Robert Hebdon

Local government reform: Privatisation and its alternatives

Abstract Privatisation is only one of several alternatives for local government reform. Problems with lack of cost savings and the challenges of contract management have led local government reformers to explore other alternatives including municipal corporations, relational contracting and dynamic market management. Empirical analysis shows concerns with fiscal stress, efficiency, and managing political and citizen interests drive the reform process more than ideology. We argue that a more comprehensive framework is needed that gives attention to a wider array of alternatives for institutional reform.

Tradeoffs among Expressions of Industrial Conflict: Public Sector Strike Bans and Grievance Arbitrations

This examination of industrial conflict in over 9,000 bargaining units in Ontario, Canada, in 1988 yields robust cross-sectional evidence of a trade-off between legal strike bans and forms of industrial conflict other than strikes. Within Ontarios health care and provincial government services sectors, the incidence of grievance arbitrations, especially those concerning economic issues, was significantly higher where striking was prohibited than where it was permitted. The authors argue that researchers and policy makers should be aware that there may be unanticipated changes in expressions of industrial conflict when legal changes restrict specific actions such as strikes. In particular, research and policy models of industrial conflict should be specified to include more than one form of conflict expression at a time.

Strike Incidence and Strike Duration: Some New Evidence from Ontario

The authors use a unique longitudinal data set from Ontario, covering the years 1984–92, to estimate the determinants of strike incidence and duration. Unlike most empirical analyses of strikes, the data set for this study contains both small and large bargaining units. The authors find strong evidence that the likelihood of a future strike was lower among bargaining units that had struck before than among those that had not (the “teetotaler” effect); the longer a strike lasted, the greater was the probability of settling (positive duration dependence); and smaller bargaining units were less likely to strike than were larger bargaining units, but had longer strikes when they did strike.

Do Public‐Sector Strike Bans Really Prevent Conflict?

This article examines the effectiveness of strike-ban laws in reducing industrial conflict at the municipal level of government. Our central findings are that job actions were higher in states that had no law or no finality in the law, publicity campaigns were used as a pressure tactic in the bargaining process, and grievance delays were greatest under final offer arbitration. Thus dispute costs are highest in jurisdictions that provide no finality in dispute resolution whether or not an explicit framework for bargaining exists.

Unions and Privatization: Opening the 'Black Box'

Using a survey of Canadian city managers during the period 2002–2003 modeled on the U.S. International Cities and Counties Management Association surveys, the authors examine a range of union responses to proposals to privatize city services. When confronted with possible member losses, unions adopted a number of strategies: a) they reacted not at all or they supported the proposal; b) they engaged in collective action; c) they attempted arbitration and litigation; d) they negotiated to reduce adverse effects; or e) they suggested alternatives to privatization. Though unionized cities attracted a greater number of new privatization proposals, unions effectively rejected them, the most successful strategy being to suggest alternatives. Conversely, initiating strikes and other industrial actions were not as effective. Cities in which multiple strategies were adopted had lower long-term privatization rates. These results support a pragmatic view of union-management relations illustrating how unions and city managers found mutually acceptable alternatives to privatization or adjustment policies.

The Impact of Collective Bargaining Legislation on Strike Activity and Wage Settlements

We examine the effects of collective bargaining legislation, such as (among others) bans on replacement workers and reinstatement rights, on private sector strike activity and wage settlements using Canadian data from 1978 to 2008. Our estimates indicate that this legislation does not have a statistically significant effect on the incidence of strikes. However, we do find that some of the policy variables have a statistically significant effect on strike duration and wage settlements.

Toward a Theory of Workplace Conflict: The Case of U.S. Municipal Collective Bargaining

This paper develops and tests a new integrative theoretical framework for the study of workplace conflict that links the literatures of such disciplines as organization behavior, industrial relations, management, psychology, sociology, and social movement. It provides testable hypotheses where conflict is structurally blocked by laws, organizational rules, or social norms. It is hypothesized that a blockage of one expression will cause conflict to take on more covert forms of that same expression and to shift to other permitted forms. In a test of the theory in municipal collective bargaining, the paper found that conflict that was structurally blocked in the form of strikes was redirected to both covert collective actions (sick-outs, slowdowns, etc.), other permitted collective actions (e.g., unfair labor practices) and such individual expressions as grievances. There would appear to be a promising agenda for future research into the other cases described in the framework. For example, from the nonunion employer where collective actions are prohibited but individual grievances allowed it is hypothesized that such covert conflict as absenteeism, theft, or sabotage will be reduced. On the other hand, these same nonunion firms are predicted to have higher levels of individual conflict than unionized firms where both strikes and grievances are permitted. Future research that evaluates workplace conflict resolution ought to take into account the complex relationships between conflict expressions suggested in the new framework. The temptation of researchers to study one expression at a time should be resisted.

The Effects of Industrial Relations Factors on Health and Safety Conflict

Expansion of the rights of individual workers to refuse unsafe work and to make anonymous health and safety complaints has met with concerns that these rights might be misused so as to increase union bargaining power or to otherwise harass employers. The authors construct a database that merges work refusals and health and safety complaints with collective bargaining schedules, impasses, grievance arbitrations, and bargaining unit characteristics for 10,193 Ontario units in 1988 to determine how frequently these rights were exercised, whether they were more likely to be used during periods when collective agreements were being negotiated, and whether refusals and complaints were associated with other forms of industrial conflict. Although the exercise of these rights was more likely the more adversarial the industrial relations climate, the authors find little evidence that it was used for concerted harassment of employers.

A Theory of Workplace Conflict Development: From Grievances to Strikes

Relatively little is known about the complex inter–relationships between the various expressions of workplace conflict. This is an important topic because a full understanding is necessary for successful dispute resolution, to predict future developments such as form or method displacement, and perhaps most significantly, to develop conflict theory. Thus, a key purpose of this chapter is to build theory by examining the relationship between expressions of conflict. Conflict at work (or workplace conflict) has been broadly defined to include such forms as absenteeism, theft, sabotage, turnover, grievances, job actions and strikes. The most studied expressions are undoubtedly grievances and strikes but we know very little about their inter–relationship. Are they complementary or competitive? Are they alternatives or substitutes? The literature provides only anecdotal evidence of their relationship and no theory. Consequently, this chapter develops and tests, at least in an introductory fashion, a theory of workplace conflict that will provide hypotheses about expression relationships. To date scholars from various disciplines have conducted conceptual and empirical studies to address whether, and how, conflict can be managed or resolved (see, for example, De Dreu 2008, Jehn 1997, Morill et al. 2003, Wheeler 1985). But to address these issues, enquiries must be conducted into the nature of workplace conflict and its dynamics. To better understand these latter two issues, it is necessary to consider the literatures on workplace conflict from several disciplines and then integrate their findings into a comprehensive theory (Bendersky 2003, Feuille and Wheeler 1981).

Fact‐Finding Effectiveness: Evidence from New York State Fact‐Finding Effectiveness

In a collective-bargaining environment characterized by increasing fiscal and taxpayer pressures, this article examines the continued viability of fact-finding as a dispute-resolution mechanism in New York States public sector. This is an important question because fact-finding is the final dispute-resolution procedure for most unionized employees in New York and many other states. Whether fact-finding effectiveness was measured by the proximity of fact-finder recommendations to the final settlement or by outright acceptance of the fact-finder report, regression results show that New York fact-finding has successfully met the challenges of the intensified environmental pressures in the 1990s. No significant decline was found in its ability to move parties toward the compromise outcome. Part of the fact-findings continued success can be attributed to the policy shift by New Yorks Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) in 1991 in the role of the fact-finder from an accommodative to a more adjudicative function. The well-reasoned adjudicative fact-finding report has more potential to bring public pressure to bear on the extreme positions of the parties. Mediation was better left to the professional PERB mediators. Finally, it also was found that fact-finders who were full-time neutrals were more effective under this more adjudicative style.