Research Topic
Enas Aboelghar
HRM 432
My research question is “Unions have declined as a percentage of the workforce in the private sector. With this decline, how have career and workplace dissatisfaction and alienation increased or decreased?”. The preliminary research I have found is that people who are in unions tend to have better pay and feeling of job security, so I want to compare how non-union people (the majority of us), feel about our work and career satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
Declining Unionization: Do Fringe Benefits Matter?, Eastern Economic Journal
This study examines whether there is a relationship between benefits and private sector unionization in the US. In their regression analysis, the authors use FRINGE in their as an explanatory variable. The dependent variable is UNIZ, the fraction of the private, non-farm labor force that is unionized. The changing nature of compensation has affected union density. In the private sector, as fringe benefits have become a more prominent component of workers’ pay, ceteris paribus, union density has declined nationwide. Over the fifty-year period 1948-1997, at least 12% of the drop in unionization can be attributed to the growing role of non-wage benefits. For the private sector in general and manufacturing in particular, the authors have established that unionization is related to the composition of pay. Yet the influence of non-wage benefits may vary across industries or even different subsectors of manufacturing. It remains to be seen whether there are similar findings for other sectors.
• Background on the decline of unions
• Influence of non-wage benefits in the decline of unionization
Labor Union Membership and Life Satisfaction in the United States∗, Labor Studies Journal
While a voluminous literature examines the effects of organized labor on workers’ wage and benefit levels in the United States, there has been little investigation into whether membership in a labor union directly contributes to a higher quality of life. In this paper, we uncover evidence that union members are more satisfied with their lives than those who are not members and that the substantive effect of union membership on life satisfaction rivals other common predictors of quality of life. Moreover, we find that union membership boosts life satisfaction across demographic groups regardless if someone is rich or poor, male or female, or young or old. These results suggest that organized labor in the United States can have significant implications for the quality of life that citizens experience.
• Evidence that union members are more satisfied than those who are not members
• Effect of union membership on life satisfaction
Killing Unions with Culture: Institutions, Inequality,and the Effects of Labor’s Decline in the United States, Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal
This essay examines the relationship between culture, inequality, and organized
labor in the United States. We argue that America’s exceptional cultural values are the key to
falling union membership density and rising inequality. Cultural attitudes originated with the
process of colonization in this country, particularly the embedded social structures that defined
regimes of slavery and impeded the development of general trust. Citizens orient themselves
toward policy positions depending on their “cultural cognition.” Culture determines our world
views and political leanings. Research shows that attitudes about collective action and social
justice versus individual efficacy and social hierarchy predict policy choices. We offer
historical and quantitative evidence to support our argument.
• Show some of the cultural shifts away from unions
• Evidence of increasing inequality as a consequence
Union activity and the decline in American trade union membership, Journal of Labor Research
Much of the decline in union membership during the period 1958-1982 is explained by changes in effects of structural variables, especially the proportion of women, older workers, and blue collar workers in a state’s labor force, which is consistent with Moore and Newman’s (1988) findings. A recent study, however, does not support Moore and Newman’s conclusions that the most important factor in explaining this decline is the increasing proportion of women in the labor force. This difference may reflect the sample periods chosen for analysis. This difference may reflect the same periods chosen as well as substantial changes in the effects of the extent of blue-collar and older workers on union representation. There appears to be little basis for attributing a substantial portion of the decline in union membership to aggressive employer unfair labor practices, to changes in states’ political attitudes towards unions, or to the presence of state right-to-work laws. Of course, reduced-form models such as Moore and Newman’s, and others inevitably obscure important interactions among these and other factors underlying the movement away from union representation.
• Background on union decline with regard to structural changes
The post Research Topic
Enas Aboelghar
HRM 432
My research question is “Unions have decli appeared first on Homeworkassisters.
