Wage Disputes Research Articles

Prevention and Resolution of Labor Disputes

The study covers preventive dispute resolution methods in industrial relations, as well as empirical testing of hypotheses regarding labor disputes in Russia. The hypothesis regarding the impact of the number of laid-off employees at the initiative of the employee on the number of labor lawsuits to reinstate employment filed is not supported. The hypothesis regarding the impact of the number of laid-off employees due to staff reduction on the number of Russian labor lawsuits to reinstate employment filed is supported. The largest number of disputes settled via mediation in Russia is labor wage disputes. The number of Russian labor disputes settled via mediation is still a small proportion of the total number of terminated labor disputes.

Revisiting the impact of organized labor on corporate bottom lines

PurposeRelying on an international panel data set, the purpose of this paper is to quantify the economic impact of labor unionization on corporate financial performance.Design/methodology/approachStatic panel regression analysis is performed for a firm-level multinational data set to elucidate the postulated empirical relationships between employee unionization and corporate performance. The transmission mechanisms intermediating the studied effects are discussed and operationalized.FindingsThe empirical evidence demonstrates that firms with a higher level of employee unionization spend more on wages and labor-related expenses. The concomitant downside of higher resource extraction by unions is a lower rate of net employment creation and a higher possibility of redundancy layoffs.Originality/valueOverall, the authors demonstrate that by creating a credible threat of employee disobedience manifested through strikes and internal wage disputes, labor unions remain an effective mechanism of increasing employees’ bargaining power. Despite the discovered weak negative associative link between the degree of unionization and corporate financial performance, the authors perceive the overall evidence to be inconclusive on this matter.

Revealing the Hybrid Patterns: Conflict Coverage as a Product of a Commercial and a Normative Media Logic

When covering societal conflicts, journalists often feel a tension between normative and commercial requirements. Consequently, media coverage has a hybrid character consisting of elements ascribed to both a normative and a commercial media logic. Therefore, analyzing the prevalence of single elements in media coverage reveals only part of the story. Taking nine wage disputes in Germany between 2003 and 2015 as prominent instances of nonviolent conflicts, we aim at revealing the structure of news coverage ( n = 1,181). A cluster analysis unfolded four distinct patterns of conflict coverage. The results indicated that the ideal-type dichotomy between a commercial and a normative media logic is more differentiated: Emotionalization and human interest framing separated patterns into some, which were more aligned to a commercial logic, and others, which were more characteristic for a normative logic. However, negativity, background information, and a hard-facts-first structure played a multifold role with the highest amount of background information being accompanied by the highest levels of negativity. Furthermore, conflict phase (strike vs. bargaining phase), conflict type (low vs. high potential impact on society), and media outlets’ genre (quality vs. tabloid vs. news agency) were identified as antecedents of the coverage patterns.

A Critical Review of Waging in Indonesian Law

This article is comprehensive look of waging in Indonesian law. Waging in employment still pose a problem. No details of the principle of fair and decent with the policies or the application of the rules of waging, always give rise to new issues and discourse. For the Government, to apply fair and decent wage does not merely make the norm on paper but should be able to guarantee the implementation of the norms in society. This paper uses the literature method with the concept approach. This article discover that the wage disputes can be avoided whereas industrial society interpret the wages in return for the sacrifice that has been given and is able to meet the needs of food, clothing and housing. Then it is not worth it if one party for their maximum benefit utilizing weakness of workers by making the waging system that ignores the principle of fair and decent.

The Determination of Standards in Wage Disputes

The domicile or nationality of the owners it not a factor in determining wages. The Board criticizes the choice of wage criteria by the Company and the Union.

Myanmar in 2013

The year 2013 in Myanmar saw parliaments disagreeing with the executive. A joint parliamentary committee to review and amend the Constitution was formed. Western sanctions were virtually withdrawn. A resurgence of communal violence, the emergence of Buddhist nationalism, and public protest over mega-projects, land rights, wage disputes, and freedom to demonstrate were worrisome developments. A nationwide ceasefire agreement remained elusive.

The demise of social partnership or a balanced recovery? The crisis and collective bargaining in Slovakia

This article analyses the effects the crisis is having on collective bargaining processes, outcomes and institutions in national and sectoral negotiations in the Slovak Republic. It argues that the crisis has had no effect on the continuing demise of social partnership and on trade union marginalization at national level. At sectoral level, the crisis helped two highly organized sectors from the private and public domains of the Slovak economy – the metalworking and health care sectors – consolidate their bargaining institutions, though without bargaining outcomes improving trade union positions. Consolidation has been achieved through procedural changes to bargaining specific to each sector: intensified bargaining as a result of social partners’ common interest in anti-crisis employment measures in the metalworking sector; and the associational strength of trade unions and employer organizations despite escalating post-crisis wage disputes in the health care sector. Sector-level bargaining has thus contributed to a balanced recovery from the crisis more than national-level social dialogue.

The Promise of a More Abundant Life: Consumer society and the rise of the managerial state

In the decades following the turn of the century, the rising cost of living was a subject of controversy in Canada and throughout the industrialized world. No other topic, observers often noted, commanded more attention. Rising prices exacerbated wage disputes, and intensified tensions between traditional producer values and the acceptance of new patterns of purchasing. This article explores the bond formed between Canadian consumers and the managerial state by the investigation of changes in the cost of living. In order to measure changes in the prices of goods and services, it is necessary to examine the consumption practices of Canadians. This process of data collection and collation helped to normalize new consumer behaviours, and embedded the category of the Canadian citizen as a wage spender, as well as a wage earner, in the workings of government. By engaging with consumption, that is by representing, by measuring, and by categorizing the changing purchasing practices of its citizens, the state expanded its mandate and helped to shape the way Canadians came to see themselves as consumers.

Getting Paid: Processing the Labor Disputes of China's Migrant Workers

Many of China's 150 million migrant workers travel from their rural homes to labor in the cities each year only to have their wages withheld by their employer. This phenomenon has led to riots, protests and violence by frustrated migrants. Therefore, finding a better means for resolving these wage disputes is crucial to preserving China's social stability. This article examines the various paths that migrants can take to get this money back. It argues that despite government attention to this problem, the formal dispute resolution system of arbitration and court tribunals has failed these workers because it is both inaccessible to them and ineffective at resolving their disputes. Instead, informal mediation is a far more suitable and effective means of inducing employers to pay the wages owed to the workers. Moreover, a case study of the organization Little Bird reveals how NGOs may be more successful at mediating these disputes than are government officials. This article is based on over two years of fieldwork in China, which includes countless interviews of the actors involved in the labor dispute resolution system, a review of internal government reports, Chinese laws and regulations, media reports, official handbooks and scholarly articles, as well as the observation of several labor arbitrations and mediations. In concluding, the article considers the options for reforming the China's labor dispute resolution system, the significance of the 2007 Labor Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Law, and the implications of this paper's findings on the rule of law and social stability in China.

Getting Paid: Processing the Labor Disputes of China's Migrant Workers

Many of China's 150 million migrant workers travel from their rural homes to labor in the cities each year only to have their wages withheld by their employer. This phenomenon has led to riots, protests and violence by frustrated migrants. Therefore, finding a better means for resolving these wage disputes is crucial to preserving China's social stability. This article examines the various paths that migrants can take to get this money back. It argues that despite government attention to this problem, the formal dispute resolution system of arbitration and court tribunals has failed these workers because it is both inaccessible to them and ineffective at resolving their disputes. Instead, informal mediation is a far more suitable and effective means of inducing employers to pay the wages owed to the workers. Moreover, a case study of the organization Little Bird reveals how NGOs may be more successful at mediating these disputes than are government officials. This article is based on over two years of fieldwork in China, which includes countless interviews of the actors involved in the labor dispute resolution system, a review of internal government reports, Chinese laws and regulations, media reports, official handbooks and scholarly articles, as well as the observation of several labor arbitrations and mediations. In concluding, the article considers the options for reforming the China's labor dispute resolution system, the significance of the 2007 Labor Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Law, and the implications of this paper's findings on the rule of law and social stability in China.

Criteria in Arbitration of Wage Disputes: Theory and Practice in the Canadian Federal Public Service

Criteria in Arbitration of Wage Disputes: Theory and Practice in the Canadian Federal Public Service

Rise and Fall of a Nation of Joiners: The Knights of Labor Revisited

The rise and fall of Knights of Labor organization (1869Ð1917) has frequently been portrayed as a crucial event in history of exceptionalism. The KnightsO collapse heralded rise of more conservative unions (such as American Federation of Labor), which largely eschewed cause of major sociopolitical reform, focusing instead on minor wage disputes and workshop improvements. The impact of external competition from fraternal lodges and trade unions on Knights' ability to retain members is often overlooked. Both quantitative and qualitative evidence support conclusion that a profusion of voluntary associations during the golden age of fraternity had unintended consequence of undermining American workers' ability to organize and maintain a vital constituency mobilized for decisive political action.

Arbitrator Decisions in Wisconsin Teacher Wage Disputes

This study examines the role of wage comparability in the decisions of arbitrators in final offer wage disputes between Wisconsin teachers and school boards in 1977–86. The authors find that wage increases agreed to earlier in the bargaining round by comparable school districts (specifically, other districts within the same athletic conference) had a substantial impact on the decisions of the arbitrators. This result is not predicted by most theoretical studies of interest arbitration, but it is consistent with previous institutional research, the written awards of Wisconsin arbitrators, and the bargaining strategies of the parties.

Arbitrator Decisions in Wisconsin Teacher Wage Disputes

Arbitrator Decisions in Wisconsin Teacher Wage Disputes

Capturing Arbitrator Decision Policies Under a Public Sector Interest Arbitration Statute

Twenty-two arbitrators experienced in deciding wage disputes under the Wisconsin Police and Firefighter Arbitration Act participated in an experimental study designed to capture the relative weights they apply to various statutory criteria. The nine criteria examined represent ed the broad categories of wage comparability, employer ability to pay, and cost of living. Different equity standards (anchor equity, absolute equity, and parity) were also studied to give a broader perspective to the historically important wage comparability. Objective and subjec tive relative weights were compared as well, allowing for an analysis of arbitrator self-insight into their decision policies.

Tyranny, Work and Politics: The 1818 Strike Wave in the English Cotton District

SUMMARYCritics of E. P. Thompson have questioned his emphasis on the ties between radicalism and trade unionism in early nineteenth-century England; historians have likewise described the 1818 strikes as simple wage disputes in which the radicals played a negligible role. This essay challenges these assumptions about the 1818 strikes and radicalism. In the summer of 1818, when a wide range of grievances touched off the strike wave, the radicals rallied to the side of the trades and sometimes served as leaders of the strikes; that summer the radicals and striking trades also drew upon and contributed to a shared repertoire of old and new tactics and forms of action.

Public Sector Industrial Relations: Recent Developments

Increasingly public sector industrial relations have become the central concern of governments, practitioners and academics. The main purpose of this monograph is to review key developments in public sector industrial relations, particularly during the period of the Thatcher Government. The emphasis is on the public services, especially local government, the NHS and the civil service. In the first section we review trends in public sector employment (particularly in the light of Government policy to reduce it), wages (in a context of cash limits), and strikes and other forms of industrial action. In the second part we move from “outcomes” to consider recent developments in the structure, organisation and policy of the “actors” in public sector industrial relations. In particular, we examine union organisation, developments in personnel management, bargaining structure, wage determination machinery and procedures, dispute resolution and privatisation initiatives. Developments in these areas are set in the context of the traditional features which distinguish public sector industrial relations from other spheres. In many of the areas under consideration, trends and developments set in train by the post‐1979 Conservative Government are still in the process of being worked out. Overall public sector employment has fallen, but with considerable variation around the average. National wage disputes, with considerable numbers of working days lost, have characterised the public sector since 1979, but the frequency of industrial conflict should not be exaggerated. There are moves to decentralise union and management structures, but the consequences of this have yet to be realised. Pay, however, remains problematic for government, employing authorities and unions. Since 1981–2, public sector settlements have generally been below the rate of inflation, but above the cash limit. The ad hoc policy of determining public sector pay by a mixture of review bodies, measures of comparability and market forces has created an overall picture of confusion. Establishing a fair and rational system of public sector pay remains a key task for any future government.

On the Theory of Bargaining, Strikes, and Wage Determination under Uncertainty

On the theory of bargaining, strikes, and wage determination under uncertainty. The theory of wage disputes, strikes, and their settlement is re-examined in a model of active negotiation of both sides. Pre-strike bargaining and post-strike negotiations at discrete time points are characterized by the search for optimal decisions by each side based on its assumptions about the other side's unknown real intentions. Hence a strike or its continuation is a result of optimization processes by both sides under uncertainty. The effects of uncertainty on the strike duration and final settlement are analysed, and an estimate of the strike duration after each meeting is given.

Memories of the Herrin Massacre

Herrin, a small coal mining town in southern Illinois, has earned an infamous reputation because of its bloody family feuds, KKK presence, and perhaps most famously, for being the site of the “Herrin Massacre.” After union mineworkers went on strike over wage disputes in 1922, the owner of Lester Mine replaced them with non-union employees. This led to a deadly, violent exchange between the union and non-union mineworkers. My primary research interest in this massacre is to understand the historical trauma and present-day impacts this tragedy has had on the community. Through interviews with relatives and friends of those who took part in the Herrin Massacre, I have discovered the beginnings of a healing process taking place in Herrin, Illinois. The memories of the massacre are still foremost in the community’s minds; nevertheless there is some indication that the intensity of the conflict is lessening as a communal memory.

The Arbitration of Public Employee Wage Disputes

Deals with a study that developed an equitable standard to be used in the arbitration of wage disputes among public employees. Problems with arbitration; Availability of tax resources; Determinants of need. (Abstract copyright EBSCO.)