Industrial Relations最新文献

The length of time from the implementation of an occupational licensing statute (i.e., licensing duration) may matter in influencing labor-market outcomes as entry requirements evolve. In addition, states enact grandfather clauses that allow existing workers to continue employment following these regulations, while ratcheting up requirements to increase entry costs for new entrants. We analyze the labor-market influence of the duration of occupational licensing statutes for fifteen state universally licensed occupations over a 75-year period. We find a positive nonlinear wage effect for licensing duration. Further, we find that occupational licensing raises the wages of grandfathered workers by almost 5 percent. The licensed occupations, however, exhibit heterogeneity in outcomes. Duration of occupational licensing influences wage determination when measured over longer time periods.

Unlike earlier studies, which focus on one model, I use data on British coal mining strikes to test several models of strikes, for example, the war-of-attrition, one-sided asymmetric information and joint costs models as well as the safety valve hypothesis, which is related to “forest fire” models of strikes. I determine whether the data and estimates are compatible with these models as well as how observers in retrospective and contemporary accounts viewed these strikes. I find that the empirical and narrative evidence is supportive of the safety valve hypothesis, but is often at odds with the other (more commonly used) models.

By returning to an old insight that frames of reference influence action, we theorize that actors’ frames influence their desired HR practices, and these practices will be stable if managers and employees share similar frames. When actors’ frames are mismatched, however, HR practices can violate employee expectations and trigger a sensemaking process, potentially leading to framing contests and conflict. We hypothesize predicted patterns of conflict and expected outcomes depending on the nature of the mismatched frames. Allowing for mismatched frames uniquely highlights the importance of recognizing managers’ and employees’ frames for understanding HR outcomes and conflicts observed in practice.

Using a series of labor law reforms in the Canadian province of Ontario between 1991 and1998, this article seeks to (re)assess and compare the effectiveness of two forms of first contract arbitration (FCA) in satisfying the primary policy goals of aiding in the achievement of a first contract and in establishing lasting bargaining relationships. In contrast to previous research findings using this setting, the analysis fails to identify any statistically significant difference in the achievement of first contracts across the automatic and no-fault forms of FCA. Further, estimates do not appear to identify a statistically significant difference in the establishment of lasting bargaining relationships, defined as the settlement of three of more collective agreements, across the two forms of FCA. These findings indicate that differences observed during this period in the first contract success rate and the establishment of bargaining relationships may be confounded with other factors than the changes to first contract arbitration.

Previous research shows that gender-based board quotas alone do not increase women's share in senior management positions. We study the effects of an affirmative action policy in South Africa, which stipulates group-based targets for senior management roles, beyond boards, focusing on representing intersectional identities, sex, and race. Our findings show that the policy led to a sizable increase in employment probability in top positions for Black women relative to their employment in these positions in the counterfactual scenario of no policy. We extend our analysis and estimate policy spillovers in education, wages, and self-employment.

We adopt a novel identification strategy to examine the heterogeneous effects of Canada’s COVID-19 economic shutdown on hours worked across the earnings distribution. Early labor-market analyses found that workers in the bottom of the earnings distribution experienced a much larger reduction in hours worked than workers in the top of the earnings distribution. Our analysis reveals a double liability of low-wage work during Canada’s COVID-19 economic shutdown: while workers in every quintile experienced a large reduction in hours on average, significant increases in hours were only present among workers in the bottom quintile. Implications for crisis income supports are discussed.

Empirical work on the minimum wage typically estimates effects averaged across high- and low-wage areas. Low-wage labor markets could potentially be less able to absorb minimum wage increases, in turn leading to more negative employment effects. In this article, we examine minimum wage effects in low-wage counties, where relative minimum wage ratios reach as high as 0.82, well beyond the state-based ratios in extant studies. Using data from the American Community Survey, the Quarterly Workforce Indicators, and the Quarterly Census on Employment and Wages, we implement event study and difference-in-differences methods, estimating average causal effects for all events in our sample and separately for areas with lower and higher impacts. We find positive wage effects, especially in high-impact counties, but do not detect adverse effects on employment, weekly hours, or annual weeks worked. We do not find negative employment effects among women, Blacks, and/or Hispanics. In high-impact counties, we find substantial declines in household and child poverty. These results inform policy debates about providing exemptions to a $15 federal minimum wage in low-wage areas.

We study the determinants of superstar wage effects, asking whether productivity or popularity-based explanations are more appropriate. We use longitudinal wage and performance data for workers (players) and firms (teams) from a particular market for sports talent: Major League Soccer (MLS) in the United States. We find evidence that the top earners, whose annual salaries are mostly not accounted for by their past MLS performances, when compared to other footballers, are paid more because they attract significantly higher stadium attendances and thus revenues. There is no evidence that higher residual salary spending by the teams affects their relative performance in football terms, or that the amounts the teams spend on actual talent affect attendances. Taken together, these results suggest that a popularity-based explanation of superstar wage effects is appropriate among the top earners in this labor market.

This study examines the effect of teachers’ unions on the gender pay gap among teachers under various legal environments, using nationally representative district–teacher matched data. To identify union effects, I employ propensity score matching, considering both contractual status and teacher union density in each district as a treatment. I find that teachers’ unions significantly reduce the gender pay gap, and the union effects vary by legal environment. I also find that unions reduce teacher attrition for female teachers, but not for male teachers, thereby decreasing the gender pay gap by helping female teachers accumulate experience.

The task framework has focused on employee survey data to analyze how computer use changes the content of jobs. In this article, we add another factor of work design, namely trade union presence. Using data from the UK Skills and Employment Surveys for the period 1997–2012, we find that union presence is associated with more Tayloristic jobs involving less autonomy, lower relevance of problem solving, and more control. In line with theory, the union effect moves in the opposite direction to the effect of computer use. The article has two important general implications. First, the Tayloristic/holistic distinction is an instructive dichotomy to evaluate changes in work design. Second, the presence of unions may induce managers to design jobs in Tayloristic ways in order to curb union bargaining power.