Why Public Sector Union Members Support Their Unions: Survey and Experimental Evidence

Social Forces ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Hertel-Fernandez ◽  
Ethan Porter
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Public Sector Union ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sector Union ◽  
Teachers Union ◽  
Public Sector Unions ◽  
To Receive

Abstract Despite their decline, unions, and especially public sector unions, remain important civic and economic associations. Yet, we lack an understanding of why public sector union members voluntarily support unions. We report on a field experiment conducted during a 2017 Iowa teachers union recertification election. We randomly assigned union members to receive emails describing union benefits and measured effects on turnout effort (N = 10,461). Members were more likely to try to vote when reminded of the unions’ professional benefits and community—but not legal protections or political representation. A follow-up survey identified the specific aspects of professional identity and benefits that members most valued and why. In a context where union membership and support is voluntary among professionalized workers, our findings emphasize the possibility of training for fostering shared identities and encouraging support for public sector unions. Our results have broader implications for understanding the public sector labor movement in a context of legal retrenchment.

Government, Management and Unions: the Public Service Under the Workplace Relations Act

1999 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 446-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
John O'Brien ◽  
Michael O'Donnell
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Sector Union ◽  
Industrial Environment ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sector Union ◽  
Workplace Relations ◽  
Government Management

The paper argues that when governments seek to regulate the working conditions and wages of their own employees in n decentralising industrial environment there is potential for tension between the roles of government as employer ; as policy generator and as financial controller. The paper discusses the federal coalition govern ment's agenda in the Australian Public Service under tbe Workplace Relations Act 1996, and the potential for tensions to arise from a process that simultaneously insists on oversight from the centre and requires the exercise of greater responsibility by agency managements. Moreover; the paper examines the ability of the Community and Public Sector Union to retain its legitimacy at a workplace level in this contradictory environ ment, and its capacity to counter managerial attempts to marginalise the union during the first round of agreement making.

scholarly journals Renewal in Canadian Public Sector Unions

2007 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 282-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Camfield
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Sector Reform ◽  
Public Sector Union ◽  
Union Activity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Movement Unionism ◽  
Limited Success ◽  
Public Sector Unions ◽  
Union Renewal

Challenges from employers and governments and the limited success of public sector union responses suggest the need for renewal in Canadian public sector unions. This article engages with discussions of union renewal by way of theoretically conceptualizing the modes of union praxis relevant to Canadian unions. It then examines the nature of neoliberal public sector reform and assesses the experiences of Canadian public sector unions under neoliberalism. In this difficult context, unions that are able to make progress in the interconnected development of greater democracy and power will be more capable of channelling workers’ concerns into union activity. This, along with international and Canadian evidence, highlights the significance of the praxis of social movement unionism to union renewal in the public sector.

Between government unilateralism and corporatist bargaining: public sector pension reforms in the UK and Ireland, 2000s–2010s

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-124
Author(s):  
Sung Ho Park
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Welfare Reform ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Pension Reforms ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sector Unions ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Uk

AbstractStudies on welfare reform in advanced European countries have identified two established paths to welfare retrenchment: government unilateralism and corporatist bargaining. This study explores a more complicated path to welfare reform, wherein governments pursue ‘non-corporatist’ bargaining by actively combining features of unilateralism and negotiation. Such a hybrid case is explained by employing an ‘insider-outsider’ framework for public policy reform. The key argument is that the presence of exclusive insiders complicates the reform process, disqualifying both unilateralism and corporatist bargaining as feasible options for benefit cuts. The author demonstrates the validity of this claim by examining three cases of public sector pension retrenchment in the UK and Ireland during the 2000s and 2010s. Defying the common expectation that benefit cuts in residual welfare states would be promoted with government unilateralism, the public sector pension reforms in the UK and Ireland exhibited more complicated features which combined governments' unilateral initiatives andad hocnegotiations with public sector unions. Future studies may build on this finding to examine hybrid reform cases in a general European context.

scholarly journals Exploiting conditionality: EU and international actors and post-NPM reform in Ireland

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-200
Author(s):  
Muiris MacCarthaigh ◽  
Niamh Hardiman
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Policy Coordination ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sector Reforms ◽  
New Public ◽  
Public Sector Unions ◽  
Administrative Elites

Between 2008 and 2015, Ireland undertook unprecedented and systemic public sector reforms in a polity not traditionally considered a prominent reformer. While some of these reforms comprised part of the loan programme agreement with EU and international actors, many others did not. This article argues that the crisis in Ireland provided a window of opportunity to introduce reforms that political and administrative elites had previously found difficult to implement. The authority of the Troika was invoked to provide legitimacy for controversial initiatives, yet some of the reforms went further than the loan programme strictly required. A number of these concerning organisational rationalisation, the public service ‘bargain’ and transversal policy coordination are considered here. Agreements were negotiated with public sector unions that facilitated sharp cuts in pay and conditions, reducing the potential for opposition to change. The reform effort was further legitimated by the reformers’ post-New Public Management, whole-of-government discourse, which situated considerations of effectiveness and efficiency in a broader framework of public service quality and delivery.

Leveraging Personal Networks to Support Knowledge Management in a Public Sector Organisation in Kuwait

Libri ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdus Sattar Chaudhry
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Management ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Knowledge Workers ◽  
Personal Networks ◽  
The Public ◽  
Knowledge Management Practices ◽  
Analysis Of Knowledge ◽  
Social Networking Tools

AbstractAnalysis of knowledge management practices in a selected ministry in Kuwait showed that knowledge workers in the public sector identify personal contacts using traditional methods, but make heavy use of social networking tools and services to support personal networks. They communicate regularly with contacts that have expertise in their area of responsibility and prefer to follow up with those contacts whose work they admire. Knowledge workers perform a variety of activities on personal networks to strengthen knowledge management. However, a review of these activities indicates that there is a need to place more emphasis on collaborative learning through social bookmarks, reflecting and commenting on blogs, and editing wikis to provide effective support for knowledge management.

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