Getting it Right: Empirical Evidence and Policy Implications from Research on Public-Sector Unionism and Collective Bargaining

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lewin ◽  
Thomas A. Kochan ◽  
Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld ◽  
Teresa Ghilarducci ◽  
Harry C. C. Katz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Public Sector Unionism

scholarly journals Collective bargaining: An analysis of hurdles and applicability in the public sector

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 168-174
Author(s):  
Daniel Chigudu
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Democratic Governance ◽  
Human Right ◽  
The Public ◽  
Personal Benefit ◽  
Public Sector Employees ◽  
Public Sector Unions ◽  
The Government ◽  
Public Sector Unionism

This article discusses the arguments against adopting collective bargaining in the public sector and its benefits. Collective bargaining in the public sector is viewed primarily as undermining democratic governance in one way and paradoxically it is seen as an essential part of democratic governance. In the former view, collective bargaining in the public sector is seen as an interference with administrative law for personal benefit to the detriment of the taxpayer. Proponents of this view argue that unionising public sector employees encourages disloyalty to the government at the expense of public welfare. In the later view, public sector collective bargaining is viewed as a fundamental human right in a pluralistic society. Advocates of this view posit that, public sector unions provide a collective voice that stimulates improvement of government services as well as sound administration of law. They also argue that, public sector collective bargaining represents public policy interests and serves as a watchdog to government’s monopoly power in employment matters. Public sector unions raise employee salaries and perks to levels higher than they would have been in the absence of collective bargaining. These two opposite views are subjected to a critical analysis in this paper, with empirical evidence for both the benefits of public sector collective bargaining and arguments against public sector unions. The article found that public sector collective bargaining depends on the socio-economic background of states although international laws favour public sector unionism.

Bashing Public Employees and Their Unions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nelson Lichtenstein
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Public Employee ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Right ◽  
Government Workers ◽  
Public Sector Unionism

This chapter considers the idea of governmental “sovereignty,” as used by the right, to undermine the rationale for collective bargaining in the public sector. From the Boston Police Strike of 1919 forward, conservatives have considered the organization of government workers to be incompatible with the sovereign status of those entities sustained by taxes and elected by the populace. Public employee unions subverted the will of elected officeholders and undermined state power. That antiunion ideology faded in the two decades after 1958 when public employee unionism grew by leaps and bounds, but in recent years it has returned, albeit in a distinctively neoliberal, antistate guise. Conservatives today charge that instead of challenging the power of the state, public sector unionism is illegitimate because these institutions support those governmental functions that regulate commerce, sustain public education, and provide other public goods now under attack from the neoliberal right.

scholarly journals Unions and Productivity in the Public Sector: A Study of Municipal Libraries

ILR Review ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald G. Ehrenberg ◽  
Daniel R. Sherman ◽  
Joshua L. Schwarz
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Cross Section ◽  
Cross Section Data ◽  
The Public ◽  
Section Data ◽  
The Empirical Analysis

This paper develops and illustrates the use of two methodologies to analyze the effect of unions on productivity in the public sector. Although the methodologies are applicable to a wide variety of public sector functions, the focus of the paper is on municipal libraries because of the availability of relevant data. The empirical analysis, which uses 1977 cross-section data on 260 libraries, suggests that collective bargaining coverage has not significantly affected productivity in municipal libraries.

Council House Sales and Residualization

1986 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.J. Williams ◽  
J. Sewel ◽  
F. Twine
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
General Process ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City ◽  
Right To Buy ◽  
Council House

ABSTRACTIt has been argued that council house sales will contribute towards a more general process of residualization of public sector housing. Empirical evidence is presented in this context derived from surveys of purchasers and non-purchasers of council dwellings in the city of Aberdeen. This evidence confirms that purchasers and non-purchasers exhibit different socio-economic characteristics and after only four years of the Right to Buy legislation significant numbers of households in social classes I, II and III have left the public sector via the mechanism of sales. The small number of sales relative to the stock as a whole, however, has meant that the overall contribution of sales towards residualization has been small. This evidence from Aberdeen is compared to evidence from elsewhere and related to the varying pattern of sales across the country as a whole.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document