W. Stanley Siebert

Worker participation and firm performance : evidence from Germany and Britain

The Freeman–Lazear works council/worker involvement model is assessed over two distinct industrial relations regimes. In non‐union British establishments our measures of employee involvement are associated with improved economic performance, whereas for unionized plants negative results are detected. The suggestion is that local distributive bargaining can cause the wrong level of worker involvement to be chosen. Also consistent with the model is our finding that mandatory works councils do not impair, and may even improve, the performance of larger German establishments. Yet smaller plants with works councils under‐perform, illustrating the problem of tailoring mandates to fit heterogeneous populations.

Searching for The Optimal Level of Employee Turnover: A Study of a Large U.K. Retail Organization

We study the relationship between sales assistant turnover and labor productivity in 325 stores of a large U.K. clothing retailer tracked over 1995–99. We find that the turnover-productivity relationship is contingent on type of work system. For a large group of part-timers, managed under a “secondary” work system, the relationship clearly has an inverted U-shape, but for the smaller group of full-timers, managed under a “commitment” system, the relationship is the conventional negative one. Implications for the contingency view of the link between turnover and productivity are discussed.

Recent developments in social policy in the new European Union

This paper assesses the recent progress and future direction of labor policy in the European Community, now the European Union. The authors show that most of the mandates foreshadowed under the December 1989 Community Social Charter have now been enacted into law. They analyze the possible costs, as well as the benefits, of these firstphase mandates and show the link between these adjustment costs and the Communitys policy of providing subsidies to its poorer member states. They also demonstrate how the new Treaty on European Union, agreed to at Maastricht in December 1991, has increased the scope for Community-level labor market regulation.

The Impact of Deunionisation on Earnings Dispersion Revisited

This paper examines the effects of union change in Britain on changes in earnings dispersion 1983–1995. We investigate not only the decline in union density but also the greater wage compression among unionised workers, as well as changes in union density across skill groups. For the private sector, we find that deunionisation accounts for little of the increase in earnings dispersion. What unions have lost on the swings (lower density), they have gained on the roundabouts (greater wage compression). But for the public sector we find strong effects, because unions are increasingly organising the more skilled. This change in the character of public sector unions means that they no longer reduce earnings variation nearly as much as they once did.

Real Wage Cyclicality in Italy

This paper analyzes the cyclical behaviour of male real wages in Italy using the European Community Household Panel 1994-2001. We distinguish between job stayers (remaining in the same job), and within- and between-company job movers. Stayers are the large majority. We find stayers in Northern Italy to have high cyclicality of real wages, higher in fact than the US and the UK. The Northern cyclicality is significant for all sub-samples (except for public sector workers), and higher in small firms, the private sector, and for temporary workers, as expected. In contrast, we find little wage cyclicality for any sub-group in the Centre-South, even for workers in small private sector firms. Evidently, labour markets in the North of Italy operate much more competitively than in the Centre and South.

Measurement error and the effects of unions on the compensating differentials for fatal workplace risks

With essentially the same estimation methods and time period but using different UK data sets and risk measures, Sandy and Elliott (1996) found that nonunion male manual workers had a substantially higher fatal risk premium than union workers while Siebert and Wei (1994) found the opposite. This paper attempts to reconcile these conflicting results using the different measures of fatal risk employed in these two studies together on the same data set. The conflicting results are due to several types of measurement error. We find substantial miscoding in the employee-reported industry affiliation as well as larger errors-in-variables bias in the industry-based risk than in the occupation-based risk.

Management Economics in a Large Retail Company

We use unique data from 245 stores of a UK retailer to study links among middle (store) manager skills, sales, and manager pay. We find that, of the six management practice areas surveyed, the most important is “commercial awareness,” where abler managers achieve up to 13.9% higher sales per worker. We find that many stores have poor managers on this indicator. However, the company is careful to incentivize managers, operating a scheme giving shares (approximately 20%) in both positive and negative deviations of actual sales from expected. Abler managers do not receive higher pay, implying that their skills are company specific.

Factors associated with work productivity among people with COPD:: Birmingham COPD Cohort

Background Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are more likely to take time off work (absenteeism) and report poor performance at work (presenteeism) compared to those without COPD. Little is known about the modifiable factors associated with these work productivity outcomes. Aim To assess the factors associated with work productivity among COPD patients. Methods Cross-sectional analysis of baseline data from a subsample (those in paid employment) of the Birmingham COPD Cohort study. Absenteeism was defined by self-report over the previous 12 months. Presenteeism was assessed using the Stanford Presenteeism Scale. Logistic regression analysis was used to assess the effects of sociodemographic, clinical and occupational characteristics on work productivity. Results Among 348 included participants, increasing dyspnoea was the only factor associated with both absenteeism and presenteeism (p for trend<0.01). Additionally, increasing history of occupational exposure to vapours, gases, dusts or fumes (VGDF) was independently associated with presenteeism (p for trend<0.01). Conclusions This is the first study to identify important factors associated with poor work productivity among patients with COPD. Future studies should evaluate interventions aimed at managing breathlessness and reducing occupational exposures to VGDF on work productivity among patients with COPD.

Birmingham COPD Cohort: a cross-sectional analysis of the factors associated with the likelihood of being in paid employment among people with COPD

Background Employment rates among those with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are lower than those without COPD, but little is known about the factors that affect COPD patients’ ability to work. Methods Multivariable analysis of the Birmingham COPD Cohort Study baseline data was used to assess the associations between lifestyle, clinical, and occupational characteristics and likelihood of being in paid employment among working-age COPD patients. Results In total, 608 of 1,889 COPD participants were of working age, of whom 248 (40.8%) were in work. Older age (60–64 years vs 30–49 years: odds ratio [OR] =0.28; 95% confidence interval [CI] =0.12–0.65), lower educational level (no formal qualification vs degree/higher level: OR =0.43; 95% CI =0.19–0.97), poorer prognostic score (highest vs lowest quartile of modified body mass index, airflow obstruction, dyspnea, and exercise (BODE) score: OR =0.10; 95% CI =0.03–0.33), and history of high occupational exposure to vapors, gases, dusts, or fumes (VGDF; high VGDF vs no VGDF exposure: OR =0.32; 95% CI =0.12–0.85) were associated with a lower probability of being employed. Only the degree of breathlessness of BODE was significantly associated with employment. Conclusion This is the first study to comprehensively assess the characteristics associated with employment in a community sample of people with COPD. Future interventions should focus on managing breathlessness and reducing occupational exposures to VGDF to improve the work capability among those with COPD.

Family Labor Market Incentives: Men and Women Working for Pay

By now the facts governing gender labor market outcomes are well known: Women earn less than men, work in different occupations, and major in less market oriented fields. Over the life cycle, women’s wages rise less quickly, but are fairly comparable at least initially when both men and women start working. Being married is associated with lower wages for women, but higher wages for men, yet single men and women fare almost equally. Children exacerbate the male-female wage gap, so that wage differentials are higher among married men and women the greater the family size. Husbands and wives typically have large wage differences in families with large child age disparities than when families are completed in short periods of time. Finally, women commute less to work, work fewer hours, and tend to be more intermittent in the labor force than men. Indeed many of these patterns date as far back as written records.2