Hedayeh Samavati

Unions, Women, and the Consequences of the Jobless Recovery

This article examines trends in salaries and employment for union-affiliated men and women. The special characteristics of the current jobless recovery have implications for the relative position of the unionized and nonunionized workers and further implications for the wage and benefits of women in particular. Through the use of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Economic Policy Institute, trend analysis leads to several vital conclusions. First, the loss of union positions in the private sector is solely responsible for the economy’s decline in the rate of unionization. Second, unions help working women achieve equity with their male counterparts so that declining unionization rates prevent an avenue of advancement for women. Third, the recent loss of union and manufacturing jobs has important effects on overall worker income and additional effects on income distribution. The implications of an economy that continues to grow at a slow pace with sluggish job growth must be understood before policy makers’ attention can be drawn to this important matter. The latest recession in the U.S. economy started in March 2001 and ended in November 2001, as determined by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the generally recognized arbiter of business-cycle turning points. Even though the recession was relatively mild and short-lived, the negative consequences of economic slowdown have lingered on long after the recession was officially declared to have ended. According to Campbell and Parisi, the adjusted gross income (AGI) reported on individual tax returns for tax year 2001 dropped by 3.1 percent relative to the previous year [1]. “This was the first time since 1949 71 2006, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc. that AGI had fallen” [1, p. 8]. In 2002, the total AGI fell another 3.2 percent from its level in 2001. Total overall income reported by Americans to government declined for two consecutive years, a phenomenon that is the first since the modern tax system was introduced since World War II [2]. In addition, economic hardships of recession have been exacerbated because the economic recovery that has followed has proven to be atypical. It has been anemic in the area of job creation. The recovery has been dubbed a “jobless recovery,” a particularly ironic oxymoron. This jobless recovery has been unfolding on the heels of a business climate where cost-cutting, downsizing, and outsourcing have been the name of the game. Responding to the “discipline” of the market, or perhaps the stock market, cost-cutting measures pursued by various companies have chiefly translated into eliminating jobs—especially those that are covered by collective bargaining contracts. Since 1983, the first year for which comparable data regarding union membership have been available, the unionization rate in the United States has steadily declined. In 1983, 20.1 percent of wage and salary workers were members of a union. In 2003, however, this rate had declined to 12.9 percent, down from 13.3 percent in 2002 [3]. This article examines the trends in union affiliation of wage and salary earners to ascertain relative position of workers in the economy and the role unions might play in that regard. Also, special characteristics of this jobless recovery and their implications for workers in general and for women in particular are studied. The implications of an economy that continues to grow at a slow pace characterized by a sluggish job growth must be understood before policy makers’ attention can be drawn to this matter. TRENDS IN UNION MEMBERSHIP Comparable union membership data have been reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) since 1983. It is obvious to the most casual observer that the sectors of the economy in which unions thrived—manufacturing, mining, transportation, and public utilities—are declining with respect to the overall U.S. economy. In addition to the decline in the unionized sectors, an increasingly hostile legal environment has resulted in further decline in union membership. The views of the U.S. Supreme Court and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) reflect those of the president(s) who appointed their members. Over the last couple of decades, it has ben tougher for unions to organize and stay organized. During these decades there were three Republican presidents and one Democrat who had opportunities to appoint judges and NLRB members. Over the period 1993 through 2003, Figure 1 shows that the unionization rate has decreased steadily. The steep decline observed in Figure 1, especially during the early part of the Clinton Administration, is partly due to the hostile legal 72 / SAMAVATI AND STUMPH

The Phillips Curve: Evidence of a “lady or tiger dilemma”

Abstract This study examines the relation between inflation and unemployment. Granger Causality was applied to U.S. data since the end of the Vietnam War. The results support the conclusion that there is a unidirectional causation running from inflation to unemployment. This result has important policy and research implications. The natural rate hypothesis is not supported for the time period examined. It cannot be determined, however, whether the slope coefficient for the Phillips Curve characteristic of this period is positive or negative. This result, together with the existence of policy lags, implies that there is inherent risk in any policy perscription. Further, the results support Irving Fishers specification of regression models used to estimate posited relations between inflation and unemployment.