The influence of CEO political ideology on labor relations and firm value

PurposeThis article aims to examine the influence of chief executive officer (CEO) internal political beliefs on labor relations. Prior research has paid little attention to channels through which the internal personal value system of managers enhances or deteriorates firm value. The authors provide evidence consistent with CEOs adopting labor policies impacting incumbent management–labor relationships based upon their political ideologies.Design/methodology/approachThe research design tests the impact of CEO political ideology on labor relation using an individual CEO’s personal information and firm affiliation, employee lawsuit information, financial contributions to candidates and committees, and firm financial information. The authors compiled a sample of 4,354 unique CEOs from 2,558 US firms that are covered by ExecuComp and used 18,404 firm-year observations for the study’s analysis. A Heckman two-stage estimation process is used to address a potential sample selection bias and match the requirements of exclusion and relevance criteria.FindingsFindings indicate that firms led by Republican-leaning CEOs are more likely to be sued by their employees, especially for violating union rights. Moreover, the findings of the study uncovered that Republican-leaning CEOs have fewer cases dismissed or withdrawn compared to Democrat-leaning CEOs and are also less likely to settle court cases prior to trial. Results indicate that Republican-leaning CEOs are associated with more substantial decreases in firm value compared to Democrat-leaning CEOs when facing labor allegations. The authors further show that firm value is lower for all firms facing litigation, with the magnitude of the decrease being more pronounced for firms with Republican CEOs.Research limitations/implicationsFirm affiliations are identified using ExecuComp, employee lawsuit information from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), financial contributions to candidates and committees from the Federal Election Committee (FEC) website, and financial information from Compustat. To the extent that these websites are inaccurate, such as financial contributions being underreported, the findings reported here may understate the relationships reported in this article.Practical implicationsThe authors capture CEO political ideology using political contributions. There may be other means, such as physical space and personal effort, by which one could also estimate the party and intensity of CEO political ideology. This information is unavailable.Social implicationsWhile presidential politics has four-year cycles, managerial finance is a daily activity. While political affiliation is most clearly measurable through monetary contributions, one can see implications of manager political leaning through their relationship with labor throughout the election cycle.Originality/valueThe analyses of this study indicate that labor unions are more likely to sponsor lawsuits and stronger allegations in firms with Republican CEOs and show that withdrawal, settlement or dismissal rates are lower when firms are managed by Republican managers, resulting in higher subsequent legal costs and potentially damaged employee morale. Also, this paper investigates whether lawsuits have a greater negative consequence on firm value when the firm is run by a Republican CEO. The authors find that lawsuits significantly lower Tobin's Q for Republican-led firms compared to companies with Democratic and apolitical CEOs. The authors further show that firm value is lower for all firms facing litigation, with the magnitude of the decrease being more pronounced for firms with Republican CEOs.

Uberization of labor and Marx’s Capital

In the last decade, we saw the expansion of digital platforms and decentralized and freelance labor relations in the global capitalist economy. This combination has been called Gig Economy and its specific labor relation Uberization. This process is directly link to the intensification of work, working day expansion, low remuneration, absence of labor rights and amplification of indirect control over the labor process. Although this phenomenon appears as something new, considering Marx’s analysis of piece-wage in Capital, it’s possible to see the very features and consequences of Uberization. The remuneration, be it by hour or piece/gigs, no alters the essential nature of labor relations in capitalism. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to identify that Marx’s Capital already anticipated this tendency of capitalist economy and traced the main consequences of Uberization of labor.

The Unity of Labor Law and Development of Atypical Employment: Interaction Problems

The paper investigates the issue of the unity of labor law in the context of development of legalization of so-called new, atypical forms of employment in European countries and their forthcoming (and partially already completed) legalization in the Russian Federation. The author has analized some negative features of atypical forms of employment, the preservation of which can threaten the unity and integrity of labor law. the paper highlights the inadmissibility of reducing the uniform standard of labor rights and focuses on problems in the institution of labour remuniration and protection. On the basis of the analysis of elements characterizing the unity of labor law, the author describes deviations from the classical features of labor relations that sometimes lead to shifting employers’ (entrepreneurial) risk on the person involved in hired labor.The author concludes that the extension of the scope of application of the provisions of Chapter 53.1 of the Labour Code of the Russian Federation (albeit in a very limited scope) to employees working in government authorities and the public sector is a very disturbing trend. Traditionally, the budget sphere is seen as low-paid stable employment. The introduction of non-permanent, atypical employment into the public sector reduces the low level of employment rights of employees in the public sector. The development of atypical forms of employment not only actively affect the informal employment sector, but also invade the field of “traditional” relations, setting incorrect directions of HR policies. In this regard, acts adopted by the legislator in the case of legalization of one of the atypical forms of employment must be strictly correlated with the fundamental principles of labor law, the concept of a uniform labor relation and basic rights of the employee, which will prevent the destruction of the unity of labor law.

Working time reduction as the factor of solving retirement conflict

One of the main sources of social economic tension in Russian society became the promotion and acceptance in 2018 of the bill on retirement age increase initiated by the government. Conflict of the created situation expressed itself in a great number of protest meetings in the country againstpension reform. The aim of the article is to give a foundation of the effective way of solving the conflict caused by such reform. For this purpose its influence upon social economic state of labor relations sides is analyzed, the experience of retirement age increase in Germany and France is investigated, the perspective of solving the appeared conflict is defined. Dialectical method as the one which allows to discover the contradictions of the labor relation sides interests is realized. Table method of tendencies analysis in time worked dynamics in economically developed countries is used, the differentiation of workers age cohorts for the evaluation of the consequences of retirement reform is applied. It is found that the main source of retirement conflict in Russia is the degradation of workers position in connection with the growth of the time worked per working life in comparison with the cohort that retired before the reform. By the analysis of the innovate foreign experience the possibility of connection of retirement age increase, on the one hand, and the total number of hours worked per life, on the other hand, is discovered. It is shown that this possibility is the result of the regularity of the working time reduction which is inherent to the modern economy. The role of transition to the six hours working day in Russia as the effective way of solving retirement conflict without rejection of retirement age increase is revealed.

Conscious Organs

In Volume Three of Capital in a striking but somewhat uncharacteristic formula, Marx argues that the labor relation is the “hidden basis” of the entire social edifice including the state and politics. As an attempt to clarify and develop this insight I examine the dual nature of labor as abstract and concrete labor, arguing that the two sides of labor correspond not just to two sides of the commodity, but to different ethics and alienations of labor, and ultimately to different philosophical anthropologies.

Prefiguring alternatives through the articulation of post- and anti-capitalistic politics: An introduction to three additional papers and a reflection

In this introduction to the second part of the special issue on alternative economies published in Organization in 2017, I first briefly chart key fora where the debate has continued in the last two years, and then present the three additional contributions included here. Moving the conversation forward, I argue that, in order to evaluate the prefigurative potential of alternative organizations, we need to address more thoroughly the relation between alternatives and their outside. A productive place to ground this reflection is in the debate between post-capitalism and anti-capitalism. The main lines of this debate are reconstructed based on the keynote speeches delivered by Jodi Dean and Stephen Healy at the last Rethinking Marxism conference held in Amherst, Massachusetts, in September 2013. I conclude by claiming that post-capitalist immanence should be articulated with an anti-capitalist communist horizon, and advance the Open Marxist notion of de-mediation of social relations as key to do this. Although capitalist institutions (e.g. the market, the state) mediate all social relations, mediation is never definitive, as it always contains the possibility for its own negation, de-mediation. So conceived, de-mediation redefines our understanding of class struggle beyond the capital-labor relation in the workplace, into society as a whole, broadening the ethical and political scope of the organizational research agenda on alternatives to capitalism.

TRABAJO DOMÉSTICO Y PROTECCIÓN SOCIAL FRENTE A CONTINGENCIAS DEL TRABAJO.

The social protection of household employees related to work contingencies is created parallel to their integration into the General Regime as a Special Relation, with the aim of equating their rights to those of the common Labor Relation, without it having been completed so far. This work presents a review of the legal regime of protection related to these contingencies, highlighting the deficiencies pending to be addressed in order to achieve real equality and dignification of the profession, such as occupational health and safety and unemployment protection, among others.

Impact of atypical forms of employment on theoretical concepts of the labor relation (case study of the norms regulating distance labor)

As the result of the active development of electronic (digital) technologies and the consequent change in the characteristics of labor as a social phenomenon the so-called atypical forms of employment emerged and spread. This trend is typical for both foreign countries and the Russian Federation. However, the lag in the legal regulation of atypical forms of employment in our country raises various problems of law enforcement. In turn, the need to understand the new properties of labor performed within the framework of atypical forms of employment, the analysis of the modification of classical features of labor relations developed by the domestic science of labor law represent the reason for the lack of the relevant legal regulation. The article attempts to trace such modification on the example of norms regulating distance work and enshrined in Chapter 49.1 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation with due regard to the emerging practice of their application.

SOCIOECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF PATIENTS WITH TENSION HEADACHE IN MUNICIPALITY OF VELES

Introduction:рrimary headaches are among the most common neurological disorders in the population, and tension-type headache is one of the most significant primary headache. Tension headache is also one of the most neglected types of headache, and its chronic form is one of the most difficult to treat. The purpose of this paper is to obtain knowledge about the socio-demographic characteristics of patients with tension headache, the history and different aspects of the tension headache, as well as, to obtain knowledge about the relationship betweet kinesitherapy, as a non-pharmacological method for treating and controlling the pain, and certain aspects of the tension headache. Мaterials and methods:the sample consists of 101 respondents, i.e., patients with tension headache who has sought medical help in primary health care in Veles. Data was collected by using a questionnaire for the socio-demographic characteristics of patients, history and characteristics of the headache and use of kinesitherapy as a part of its treatment. Results:,According to the sex, 60 of the patients or 59.4% were women, and 41 patients, ie, 40.6% of men. Regarding the age structure, it has been shown that most patients (34 patients or 33.7%) with tension headache are at the age of 30-39, and the smallest number of patients are under the age of 19 years (3 patients or 2,9%). Until the 30th year the tension headache shows a tendency of increase, after 40 years there is a tendency of declining the presence of tension headache. According to the place of living, 72.3% of the patients surveyed live in urban and 27.7% in the rural area. As for the labor relation and the occupation of patients with tension headache, the results showed that the same is for the most part (61 patients or 60.4%) in employed persons, then (28, ie, 27.8%) in the unemployed persons. The retired (10 patients or 9.9%) and students, ie students (only 2 patients, ie 1.9%) is represented in a much lower percentage. The duration of the pain in most patients is 4-24 hours and is interrupted by taking analgesics. Discussion:The results have shown that there is a small number of patients who use kinesitherapy in treating tension headache, but those who use kinesitherapy methods, according to the obtained results, have rare headaches, less pain duration and lower intensity of the pain. Conclusion These results are consistent with the results of other research on the positive effects of kinesitherapy on treatment, control and prophylaxis of tension headache. We think that patients should be educated about the positive effects of physical activity and be an integral part of everyday life. Family physicians should more often point patients on the importance and impact of kinesitherapy on their condition. We recommend to our patients a kinesitherapy program as a means of better pain control, but also as a corrective agent for better posture, which prevents the occurrence of relapse