scholarly journals Labor Unions and American Poverty

ILR Review ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 001979392110148
Author(s):  
Tom VanHeuvelen ◽  
David Brady
Keyword(s):  
Labor Unions ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
State Level ◽  
Union Density ◽  
Non Union ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Data Incorporate ◽  
American Poverty

American poverty research largely neglects labor unions. The authors use individual-level panel data, incorporate both household union membership and state-level union density, and analyze both working poverty and working-aged poverty (among households led by 18- to 64-year-olds). They estimate three-way fixed effects (person, year, and state) and fixed-effects individual slopes models on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), 1976–2015. They exploit the higher quality income data in the Cross-National Equivalent File—an extension of the PSID—to measure relative (<50% of median in current year) and anchored (<50% of median in 1976) poverty. Both union membership and state union density have statistically and substantively significant negative relationships with relative and anchored working and working-aged poverty. Household union membership and state union density significantly negatively interact, augmenting the poverty-reducing effects of each. Higher state union density spills over to reduce poverty among non-union households, and there is no evidence that higher state union density worsens poverty for non-union households or undermines employment.

scholarly journals Labor Unions and American Poverty

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom VanHeuvelen ◽  
David Brady
Keyword(s):  
Labor Unions ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
State Level ◽  
Union Density ◽  
Non Union ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Data Incorporate ◽  
American Poverty

American poverty research largely neglects labor unions. We use individual-level panel data, incorporate both household union membership and state-level union density, and analyze both working and working-aged poverty. We estimate three-way fixed-effects (person, year, and state) and fixed-effects individual slopes models on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) 1976-2015. We exploit the Cross-National Equivalent File’s – an extension of the PSID – higher quality income data to measure relative and anchored poverty. Both union membership and state union density have statistically and substantively significant negative relationships with relative and anchored working and working-aged poverty. Household union membership and state union density significantly negatively interact, augmenting the poverty-reducing effects of each. Higher state union density spills over to reduce poverty among non-union households, and there is no evidence that higher state union density worsens poverty for non-union households or undermines employment.

Answering Skeptics

2021 ◽  
pp. 109-145
Author(s):  
David Madland
Keyword(s):  
Labor Unions ◽  
Union Density ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bargaining Unit ◽  
Finance Reform ◽  
Non Union ◽  
Implementation Challenges ◽  
The Us ◽  
Labor System ◽  
New System

This chapter considers whether the new labor system could work as intended in the United States and whether alternative policies could better address the country's economic and political problems. It reviews some of the likely implementation challenges the new system would face, including determining the appropriate bargaining unit in a broad-based system and relationship friction between national and local unions, and finds, based on the US historical experience, that the challenges are likely manageable. It also reviews alternatives to the new labor system and argues that while most would be helpful, all have limitations. Other strategies to strengthen labor, such as increased organizing by unions and banning right-to-work laws, are necessary but on their own would not sufficiently increase union density or dramatically increase collective bargaining coverage. Non-union policies — from increased training to a jobs guarantee to campaign finance reform — would do less to raise wages, reduce inequality, or increase political voice. These often rely on strong labor unions to work best. All told, the new labor system is practical and necessary.

Union Threat Effects and the Decline in Employer-Provided Health Insurance

ILR Review ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-445
Author(s):  
Craig A. Olson
Keyword(s):  
Health Insurance ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
State Level ◽  
Union Density ◽  
Health Insurance Coverage ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Non Union ◽  
Private Sector Union ◽  
Threat Effect

Employer-provided health insurance decreased by an average of almost 0.6 percentage points per year for adults aged 18 to 64 who were working full-time in the private sector between 1983 and 2007. Most of this decline was among non-union workers. This study reports estimates that suggest the decrease was caused by a decline employers faced in the threat of being unionized, as measured by the drop in state-level private-sector union density over the 25 years and across the 50 states. The author hypothesizes the decline in union density caused some non-union employers to decide not to offer health insurance. The study shows the importance of accounting for measurement error in union density when estimating the declining threat effect of unionization on non-union employer-provided health insurance coverage.

Unmet Demand for Union Membership in Australia

2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Pyman ◽  
Julian Teicher ◽  
Brian Cooper ◽  
Peter Holland
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Union Density ◽  
Non Union ◽  
Younger Workers ◽  
Unmet Demand ◽  
Union Renewal ◽  
Employee Characteristics ◽  
Organizational Tenure ◽  
Practical Implications

Unmet demand for union membership is defined as employees in non-union workplaces who would join a union if given the opportunity. Unmet demand is a significant issue for Australian unions as union density continues to decline and the current legislative environment remains hostile. This article gauges the contours of unmet demand for union membership in Australia, drawing on responses to the Australian Worker Representation and Participation Survey (AWRPS 2004). It finds a significant level of unmet demand for union membership in Australia. Unmet demand varies according to workplace and employee characteristics and is highest among low income earners, younger workers, workers with shorter organizational tenure and workers in routinized occupations. The practical implications of our findings are discussed in relation to union renewal and the legislative environment prevailing in 2008.

Minority Threat, Worker Power, and Discriminatory Complaints: State-level Effects on Racial Income Inequality among Men

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-227
Author(s):  
David Maume ◽  
Ervin (Maliq) Matthew ◽  
George Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Income Inequality ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ◽  
State Level ◽  
Union Density ◽  
Minority Population ◽  
Pay Gap ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Minority Threat ◽  
Level Data

Because U.S. states are meaningful polities with differing cultures and institutions, they are important locations for the struggles for resources. Yet there have been surprisingly few studies of how state-level cleavages and institutions shape the pattern of income inequality, especially by race. This article matches individual-level data on income and its determinants (from the Current Population Survey) to state-level measures (mostly from Census data) of varying demographic, power, and institutional configurations. A multilevel model of the racial pay gap is estimated showing that racial income inequality increases with the size of the minority population in the state but decreases with the rate of filing racial discrimination complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The index of labor market power (a scaled index of union density and the size of the public sector) increases pay across the board but does not reduce racial income inequality. The findings suggest that recent and current neoliberal efforts across states to shrink government, limit unions, and abandon enforcement of antidiscrimination will lower wages for all workers and exacerbate racial income inequality.

scholarly journals Does the Union Make Us Strong? Labor-Union Membership, Self-Rated Health, and Mental Illness: A Parametric G-Formula Approach

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerzy Eisenberg-Guyot ◽  
Stephen J Mooney ◽  
Wendy E Barrington ◽  
Anjum Hajat
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Union Member ◽  
Labor Union ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Non Union ◽  
Self Rated Health ◽  
And Gender

Abstract Union members enjoy better wages, benefits, and power than non-members, which can improve health. However, the longitudinal union-health relationship remains uncertain, partially because of healthy-worker bias, which cannot be addressed without high-quality data and methods that account for exposure-confounder feedback and structural non-positivity. Applying one such method, the parametric g-formula, to United-States-based Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data, we analyzed the longitudinal relationships between union membership, poor/fair self-rated health (SRH), and moderate mental illness (Kessler-K6&gt;5). The SRH analyses included 16,719 respondents followed from 1985-2017, while the mental-illness analyses included 5,813 respondents followed from 2001-2017. Using the parametric g-formula, we contrasted cumulative incidence of the outcomes under two scenarios, one in which we set all employed-person-years to union-member employed-person-years (union scenario), and one in which we set no employed-person-years to union-member employed-person-years (non-union scenario). We also examined whether the contrast varied by gender, gender-race, and gender-education. Overall, the union scenario did not reduce incidence of poor/fair SRH (RR: 1.01, 95% CI: 0.95, 1.09; RD: 0.01, 95% CI: -0.03, 0.04) or moderate mental illness (RR: 1.02, 95% CI: 0.92, 1.12; RD: 0.01, 95% CI: -0.04, 0.06) relative to the non-union scenario. These associations largely did not vary by subgroup.

Labor’s Legacy: The Construction of Subnational Work Regulation

ILR Review ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 001979392094383
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Galvin
Keyword(s):  
Labor Unions ◽  
National Level ◽  
State Level ◽  
Union Density ◽  
Employment Law ◽  
Process Tracing ◽  
Causal Inferences ◽  
State Employment ◽  
New System ◽  
Qualitative Analyses

In recent decades, much of the authority to regulate the workplace has shifted from national-level labor law to state-level employment law. What contributions, if any, did labor unions make to this historic shift in workplace governance? The author uses quantitative and qualitative analyses to test hypotheses and move incrementally closer toward drawing causal inferences. In the first part, he finds a strong statistical relationship between union density and state employment law enactments. Next, analyzing the cases the model identifies as “deviant” (Pennsylvania and Maine), he uses systematic process tracing to test the hypothesis that labor unions were integral players in legislative campaigns for stronger employment laws. Strong evidence supports the hypothesis that labor unions, even as they declined, contributed to the construction of this new system of subnational work regulation—arguably one of their most significant and durable legacies.

scholarly journals Race, Politics, and Public Safety: A Panel Study of U.S. Highway Patrol and State Police Strength, 1981-2015

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chad A. Malone
Keyword(s):  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
High School Degree ◽  
State Police ◽  
Highway Patrol ◽  
Police Strength

This study assesses the social, political, economic, and traffic-/travel-related predictors of sworn highway patrol and state police strength in the United States between 1981 and 2015. Fixed-effects estimates based on analyses of 1,635 state-years indicate that theoretical accounts centered on racial threat theory, partisan politics, and gendered politics in part explain variation in this outcome. Findings suggest that changes in population density, the tax base, the percentage of the population without a high school degree, violent crime rates, and spending on social welfare at the state level, as well as shifts in local law enforcement strength, also influence state police and patrol organization strength over this period. Surprisingly, fluctuations in the number of state traffic fatalities per million vehicle miles traveled and the number of driver’s licenses per 100,000 state population—two seemingly important traffic-/travel-related factors—have no impact on the rate of state police and patrol officers per 100,000 population. 

Labor Unions and Voter Turnout in the American States: Direct Versus Indirect Mobilization

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Gidong Kim
Keyword(s):  
Labor Unions ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
State Level ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
American States ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Midterm Elections ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Level Analysis ◽  
Aggregate Strength

Abstract I examine the relationship between labor unions and voter turnout in the American states. Though it is well known that unions increase turnout directly, we know less about their indirect effects. Moreover, the indirect effects may consist of nonmember mobilization and aggregate strength. To examine the direct and indirect mechanisms, I analyze both state-level panel data and individual-level data with a multilevel approach. First, my panel analysis shows that unions are positively associated with turnout as expected. Yet, the association is observed only in midterm elections, but not in presidential elections. Second, more importantly, my individual-level analysis suggests that indirect nonmember mobilization and indirect aggregate strength are positively related to turnout, while direct member mobilization is not. The findings imply that the direct effects are limited and, thus, that decreasing levels of voter turnout due to recently declining union membership come primarily from indirect mobilization rather than direct mobilization.

The declining influence of class and ideology in union membership: Consistent but divergent trends among Swedish employees

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 351-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Palm
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Time Series Data ◽  
General Trend ◽  
Union Density ◽  
Series Data ◽  
Class Identity ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Over Time

Using individual-level time-series data covering the period from 1990 to 2011, this article provides an empirical analysis of how the influence of various aspects of class and ideology on union organization have changed over time in the Swedish context. The primary results indicate that although union density and the influence of class-related aspects and ideology are decreasing, particularly among groups with traditionally high levels of organization, the general trend is not valid for all categories of employees. Rather, it appears that where the tradition of being organized is weaker, the influence of class and class identity is particularly strong. No evidence is identified that supports the thesis of class loyalty vanishing among the young.

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