal settlement of the cancellation of the suspension of the minimum wage, can provide legal certainty for workers, and cause consequences in the settlement through a process at the Industrial Relations Court. Companies that have been declared void of their decision to suspend wages have not carried out their obligations to pay the minimum wage by the provisions.

Comparing Occupational Health and Safety Systems in Kurdistan Region and Turkey: Problems, Concerns and Solutions Related to the Systems

In this study, we aim to compare the current Occupational Health and Safety(OHS) Laws and systems in Kurdistan Region and Turkey major business partners and having a huge Kurdish population and similar culture besides being close to each other. Turkey has made great improvements in the OHS in last 10 years to comply with European Union labor law. The problems and benefits of the law in the last 10 years in Turkey will be discussed and compared with Kurdistan Region. Kurdistan Region needs to develop a well-organized OHS system through considering Turkey OHS journey to improve the working life.

Automation and unemployment: Does collective bargaining moderate their association?

The stock of robots used in industrial production in the OECD more than doubled over the last two decades. Empirically, the direction of the association between automation and (un-)employment varies across countries. Which factors explain this cross-country variation? We argue that differences in collective bargaining systems play a role. We structure the collective bargaining systems of 37 OECD and EU countries by the degree of coordination of their collective bargaining on the one hand, and by the strength of labor unions on the other hand. These results in four types of collective bargaining systems: highly coordinated with strong unions; highly coordinated with weak unions; weakly coordinated with strong unions and weakly coordinated with weak unions. We use a dynamic panel data approach to investigate whether the association between increased automation and the unemployment rates of different societal groups differs across collective bargaining systems. Our findings are consistent with the view that increased automation is positively associated with unemployment in countries where collective bargaining is weak. In coordinated systems the association is muted, notably for workers with medium skill levels, that is, for the group of workers which is frequently seen to be especially prone to be “automated away”. We cannot unveil indications of insider-outsider behavior of labor unions.

The play of ‘dirty politics’: ordinary ethics and the evidence of experience on the workfloor in New Delhi, India

AbstractThis article explores the tensed sociality amongst precariously employed service economy workers in the retail outlets of a prominent eyewear company in New Delhi, India. The bickering staff label the ongoing interpersonal strife ‘dirty politics’. Linked to this are their confident assertions that, in fact, all politics is dirty, and dirty politics is the only type of politics possible – rejecting formal party politics and labour unions as morally vacuous and motivated by utilitarian individualism. Engaging with the anthropology of ordinary ethics, the article demonstrates how the affectively charged experience and talk of petty politicking on the neoliberal workfloor provides critical ‘evidence’ that ‘confirms’ such a politico‐ethical view.

AN EXAMINATION OF THE BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF THE FUEL SUBSIDY REMOVAL ON THE NIGERIAN ECONOMY IN THE FOURTH REPUBLIC

The removal of fuel subsidy has emerged as a persistent issue in the second quarter of Nigeria's Fourth Republic. Despite the long-term benefits of the policy, Nigerians have consistently resisted attempts by the regime to revert to it. However, this government policy has received negative feedbacks from the public, public institutions, professional associations, and labour unions. The recent pronouncement by the newly inaugurated administration of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu as President elect of the Federal Republic has resulted to high prices of petrol and transportation fares all over the nation, even if it has not been fully implemented. It is based on this development that this study examined the benefits and challenges of fuel subsidy relapse on national economy. Descriptive analysis was adopted, and qualitative method of data collection was utilised to collect data for the study. Secondary sources of data, notably, books, journals, dailies, periodicals, and internet materials were utilized to obtain data. It was found out that several attempts by the previous administrations to reverse fuel subsidy policy have high negative effects on the citizens because prices of petroleum products, food items and transportation increases. The study recommends among others that the central government should pay special attention to the effects of the policy on the masses by providing palliatives to alleviate the sufferings of the people. In addition, government should provide steady electricity, regulate prices of goods and services, including transportation fare and provide adequate social amenities and infrastructures to cushion its effects on the citizens.
 Keywords: Subsidy, Fuel, Fuel subsidy, Subsidy Removal, Nigerian Economy, Regime, Benefits, Challenges.

Systematic construction of lawfulness of processing employees’ personal information under China's personal information protection law

With the rapid development and widespread use of digital technologies in the workplace in China, employers’ right to monitor and direct employees has often been abused, raising a number of disputes over the infringement of employees’ right to privacy in terms of their personal information. China must urgently develop an appropriate approach to balancing these two conflicting interests. However, there is currently no coherent and uniform regime governing the protection of employees’ personal information in China. The primary legal source on which employers can rely is the latest version of the Chinese Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), which offers three lawful bases for employers’ processing of their employees’ personal information. These bases are employee consent; “necessity for the conclusion or performance of an employment contract”; and “necessity for conducting human resource management.” Concerns have been expressed regarding the reasonableness and effectiveness of the three lawful bases under the PIPL. First, it is both legally and practically problematic for the PIPL to rely so heavily on employee consent. Second, it is unclear whether the other two lawful bases relieve employers of the duty of notification and, if so, how to safeguard employees’ right to know. Third, the ambiguous standard of “necessity” requires clarification.This article argues that China should adopt many elements from EU law, while US law should be only followed in relation to the standard of “necessity”. In relation to employee consent, the EU approach is preferable to the US approach. As the EU approach does not generally regard employees’ consent as a lawful basis for the processing of their information and uses the other two lawful bases as alternatives to employee consent, this approach better reflects the customary practices of employee subordination and employer control in China. In contrast, US law deems employee consent to be an absolute general defense to the tort of privacy violation and adopts an employer favoritism approach to balancing these two conflicting interests, which is not appropriate in the Chinese context. In relation to the scope of necessity, three tests taken from the EU and US approaches should be considered by the Chinese courts. In addition, when processing personal information based on the other two lawful bases, employers should safeguard employees’ right to know through collective contracts concluded with labor unions or employee representatives under the Chinese Labor Contract Law, which would effectively address employers’ arbitrariness. Ultimately, these changes would produce a better balance between employees’ right to privacy in terms of their personal information and employers’ need to subordinate and control employees.

After zombies: Notes on labor union and municipal renewal

If the new neoliberalism leans ever more into failure and ‘dead’ economic ideas, it also relies on the estrangement and exhaustion of its subjects, who have been depleted in the wreckage of protracted austerity; crisis as stasis. Yet, even as ‘zombie neoliberalism’ threatens to make zombies of us, teacher unionists across the U.S. organize for a more vibrant future. Turning to the case of Newark, NJ, this article shows how teachers have embraced a strategy not of bypassing or abolishing the institutions most hollowed out by neoliberal market rule but of taking these institutions over and imagining them anew. To illustrate, I show how teachers scale up campaigns from the teachers’ union to the classroom to the city, insisting each time that renewal and reckoning can transform these spaces into something more liberatory. Yet, teachers also encounter a depth of institutional inertia, detachment, and repression for which they are unprepared. The article argues that the zombie conjuncture requires an oppositional strategy of its own, one attuned to the numbing effects of crisis and the difficulties of working with the tools at hand, which have been thoroughly dulled.

Gendered identities in portuguese anti-austerity mobilisation

The austerity policies implemented following the financial crisis of 2008 in Portugal led to high contention in the public sphere. New, mostly young, and urban social movements took central stage in organising it, often articulated with traditional actors (labour unions or left-wing political parties). These movements presented a very unified image and message to the public, the media, and the institutions whose policies they opposed, based on a shared interpretation of social justice. These coalitions included feminist and LGBTQIA+ organisations, with a story of past activism which is said to have been pushed aside so they could cooperate in the priority anti-austerity arena. This paper questions whether these identities were indeed side-lined, relying on content analysis of materials made available online by those organisations to argue that feminist and LGBTQIA+ protesters framed their mobilisation through a gendered interpretation of the events and consequences of austerity, closely related to their previous values, beliefs, and incentives to participate in social activism.