Back to the Future: A Century of Compensation

What were the hot compensation issues and practices over the past century? Does history offer any lessons that may inform our compensation decisions in the future? To answer these questions, we reviewed newspapers and business publications from the past 100 years. To highlight changes in compensation systems during that time, we selected four topics to examine in detail in this paper: compensation\u27s role in the changing nature of the deal; the evolution of pay-for-performance; the emergence of benefits; and the bellwethers of compensation systems. Four lessons for the future are drawn. These include: End the search for the one right compensation strategy; Understand what in the context matters; Continue pragmatic experimentation, and Support continuous learning about compensation. Readers are invited to delve into the history of compensation to discover what they take away for the future

Leading the Local: Teachers Union Presidents Speak on Change, Challenges

Presidents of 30 local teachers unions in six states speak candidly about their views on a number of education issues, revealing that they are focused on far more than the traditional union priorities of wages, hours, working conditions, and due process for their members

"Nourishing European Interest Groups: The Delors Commission and Labour"

Not available

Collaboration between unions in a multi-union, non-exclusive bargaining regime: What can Canada learn from New Zealand?

The Canadian union certification system guarantees workers rights to organise, bargain collectively, and strike only when a majority of co-workers favours unionisation. This contravenes International Labour Organisation standards, in which the freedom to associate is unqualified by majority support. In recent years, the Supreme Court of Canada has drawn on ILO principles to interpret constitutional rights as covering organising and collective bargaining activities related to freedom of association under section 2(d) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, it has not as yet ordered Canadian governments to enact labour relations laws consistent with these new constitutional rights. Neither has there been a general call for such legislative change. Instead, many fear that statutory support for non-majority unionism would lead to multi-union representation and intensified inter-union competition, but fail to consider that sharing the workplace might actually promote inter-union cooperation against a common adversary in management. This study addresses this shortcoming by looking at the extent and nature of inter-union collaboration in New Zealand, where non-majority, non-exclusive representation exists already. Collaboration was found to be common, not only over bargaining and lobbying, but also in organising. Implications for Canada are explored

Fact Finding Report : Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations

This Fact Finding Report is submitted jointly to the Secretaries of Labor and Commerce. After release of this Report, the Commission plans a series of hearings and conferences with representatives of business organizations, labor organizations, other organizations that have presented testimony or statements, and the interested public to receive comments, reactions and suggestions as to the statement of facts and its implications for private and public policies and for the recommendations of the Commission.Within a period of six months of the presentation of this Report, the Commission plans to present a final report with recommendations to the two Secretaries

Teacher Collective Bargaining

This comment discusses the effect of collective bargaining by teachers on the formulation of public policy in education. Teachers usually draw on the expertise of superintendents of schools to advise them on this subject. Agreement terms from New York and California are analyzed. The focus of the analysis deals with the content of the contract and agreement clauses and the extent to which they reflect a shift of control over educational policy in specific subject areas. The emergence of teachers associations and unions has created a new pressure group potentially capable of influencing traditional state prerogatives in educational policy. California and New York have responded to the existence of these new groups in different ways. The evidence studied shows these different statutory schemes produce substantially similar results in issues related to the professionalism of public school teachers

Excessive CEO Pay: Background and Policy Approaches

[Excerpt] During the past several decades, average pay for non-management workers has stagnated, after adjustment for inflation, falling slightly since the early 1970s. In contrast, compensation of top corporate executives has risen dramatically. Supporters of current CEO pay levels argue that executive compensation is determined by normal private market bargaining, that rising pay reflects competition for a limited number of qualified candidates, and that even the richest pay packages are a bargain compared with the billions in shareholder wealth that successful CEOs create. Others, however, cite instances in which executive pay appears to be excessive. Some see a social equity problem in which CEO pay is seen to embody a troublesome rise in income and wealth inequality. Others see excessive pay as a form of shareholder abuse made possible by weak corporate governance structures and a lack of clear, comprehensive disclosure of the various components of executive compensation. This report describes the major legislative and regulatory proposals that have sought to remedy these perceived problems. It will be updated as events warrant

Unions and the Contingent Work Force

[Excerpt] Unions seeking to organize the unorganized face increasing numbers of part-time, temporary and leased employees. These contingent workers now make up more than a quarter of the American work force. Of the new work force they are the least organized and perhaps the most difficult to organize. But they are also the group most in need of the protections, benefits and representation that a union can provide. There have always been some service industries such as hotel, health care and retail, that have maintained a large contingent work force because of long hours and fluctuating demand. Also there have been many workers, especially women, students and elderly workers, who have preferred part-time and temporary employment because of family, health or educational priorities. Recently, however, American corporations have been replacing permanent full-time workers with temporary, part-time and leased employees for the sole purpose of cutting wages and salaries, increasing management flexibility, and in many cases avoiding unionization. Thus the number of part-time and temporary workers is increasing in every industry and job classification, whether assembly line worker, registered nurse, or computer programmer