This study analyzes the relationship among plant-level measures of industrial relations performance, economic performance, and quality-of-working-life programs. The analysis employs pooled time-series and cross-section data from 18 plants within a division of General Motors for the years...

In this article the author assesses whether a fundamental transformation is underway in public sector (state and local government) labor relations in the United States by revisiting the arguments made by the author and Kochan and McKersie (1986) regarding the transformation of labor relations in...

Symposium introduction.

This case study of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) demonstrates the value of resource dependence and contingency organizational theories-two branches of organization theory, which has most commonly been used to interpret firm behavior-for analyzing union revitalization. Consistent...

The author reviews evidence that the bargaining structure is becoming more decentralized in Sweden, Australia, the former West Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, although in somewhat different degrees and ways from country to country. He then examines the various...

Presents a model of bargaining between trade unions and employers in which an interest arbitration procedure encourages negotiated settlements. Criteria that have been used to evaluate interest arbitration and other dispute settlement procedures; Effect of strikes; Effects of an arbitrator's...

Analyzes how expenditures of the city of San Francisco were altered in response to changes in municipal labor costs over the period 1945 through 1976. Discussion of the demands model and organizational model; Description of data; Trends in department employees; How the intradepartment...

Unionism and collective bargaining among U.S. state and local government employees are being widely debated, and some of these governments have sharply reduced or eliminated public employee unionism and bargaining rights. Such actions are based on a belief that fiscal adversity facing state and...

This paper compares the Butler and Ehrenberg analysis of the narcotic effects of impasse procedures, presented in the preceding article, with the purposes, methods, and empirical results of the authors' earlier paper on the same subject. The authors use the differences in the two papers to argue...