Unions And The Employment Patterns Of Women And Minorities In Local Government Work Forces

The status of women and minorities in the labor market has been the object of much study during the past several decades. The concern in this body of literature is whether discriminatory practices continue to operate against women and minorities, thereby preventing them from entering the labor force and/or advancing to positions for which they are qualified. The aim of this research has been to examine the relationship between unions and the status of women and minorities in city government work forces. It was hypothesized that women and minorities, in terms of penetration in the city work force and job-category level, in nonessential services\u27 departments (i.e., all but police and fire departments), would be enhanced when a union was present as opposed to absent, and when the union was more powerful as compared with less powerful. To test this hypothesis, correlation and stepwise regression procedures were conducted on a sample of 78 cities across the country. A case study of Syracuse, New York was also conducted to complement the quantitative analysis. On the basis of my quantitative findings, unions, contrary to my expectations, appear to be relatively insignificant in explaining the employment patterns of women and minorities in terms of their penetration in city work forces or job-category levels. Moreover, these findings hold true for nonessential as well as essential services\u27 departments. These findings were somewhat supported by the case study. That is, Syracuse\u27s police and firefighting unions appear insignificant with respect to the employment patterns of women and minorities. However, the nonessential services\u27 union appears to be extremely supportive of and, more importantly, responsive to the employment needs and demands of women and minorities. This finding was inconsistent with my quantitative findings. It may be, then, that nonessential services\u27 unions can be relied upon to enhance the status of women and minorities in city government work forces. If this is the case, perhaps a greater degree of formal authority in the area of equal employment opportunity (eec) should be delegated to unions, in an effort to buttress eeo policy. Once we have actual knowledge of unions\u27 commitment to eeo, we can determine if unions should be employed as a vehicle to enhance eeo policy

The Status of Employment Discrimination Suits in Police and Fire Departments Across the United States

Research indicates that women and people of color have made progress in gaining entry-level jobs in government, particularly at the federal level, but still lag behind in gaining positions at the upper levels. But, can the same be said for police and fire departments which have had perhaps the worst history of employment discrimination against women and people of color? This study seeks to answer this question by examining the extent to which race, gender or ethnic discrimination suits are being filed against city fire and police departments across the country, and at what level-entry or senior. The U.S. Supreme Court\u27s recent decision in Ricci v. DeStefano has renewed interest in this issue.Interestingly enough, while this study expected to find that lawsuits against police and fire departments are being filed by women and people of color in order to improve their representation in the uniformed services, it found just the opposite-the preponderance of the lawsuits filed against police and fire departments are reverse discrimination suits, filed by White men. © The Author(s) 2012

What is behavioral public administration good for?

Public administration has seen an influx of work addressing something that has been called “behavioral public administration (BPA)”; A hallmark of BPA is the examination of public administration from a micro‐level perspective with attention to the psychological aspects of human behavior. However, scholars of public administration have long applied a micro‐level lens to their research, even from a psychological standpoint. We argue here that the call for BPA is mainly an appeal for greater reliance on an analytical lens or research method, namely experimental designs. As argued here, however, little attention has been given to major drawbacks: experiments tend not to be theory driven, they overstate their importance to policy and management, and they fail to capture the significance of politics and institutions. If BPA is to be more than a passing fancy, the limits of experimentation must be reevaluated for public administration

sj-docx-1-rop-10.1177_0734371X231226380 – Supplemental material for Support for Affirmative Action in the Workplace: Gender, Race, and Sector Differences

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-rop-10.1177_0734371X231226380 for Support for Affirmative Action in the Workplace: Gender, Race, and Sector Differences by Hung-Yi Hsu and Norma M. Riccucci in Review of Public Personnel Administration</p

Dismantling Institutional and Structural Racism: Implementation Strategies Across the United States

The field of public administration writes and theorizes a good deal about institutional and structural racism, but as an applied field, we don’t address some of the potential intervention strategies for dismantling racist structures and institutions. This article examines some of the prospective strategies in areas such as reparations, criminal justice, health care, and housing which have been implemented seeking to upend institutional and structural racism in this nation. Policies or programs, unless implemented, create a revolving-door syndrome. However, even when policies are developed and implemented, their efficacy is not always guaranteed, as will be seen. This article discusses how public administration can move away from the “ready, aim, study more” conundrum, and offers suggestions for moving forward to the next frontier