Robert N. Stern

A Yo-Yo Model of Cooperation: Union Participation in Management at the Rath Packing Company

The authors hypothesize that union leaders who enter into union-management cooperative programs alternate between cooperative and adversarial behavior: they agree to cooperate in order to avert corporate ruin or obtain benefits, but revert to their adversarial view of labor-management relations when cooperation incurs costs to the union or threatens their control of union members. Analysis of union-management collaboration at the Rath Packing Company between 1978 and 1985 shows that during the life of that program, the union leaders withdrew from and returned to collaboration three times, in response to changes in the cost to the union of continued participation.

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.

Intermetropolitan Patterns of Strike Frequency

Examination of the differences in strike frequency in the United States metropolitan areas between 1968 and 1970. Factors that influence the frequency of strikes; Characteristics of cities; Impact of local, industrial, and government structure on the incidence of strikes; Summary and interpretation. (Abstract copyright EBSCO.)

Participation by Representation Workers on Boards of Directors in the United States and Abroad

Indirect worker participation in corporate policy decisions is occurring through worker and union representation on boards of directors and supervisory boards in Europe, Australia, and the United States. Evidence suggests that this form of representation is problematic because of the structure of corporate boards, selection and training of worker directors, dual loyalty-role conflict problems, confidentiality constraints, and communication with constituents. In the United States, worker directorships arise at the corporate level because of concession bargaining and employee ownership. However, U.S. corporate and labor laws raise questions over the legal status of union board memberships. Several U.S. cases are compared with foreign experiences. The assessment of the effectiveness of worker directorships as a form of participation varies dramatically based on the orientations of researchers as unitarist, pluralist, or conflict theorists.

Professional Socialization and Attitudes Toward Collective Bargaining: An Exploration Among Law Students

This study examines the basis of hostility toward collective bargaining by professionals as attitudes develop during professional training. Comparisons are made among law students in different class years within a school. Data on the relationship between background, motivation to enter law, careerplans, stage of legal training, and attitudes toward bargaining show that hostility toward professional collective bargaining increases with training. Background factors, motivation, and career plans are initially important predictors of hostility, but become insignificant by the third year of law school. The ability to distinguish the activity of unions from that of professional associations becomes more important as background effects attenuate.

Unemployment insurance and strikes

In several states workers who are unemployed because of a labor dispute can collect unemployment benefits. Due to imperfect experience rating, such policies can create a public subsidy to strikes. This study examines whether these policies affect strike activity. In particular, both cross-sectional and fixed effects models are employed to test whether an increase in the public subsidy inherent in unemployment insurance leads to an increase in strike frequency.

Coopting Change toward Industrial Democracy: Professionals as Agents of Structural Constraint

This paper asks why the democratic election of leaders, which is so fundamental an institution in much of Western society, is held sacred in the political sector of social life but rejected in the economic one. We propose that democracy stops at the factory gates partly because of the practices and ideologies of practice of the professionals who construct and maintain the boundaries between the workplace and the larger political sphere. Specifically, we compare the role of lawyers, accountants, and academics in situations where workers attempt to implement or maintain a democratic governance structure in the workplace, within a socialist and a capitalist economic order. We conclude that professionals act as cooptation agents for democratic ideas in both the capitalist and the socialist context.

Work and Power: The Liberation of Work and the Control of Political Power.

Part 1: Historical and Background Studies Part 2: Theoretical Studies Part 3: Strategy and Critique of Strategy