Belman and Wolfson perform a meta-analysis on scores of published studies on the effects of the minimum wage to determine its impacts on employment, wages, poverty, and more.
As the structure of the economy has changed over the past few decades, researchers and policy makers have been increasingly concerned with how these changes affect workers. In this book, leading economists examine a variety of important trends in the new economy, including inequality of earnings and other forms of compensation, job security, employer reliance on temporary and contract workers, hours of work, and workplace safety and health. In order to better understand these vital issues, scholars must be able to accurately measure labor market activity. Thus, Labor in the New Economy also addresses a host of measurement issues: from the treatment of outliers, imputation methods, and weighting in the context of specific surveys to evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of data from different sources. At a time when employment is a central concern for individuals, businesses, and the government, this volume provides important insight into the recent past and will be a useful tool for researchers in the future.
Since publication of the fourth edition of Labor Relations in the Public Sector, public sector unions have encountered strong headwinds in many parts of the U.S. Membership is falling in some jurisdictions, public opinion has shifted against the unions, and political forces are leaning against them. Retaining the structure that made the previous editions so popular, this fifth edition incorporates a complete round of updates, particularly sections on recent trends in membership figures, new legislation, and new politics as they influence bargaining rights. See What’s New in the Fifth Edition: Up to date examination and analysis of public sector labor relations and collective bargaining Important changes in the public labor relations and unionization landscape Updated analysis of the financial and human resource outcomes of collective bargaining in the public sector Collective bargaining institutions and processes in government Completely updated in terms of the scholarly and professional literature and relevant events, the new edition identifies and explains the implications of the new collective bargaining environment, including financial and human resource management issues and outcomes. As in previous editions, collective bargaining and labor relations are addressed at all levels of government, with comparisons to the private and nonprofit sectors. Designed to be classroom friendly, it includes discussions of the most recent literature and case studies as well as end-of-chapter assignments and quizzes. Practical tips and advice are offered for those engaged in collective bargaining and labor relations.
That we are participants in a global economy may no longer be news, but its impact continues to shape the field of labor relations. This is certainly true in the public sector where union membership is stagnant and outsourcing is becoming more and more prevalent. Further impacting current trends are local and state movements to restructure public organizations and the processes they use to conduct their activities and provide services. These include the mechanisms of collective bargaining and contract administration. Reflecting these and many other trends and changes, this fourth edition of the perennially bestselling Labor Relations in the Public Sector is now completely updated. The fundamental reader-friendly organization of the book remains the same, and it continues to address the many facets that must be considered today, as unions still represent 40 percent of public sector workers. However in keeping up with the formative events of recent times, this text— Accounts for emerging trends in scholarly and professional literature as well as in practice Features several new case studies that provide readers with experiential learning opportunities across a range of contemporary situations Places greater emphasis on ways to develop and use interest-based ("win–win") negotiations during bargaining processes and throughout the administration of contracts This volume recognizes the key role played by unions in the federal government and in a large proportion of state and local jurisdictions, but it also recognizes that much is changing. Fiscal realities and strategic challenges are changing the role of the labor union in the public sector. This is a trend that must be understood if its consequences are to be anticipated and met for the mutual good.
Volume 24 of Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations (AILR) contains eight papers highlighting important aspects of the employment relationship. The papers deal with such themes as shifts in workplace voice, justice, negotiation and conflict resolution in contemporary workplaces.
This book examines the movement for living wages at the local level and what it tells us about urban politics. Oren M. Levin-Waldman studies the role that living wage campaigns may have had in recent years in altering the political landscape in four cities where they have been adopted: Los Angeles, Detroit, Baltimore, and New Orleans. It is the author's belief that the living wage movements are a result of policy failure at the local level. They are the by-product of the failure to adequately address the changes that were occurring, mainly the changing urban economic base and growing income inequality. The author undertakes a scholarly analysis of the issue through the disciplinary lenses of political science while also employing some of the economists' tools.
New York City boasts a higher rate of unionization than any other major U.S. city—roughly double the national average—but the city’s unions have suffered steady and relentless decline, especially in the private sector. With higher levels of income inequality than any other large city in the nation, New York today is home to a large and growing precariat—workers with little or no employment security who are often excluded from the basic legal protections that unions struggled for and won in the twentieth century. Community-based organizations and worker centers have developed the most promising approach to organizing the new precariat and to addressing the crisis facing the labor movement. Home to some of the nation’s very first worker centers, New York City today has the single largest concentration of these organizations in the United States, yet until now no one has documented their efforts. New Labor in New York includes thirteen fine-grained case studies of recent campaigns by worker centers and unions, each of which is based on original research and participant observation. Some of the campaigns documented here involve taxi drivers, street vendors, and domestic workers, as well as middle-strata freelancers—all of whom are excluded from basic employment laws. Other cases focus on supermarket, retail, and restaurant workers, who are nominally covered by such laws but who often experience wage theft and other legal violations; still other campaigns are not restricted to a single occupation or industry. This book offers a richly detailed portrait of the new labor movement in New York City, as well as several recent efforts to expand that movement from the local to the national scale.