The Effect of Collective Bargaining Legislation on Strikes and Wages

Using Canadian data on large, private-sector contract negotiations from January 1967 to March 1993, we find that strikes and wages are substantially influenced by labor policy. The data indicate that conciliation policies have largely been ineffective in reducing strike costs. In contrast, general contract reopener provisions appear to make both unions and employers better off by reducing negotiation costs without systematically affecting wage settlements. Legislation banning the use of replacement workers appears to lead to significantly higher negotiation costs and redistribution of quasi-rents from employers to unions.Collective Bargaining; Strikes; Labor Legislation

The De-Collectivisation of Pay Setting in Britain 1990-1998: Incidence, Determinants and Impact

Overall, collective bargaining coverage has dropped by around fourteen percentage points. This paper investigates the causes and consequences of the decline in collective bargaining in Britain between 1990 and 1998. One in three workplaces that practiced collective bargaining in 1990 had abandoned it by 1998 and the incidence and coverage of collective bargaining in newer workplaces was lower than in the workplaces they replaced. The abandonment of collective bargaining was not associated with an increase in individualised payment mechanisms or with the use of 'high involvement' HRM practices. Workplaces that abandoned bargaining reported less impressive productivity gains than other workplaces. Male wage inequality rose as a result of the decline of bargaining coverage and of weaker unions where collective bargaining remained. Higher levels of job creation in workplaces that abandoned collective bargaining balance these negative outcomes.Collective bargaining, de-collectivisation, wage dispersion

China Employment Law Update - April 2014

[Excerpt] The government of the southern province of Guangdong publicly issued draft Collective Bargaining and Collective Contract Regulations, which, if passed into law, would grant employees a right to strike in certain circumstances. According to the draft regulations, if no less than 1/3 of all employees or employee representative council members demand that a collective bargaining process be initiated, the company union or (if the company has no labor union) the upper level union should send a written demand to the management for collective bargaining. The management must respond to such demand within 20 days after receipt of the demand notice. If the management fails to respond or refuses the demand for collective bargaining without justification, and the employees go on strike, then the employer may not terminate the striking employees. This would put further pressure on companies to engage in good-faith collective bargaining with employees if and when such a demand is made by the company union or other employee representatives. However, if the management agrees to collective bargaining, and during the collective bargaining process some employees strike or engage in other disruptive activities, e.g. blocking entrances or exits of the company’s facility, then such employees can be terminated if their conduct is defined as serious violation of company rules in the company’s legally adopted rules or policies

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

The Links Between Collective Bargaining and Equaliy

Working paper by Adelle Blackett and Colleen Sheppard, prepared for the ILO, analyzes the links between collective bargaining and equaliy at international level and addresses the efforts to monitor and regulate the right of association and collective bargaining

German Works Councils and the Anatomy of Wages

This paper provides a comprehensive examination of the effect of German works councils on wages, using matched employer-employee data from the German LIAB for 2001. In general, we find that works councils are associated with higher earnings, even after accounting for worker and establishment heterogeneity. At this level, the works council premium exceeds the collective bargaining mark-up, and is modestly higher in the presence of collective bargaining once we account for worker selection into the two institutions. More specifically, works councils do seem to benefit women relatively and to build on collective bargaining in this regard. They also seem to favor foreign, east-German, and service-sector workers although the effects of collective bargaining are not always reinforcing. The evidence from quantile regressions suggests that only in conjunction with collective bargaining is the narrowing influence of works councils really clear-cut. The above findings pertain to workers in all plants. Once we consider smaller establishments with 21-100 employees, however, each of these results is further qualified, beginning with the effect on wage levels where premia are now only observed in conjunction with collective bargaining.works councils, collective bargaining coverage, matched employer-employee data, wages, wage distribution.

Collective bargaining in sport: challenges and benefits

This article analyses the relationship between sport law and employment law – in particular, the legal recognition and involvement of collective bargaining in professional sport. Drawing on a number of specific examples – professional rugby, Formula One motor racing and mixed martial arts – this article attempts to identify existing and possible future challenges for the applicability of collective bargaining in this unusual legal context. Section B sets out the general advantages of collective bargaining in a sporting context, then explores the applicable legal structures and characteristics present in professional sport in more detail. Section C examines these characteristics in the specific context of professional rugby, motor racing and mixed martial arts. Finally, Section D examines both systemic and specific legal issues that may arise if and when collective influence grows in the professional sporting employment relations. The conclusion of this article, Section E, is that, whilst collective bargaining presents a number of challenges to the law of professional sport, these challenges can (and should) be overcome

Collective Bargaining and Employees in the Public Sector

Faced with distressed state budgets and lower revenue, many governors and state legislatures have focused on the collective bargaining rights of public employees as a way to control expenses. Legislation that would limit such rights has reportedly been introduced in at least 22 states. In general, the sponsors of such legislation contend that unionized state and local employees enjoy unsustainable salaries and benefits as a result of collective bargaining. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 26.8% of all federal employees are members of a union. A slightly higher percentage of state employees—31.1%—are union members. At the local government level, 42.3% of employees are union members. Although all of these employees engage in some form of collective bargaining through their unions, the scope of such bargaining is generally different for federal and state and local workers. In addition, because the collective bargaining rights of state and local employees are defined by state law, other variations in bargaining may exist among these workers. Subjects that are negotiable in one state, for example, may not be negotiable in another state. This report examines the collective bargaining rights of federal, state, and local workers. The report also discusses the constitutional concerns that may be raised by state legislation that attempts to invalidate existing collective bargaining agreements. In Michigan, the Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act (“Fiscal Accountability Act”) was adopted on March 16, 2011. Under the Fiscal Accountability Act, the governor may appoint an emergency manager if he determines that a local government financial emergency exists. The emergency manager would have broad powers to rectify the financial emergency, including the ability to reject, modify, or terminate one or more terms and conditions of an existing collective bargaining agreement. If the emergency manager were to reject, modify, or terminate one or more terms and conditions of an existing agreement, constitutional concerns would likely be raised under the Contract Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits a state from passing any law “impairing the Obligation of Contracts.

Fundamental of collective bargaining in industrial relation

Bargaining plays a vital role in the economic process and it has received large attention in the economic literature. Industrial relation is a field that studies about the employment relationship which it’s an interrelation between the employer and employee or the organization and the trade union. Collective bargaining is defined as the dispute between the employer and employee where this dispute can be settled through discussion and negotiation where both parties can come to a mutual agreement and also as one decision (Edmund Heery, Nicholas Bacon, Paul Blyton & Jack Fiorito, 2010). Usually the trade union represent the employee’s interests towards the employer which the employee belongs to the trade union as well. The collective bargaining is usually about the wages scales, working hours, healthcare and safety and also training. Collective bargaining is adapt more easily when the employees demand meets the employers flexibility and easier when the firms boundary is changed accordingly. In collective bargaining wages is a topic that’s regularly being discussed or negotiated between the employer and employee (Arun, 2000; Sinha, 2000)

The cost and benefits of collective bargaining : a survey

Collective bargaining and dispute resolution mechanisms facilitate coordination. Coordination is increasingly seen as an influential determinant of labor market and macroeconomic performance. This paper provides a systematic review of the relevant literature with a specific focus on the role that collective bargaining plays in shaping macroeconomic performance. We focus on comparative studies of labor market institutions in the OECD area that try to disentangle the impact of different institutional approaches to collective bargaining from other determinants of macroeconomic performance.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Labor Management and Relations,Social Protections&Assistance,Labor Standards