The Development of Trade UnionTheory and Mainstream Economic Methodology (original) (raw)
Related papers
Economic Models of Trade Unions
1992
Unions as Organizations 1. The microeconomic theory of the trade union A.]. Oswald 1.1 Foundations 1.2 Trade unions in the literature 1.3 A model of a utilitarian trade union 1.4 On extensions and problems 1.5 Conclusion References Appendix 2. Labour union objectives and collective bargaining D. H. Blair and D. L. Crawford 2.1 Introduction 2.2 The specification of union goals 2.3 The union's majority preference relation 2.4 Are the union's preferences cardinal? 2.5 Union-firm bargaining solutions References 3. Union wages, temporary lay-offs, and seniority G. M. Grossman 3.1 A model of a unionized sector under seniority rule 3.2 Steady-state comparisons 3.3 The effect of the seniority rule for lay-offs 3.4 Concluding remarks References 4. The determination of the union status of workers H. S. Farber 4.1 Introduction IX Xl XV 3 4 8 20 61 61 VI Contents 4.2 A model of union status determination 4.3 The data and econometric framework 4.4 Estimation 4.5 Analysis of results 4.6 Summary and conclusions References PART TWO: Union-Employer Relations 5. Wage bargaining and employment I. M. McDonald and R. M. Solow 5.1 A simple monopoly union 5.2 Efficient bargains 5.3 The union as a commune: A digression 5.4 Some simple conventions 5.5 Formal bargaining theory 5.6 Sales constraints and incremental bargaining 5.7 Conclusion References 6. Longitudinal analyses of the effects of trade unions R. B. Freeman 6.1 Longitudinal models of what unions do 6.2 The problem of measurement error 6.3 Comparisons of longitudinal and cross-section estimates of union effects 6.4 Bounding the true impact? 6.5 Conclusion References 7. Trade unions and optimal labour contracts H. Horn and L. E. O. Svensson 7.1 Competitive equilibria 7.2 Optimal labour contracts and a union without internal risk-sharing 7.3 Efficient bargaining 7.4 Summary and concluding remarks References Appendix 8. Testing the efficiency of employment contracts
A Brief Survey on the Role of Trade Unions in Labour Markets
The analysis of the economic effects of trade unions on labour markets has evolved in a quite unsteady way, with empirical findings posing theoretical unsolved puzzles and theoretical analyses being either almost absent or amazingly prolific (Pencavel, 1991). This paper presents a brief survey of the studies made on trade unions and their effects on the labour markets.
Non-orthodox Economic Approaches to Labor Unions and Union Leadership
Encyclopedia of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Spirituality, 2024
This short paper is the entry on Encyclopedia of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Spirituality (edited by Marques, J.). Springer, Cham, 2024. The entry describes the role, function, and nature of labor unions and their leadership from a non-orthodox perspective. It shows that since the end of the 19th century, a division between orthodox and non-orthodox approaches toward the study of labor unions can be discerned. The orthodox framework was formed in the late 19th century with the gradual establishment of Marginalism, and it consolidated itself with the dominance of early neoclassical economics. Orthodox economic theory did not devote much attention to the economic analysis of unions. On the contrary and during the same period, non-orthodox economists such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb and early institutionalists, had paid considerable attention to the study of unions, perceiving them as politico-economic organizations and emphasizing their wider role as social institutions. The legacy of those two approaches continued in the 20th century and contemporary analyses of labor unions. The orthodox approach (originating mainly from the work of John Dunlop), generally conceives unions as purely economic units, analogous to firms, which can be studied by applying the standard tools of microeconomic theory. In this framework, the notion of union leadership plays a minimum role. In contrast, the non-orthodox viewpoint (originating mainly from Arthur Ross' works), embraces a holistic, institutional-political-based attitude to the study of labor unionism.
Theorising International Trade Unionism
Global Labour Journal, 2011
This paper uses neo-functionalist and institutionalist theories of geo-political integration to develop a theory of international trade unionism. In brief, the theory asserts that the type of international 'context' in which international trade unions operate presupposes the types of 'imperatives' that will dominate their interests and concerns. These imperatives are taken to operate along one of three dimensions-industrial, political and ideological, and are seen as evolving in accordance with the 'logic of spill-over' in global and sub-global integration processes. Using this interpretation the discussion provides reasons as to why ideological imperatives have historically dominated international trade union thinking, the only significant exception being regional trade unions operating in Europe, which have evolved beyond the ideological to embrace industrial and political imperatives in their modes of organisation and operation.
A Social Welfare Theory of Trade Unions
Labour, 1993
There have been recent advances in the understanding of trade unions by modeling union objectives as maximizing a neoclassical utility function. While this literature is most relevant for autonomous and homogeneous local unions, there are also numerous large, heterogeneous trade unions in many countries. This paper illustrates that social choice theory presents a more realistic framework for explicitly modeling the aggregation of potentially diverse preferences within trade unions.
2018
Forthcoming in Hugh Collins, Gillian Lester, and Virginia Mantouvalou, eds. Philosophical Foundations of Labour Law, (OUP: 2018). In this chapter, we revisit the issue of how trade unions potentially contribute to political equality. We argue that the state’s adoption of a promotive stance towards trade unionism and collective bargaining should be seen, in part, as a feature of a stable democratic polity, one that is more internally resilient to oligarchical pressures. In this way, we argue that basic questions of labour law, which affect trade unions’ formation and operation, need to be viewed from the standpoint of democratic theory and the challenge of preventing a drift of representative institutions towards oligarchy.