The empirical analysis in this paper, which draws on Current Population Survey data, indicates that structural decline in the steel industry during the 1980s markedly affected the distribution of wages both in the industry and in steel-producing communities. The steelworker wage distribution...

Using standard measures of income inequality and detailed pension benefit information on participants in the 1983 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the authors investigate how pension benefits affected the distribution of earned income. The results suggest that private pensions increased annual...

This study develops and tests a production function that includes a plant's grievance filing rate as a determinant of productivity. Application of that function to data on nine unionized paper mills for 1976-82 shows that the more grievances that were filed in a mill, the lower that mill's...

This paper analyzes the effects of bargaining law characteristics on rates of unionization in over 10,000 local government departments, representing five different government services, that were without bargaining units in 1977. Duty-to-bargain laws significantly increased the probability of...

This paper investigates the effects of association-style unionism on union membership. In a 1984 Harris poll examining workers' attitudes toward various forms of employee organization, nearly half of all nonunion workers indicated they would join an association, but most of these potential...

This paper uses longitudinal data provided by a large unionized grocery store chain to examine the relationship between profitability and compensation adjustments between 1976 and 1985. Consistent with the predictions of a Nash bargaining model, negotiated compensation adjustments were inversely...

This study explores the strengths and weaknesses of economic reasoning in explaining, and suggesting remedies for, the stubborn presence of racketeering in New York City construction. In this industry, the authors argue, transactions cannot be conducted efficiently either between a large number...

This study analyzes the consent decree of 1974 that reformed plant seniority systems in basic steel to resolve problems of equal employment opportunity. The author argues that the major factors leading to the negotiation of this industrywide decree were the large number of plant-level suits...

This study estimates the effects of unionism on the compensation of firefighters through regression analysis of cross-section data for over 1,000 cities and for pay before and after the advent of formal bargaining in 300 to 500 cities. The author concludes that there is a greater union effect on...