May - June 2007 (20)

Editor: Terence K. Huwe
Contributors: Dan Bellm, Elizabeth del Rocio Camacho, Stefanie Kalmin, Janice Kimball, Jenifer MacGillvary, Vibhuti Mehra, Dick Walker


IRLE News & Events
Next eNews: September 2007
Margaret Weir Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
May 2007 Colloquium Series
Industrial Relations Journal: Articles and Abstracts for Volume 46, No. 2
Forthcoming Issues, July 2007, Volume 46, No. 2
IRLE Working Paper Series
IRLE Holds Special Conference on April 20: "Understanding the Immigration Protests of Spring 2006: Lessons Learned, Future Trajectories"
New Visiting Scholars


IRLE Program News
The Labor Center
California Public Employee Relations
California Studies Center Hosts "The Crisis in the California Commons�
Center for the Study of Child Care Employment
Institute for Research on Labor and Employment Library
The Labor Project for Working Families


Campus Events
Center for Latin American Studies
Institute for the Study of Social Change

IRLE NEWS & EVENTS


Editor�s Note:

Our next edition will appear in September 2007.


Margaret Weir Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

IRLE past director Margaret Weir was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, along with a total of seven UC Berkeley faculty members. The Campus NewsCenter has published a Web feature on this year�s class of new Berkeley members at the following URL:

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/04/30_aaas.shtml

Congratulations, Margaret!


May 2007 Colloquium Series

IRLE Colloquia are held in the Large Conference Room at noon on the dates shown. For a full listing of 2006-2007 colloquia, see the IRLE web:
http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/events

May 7, 2007
"Turquoise Investment Strategies: New Frontiers for Labor/Environmental Advocacy"
Kirsten Snow Spalding, former Executive Director, CPCFA ,California Pollution Control Financing Authority; former Chair, Center for Labor Research and Education.

May 16, 2007
"The Knowledge-Led Accumulation Regime: a Theory of the Current Era of Capitalism"
Hungkee Kim, Kyungpook National University, Korea. Visiting Scholar, Center for Korean Studies, UC Berkeley


Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society
Volume 46 Issue 2 � April 2007

Special Symposium Issue: Governing the Global Workplace
Symposium Guest Editors: Mario F. Bognanno, John W. Budd, and Morris M. Kleiner

Articles:

Globalization, Human Resource Practices and Innovation: Recent Evidence from the Canadian Workplace and Employee Survey
SCOTT WALSWORTH and ANIL VERMA
This study examines the triangular relationship that connects the degree to which a workplace is internationally engaged, the extent to which it innovates, and the human resource practices it adopts. By pooling various years of data from the Canadian Workplace and Employee Survey, a nationally representative data set, we found that certain practices, such as variable pay and autonomy training, are more likely to be used in international workplaces. We subsequently found that for an international workplace, the use of variable pay contributes very little to workplace innovation while autonomy training has a positive relationship with innovation.

Integrating Human Resource and Technological Capabilities: The Influence of Global Business Strategies on Workplace Strategy Choices
WILLIAM N. COOKE
Treating workplace strategies as the integration of human resource and technological capabilities, a typology of workplace strategy emphases is developed. The choice among these alternative workplace strategy emphases is treated as a function of market-positioning priorities and the multinational scope of firms. Accordingly, a multinomial choice model is specified, which is tested against a sample of firms in the U.S. automotive supplier industry. The model obtains substantial empirical support. Among the findings is evidence consistent with the proposition that due to cross-border, isomorphic constraints, multinational companies are less likely than national companies to pursue workplace strategies emphasizing human resource capabilities, choosing instead to favor the diffusion of workplace strategies emphasizing technological capabilities.

Who's On the Line? Indian Call Center Agents Pose as Americans for U.S.-Outsourced Firms
WINIFRED R. POSTER
This paper explores the globalization of service work through an analysis of customer service call centers in India for U.S. firms. It reveals a new kind of managerial strategy, "national identity management," in which employees are asked to subsume different national identities as part of the job. Through interviews with over eighty Indian call center personnel and case studies of three call centers, this paper analyzes how and why ethnicity and citizenship have become crucial elements of the labor process. It builds upon and elaborates seminal theories of managerial control in interactive service work, including Hochschild's theory of emotion management and Leidner's theory of scripting. It argues that globalization fundamentally alters the relationship of the actors, the purpose and practice of managerial control, and the outcomes for those involved. In addition, it reflects on theories of advancing information and communication technology (ICT), and global identity. Some scholars argue that the development of ICTs will lead to a homogenization (especially an "Americanization") of identities, while others see increasing global disjuncture and renegotiation of identities. Instead, this analysis reveals a continuum of responses by workers to the process of national identity management, and the forging of multiple, internally differentiated ethnic identities. It concludes by arguing that customer service work will continue to be globalized, and as a result, issues of "nation" will increasingly surface within interactive service work.

Do Industrial Relations Institutions Influence Foreign Direct Investment? Evidence from OECD Nations
HWIKWON HAM and MORRIS M. KLEINER
The potential impact of industrial relations institutions on economic outcomes has been a key element in analyzing the governing of the global workplace. We present case information and analysis that show that there are trade-offs between higher levels of economic outcomes and greater equity and employee voice associated with more and deeper labor market institutions. The estimates from the model show the impact of industrial relations system policies within a nation on a country's foreign direct investment (FDI) from other nations for the period 1985 through 2000 using data from nations that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Examples of the impact of major transformations in national industrial relations systems on FDI for UK and New Zealand also are presented. Our results show that higher levels of industrial relations institutions from the firms� perspective are usually associated with lower levels of FDI.

Globalization and Declining Unionization in the United States
MATTHEW J. SLAUGHTER
For decades, the private-sector unionization rate in the United States has been falling. At the same time, the integration of the United States into the world economy has been rising. Many anecdotes suggest the latter has played a role in that decline, with unions feeling pressured to reduce employment and/or compensation demands in the face of rising cross-border activity of employers. To investigate this possibility econometrically, in this paper I assembled a panel of U.S. manufacturing industries that matches union-coverage rates with measures of global engagement such as exports, imports, tariffs, transportation costs, and foreign direct investment. The main finding is a statistically and economically significant correlation between falling union coverage and greater numbers of inward FDI transactions. Possible interpretations of this finding are then discussed. Because U.S. affiliates of foreign multinationals have higher unionization rates than U.S.-based firms do, this correlation does not reflect just a compositional shift toward these affiliates. Instead, it may reflect pressure of international capital mobility on U.S.-based companies, consistent with research on how rising capital mobility raises labor-demand elasticities and alters bargaining power.

U.S. Multinational Activity Abroad and U.S. Jobs: Substitutes or Complements?
ANN E. HARRISON, MARGARET S. MCMILLAN, and CLAIR NULL
Critics of globalization claim that firms are being driven by the prospects of cheaper labor and lower labor standards to shift employment abroad. Yet the evidence, beyond anecdotes, is slim. This paper reports stylized facts on the activities of U.S. multinationals at home and abroad for the years 1977 to 1999. We focus on firms in manufacturing and services, two sectors that have received extensive media attention for supposedly exporting jobs. Using firm-level data collected by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) in Washington, D.C., we report correlations between U.S. multinational employment at home and abroad. Preliminary evidence based on the operations of these multinationals suggests that the sign of the correlation depends on the crucial distinction between affiliates in high-income and low-income countries. For affiliates in high-income countries there is a positive correlation between jobs at home and abroad, suggesting that foreign employment of U.S. multinationals is complementary to domestic employment. For firms that operate in developing countries, employment has been cut in the United States, and affiliate employment has increased. To account for firm size, substitution across firms and entry and exit, we aggregate our data to the industry level. This exercise reveals that the observed "complementarity" between U.S. and foreign jobs has been driven largely by a contraction across all manufacturing sectors. It also reveals that foreign employment in developing countries has substituted for U.S. employment in several highly visible industries, including computers, electronics, and transportation. The fact that there were U.S. jobs lost to foreign affiliates in key sectors, despite broad complementarity in hiring and firing decisions between U.S. parents and their affiliates, helps explain why economists view the impact of globalization on U.S. jobs as benign despite negative news coverage for declining industries.

Enforcing Labor Rights against Multinational Corporate Groups in Europe
YARASLAU KRYVOI
Voluntary corporate codes of conduct for multinational enterprises can have certain quasi-legal effects for national legal systems, but the enforcement of labor standards remains at the national level. Two main obstacles to the enforcement of labor rights against multinationals are limited access to justice in multinationals� home countries and the concept of limited liability. These obstacles are understood differently in common law and civil law jurisdictions and require different approaches to overcome them.

Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society

Forthcoming Articles: July 2007, volume 46, number 3
(eNews Editor�s Note: The following abstracts may be revised before the issue goes to press.)

Centralized Wage Bargaining and the "Celtic Tiger� Phenomenon
Lucio Baccaro and Marco Simoni
Drawing on a variety of sources and research methods, this article argues that centralized wage bargaining contributed to the "Celtic Tiger� phenomenon by linking wage increases in the dynamic MNC sector to wage and productivity increases in the much more sluggish domestic sector of the economy and, in so doing, considerably increasing the competitiveness of foreign multinational companies � a key driver of Irish growth. The article also argues that much received wisdom about the institutional and organizational preconditions for centralized wage regulation needs to be reconsidered in light of the Irish case. Public sector unions played a pivotal role in initiating and sustaining wage centralization, yet their leadership role did not undermine its effectiveness. Likewise, internal democratic procedures and the absence of wage compression policies, rather than centralized organizational structures, facilitated compliance with centralized wage policies.

Labor Market Outcomes of Persons with Mental Disorders
Marjorie L. Baldwin and Steven C. Marcus
We present nationally representative estimates of unexplained employment and wage differentials between non-disabled persons and persons with mental disorders, a disabled group subject to exceptionally strong stigma. Estimates are provided for persons with mental disorders overall, and for subgroups of mood, anxiety, adjustment, and psychotic disorders. The results reveal distinctly different patterns of outcomes across subgroups, consistent with a severity gradient such that persons with adjustment disorders experience the most favorable outcomes, while persons with psychotic disorders experience the least favorable.

Finance, Corporate Governance, and the Employment Relationship
Boyd Black, Howard Gospel, and Andrew Pendleton
This comparative paper examines the relationship between equity markets and corporate governance on the one hand, and job tenure, training, and pay on the other. Two dimensions of equity markets and corporate governance are used: share trading activity and mergers and acquisitions. There is support for the posited links between these measures and job tenure, employee stock ownership plans, pay dispersion, and collective bargaining arrangements. Evidence on the relationship with training is more mixed.

State Dependence, Accommodations and the Post-Injury Employment of Disabled Workers
Michele Campolieti
This paper examines the post-injury employment patterns of disabled workers from Ontario, Canada, by estimating a dynamic probit model with unobserved effects. The estimates indicate that there is some state dependence in the conditional probability of leaving employment for health reasons and that an employer accommodation can reduce the conditional probability of leaving employment for health reasons by 33 percent. Moreover, a supplementary cross-sectional analysis confirms that accommodations can reduce the probability of leaving employment.

Decentralization of Collective Agreements and Rising Wage Inequality in Israel
Tali Kristal and Yinon Cohen
This paper presents a systematic analysis of the decentralization of the Israeli system of collective bargaining, and its contribution to the rise in earnings inequality. We analyze quantitatively all collective agreements that were signed between 1957 and 2003, and present the scale, scope and timing of five dimensions of decentralization. The findings suggest that decentralization started in the mid-1970s when national agreements were less likely to be extended to non-union employees; it was intensified in 1975-80 when nationwide industrial agreements were supplanted by occupational and local agreements. Decentralization became fully consolidated by 1987 when peak-level agreements covering the entire private sector were no longer signed. We then present evidence (including time series analyses that control for union density and macro economic indicators) that the process of decentralization, especially the decline in the use of extension orders and the proliferation of local agreements, explains a significant part of the sharp rise in earnings inequality in Israel during 1970-2003.

New Evidence on Gender Differences in Promotion Rates: An Empirical Analysis of a Sample of New Hires
Francine D. Blau and Jed DeVaro
Using a large sample of establishments drawn from the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality (MCSUI) employer survey, we study gender differences in promotion rates and in the wage gains attached to promotions. Several unique features of our data distinguish our analysis from the previous literature on this topic. First, we have information on the wage increases attached to promotions, and relatively few studies on gender differences have considered promotions and wage increases together. Second, our data include job-specific worker performance ratings, allowing us to control for performance and ability more precisely than through commonly-used skill indicators such as educational attainment or tenure. Third, in addition to standard information on occupation and industry, we have data on a number of other firm characteristics, enabling us to control for these variables while still relying on a broad, representative sample, as opposed to a single firm or a similarly narrowly-defined population. Our results indicate that women have lower probabilities of promotion and expected promotion than do men but that there is essentially no gender difference in wage growth with or without promotions.

High-Commitment Work Practices and Downsizing Harshness in Australian Workplaces
Roderick D. Iverson and Christopher D. Zatzick
This study examines the relationship between high-commitment work practices (HCWP) and downsizing. The results based on a large, representative sample of Australian workplaces supported our predictions. Consistent with previous research, HCWP were positively related to workforce reduction. However, workplaces with more HCWP used less harsh strategies (e.g., more employee friendly approaches to downsizing) such as voluntary layoffs and early retirement than the harsher strategy of compulsory layoffs. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Defined Contribution Plans and the Distribution of Pension Wealth
William Even and David Macpherson
Over the past 20 years, the defined benefit plan has been replaced by the defined contribution plan as the most popular form of pension plan. This study examines the likely consequences of this transformation for both the level and distribution of future pension wealth using a sample of defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution plans (DC) from the Survey of Consumer Finances. The results reveal that the shift from DB to DC plans is likely to simultaneously increase the level and inequality of pension wealth at retirement. The evidence also suggests that the shift to DC plans may result in less pension wealth at retirement for low income workers, women, and minorities.

Social Partnership in Ireland and New Social Pacts
William K. Roche
Social partnership in Ireland has attracted considerable international attention. This paper examines the origins, focus and institutional architecture of the Irish social partnership model. The paper examines social partnership in the context of the theory of social pacts and suggests that the institutionalisation of social partnership can be attributed to the continuing significance of compensatory political exchange, the influences of partnership networks and the effects of new mechanisms for conflict resolution.

Defending Dock Workers�Globalization and Labor Relations in the World�s Ports
Peter J. Turnbull and Victoria J. Wass
Globalization has precipitated a major restructuring of the world�s ports and brought in its wake a marked deterioration in dock workers� terms and conditions of employment. Many trade unions have found it difficult to protect their members� interests against this international �race-to-the-bottom�, most notably in those countries where dock labor has been historically poorly organized but also where industrial restructuring has been used as a vehicle to de-unionize the industry. Other unions have been more successful, either by working in concert with private employers and public port authorities or by mobilizing their membership to contest and contain the process of industrial restructuring.

IRLE Working Paper Series, 2006-2007

The following papers were published during the past academic year. We anticipate adding additional papers before June 30, 2007. Academic departments are given for lead author on the papers below.

2007

Clair Brown and Greg Linden - Economics (January 25, 2007)
Semiconductor Engineers in a Global Economy

Hillary Anger Elfenbein - Haas School of Business (January 19, 2007)
Emotion in Organizations: A Review in Stages

Sebastian Etchemendy and Ruth Berins Collier - Political Science (January 25, 2007)
Down but Not Out: The Recovery of a Downsized Labor Movement in Argentina (2002-2006)

Neil Fligstein - Sociology (Upload scheduled for June 2007)
Shareholder Value and the Transformation of American Industries, 1984-2001

The Sociology of Markets
Rucker C. Johnson and Robert F. Schoeni - The Goldman School of Public Policy (January 2, 2007)
The Influence of Early-Life Events on Human Capital, Health Status, and Labor Market Outcomes Over the Life Course

David I. Levine and Jonathan Leonard - Haas School of Business (Upload scheduled for June 2007)
Diversity, Discrimination and Performance

Charlan Nemeth and Margaret Ormiston - Psychology (Upload scheduled for June 2007)
Creative Idea Generation: Harmony versus Stimulation

Marko Tervio - Haas School of Business (Upload scheduled for June 2007)
The Difference that CEOs Make: An Assignment Model Approach

Ximing Wu and Jeffrey M. Perloff - Agricultural and Resource Economics (January 25, 2007)
Information-Theoretic Deconvolution Approximation of Treatment Effect Distribution

2006

Arindrajit Dube, Suresh Naidu, and Michael Reich - IRLE (May 18, 2006)
The Economic Impacts of a Citywide Minimum Wage

Trond Petersen, Vermund Snartland, and Eva M. Meyersson Milgrom - Haas School of Business (August 9, 2006)
Are Female Workers Less Productive Than Male Workers?

Trond Petersen and Thea Togstad - Haas School of Business (June 23, 2006)
Getting the Offer: Sex Discrimination in Hiring

Tobias Schulze-Cleven - Political Science (May 11, 2006)
The Politics of an Experimental Society: Creating Labor Market Flexibility in Europe

Dylan Riley and Juan J. Fernandez - Sociology (April 1, 2006)
The Authoritarian Foundations of Civic Culture: Spain and Italy in Comparative Perspective

Marko Tervio - Haas School of Business (March 18, 2006)
Career-Hopping: Learning and Turnover in an Imperfect Labor Market

Michael J. Handel and David I. Levine - Haas School of Business (March 13, 2006)
The Effects of New Work Practices on Workers

IRLE Special Conference:

"Understanding the Immigration Protests of Spring 2006: Lessons Learned, Future Trajectories"

The Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, the Pew Hispanic Center and the Department of Sociology hosted this one-day conference on Friday April 20, 2007. The event was well attended, and lively interchanges marked the day's proceedings. There were three panel discussions, each of which featured distinguished presenters and discussants:

Panel 1: Overview and Assessment: What Happened in Spring 2006?

  • Jonathan Fox (UC Santa Cruz) - "Mapping Mexican Migrant Civil Society�
  • Irene Bloemraad (UC Berkeley) - "All in the Family: Dual Mobilization in the East Bay�
  • Nilda Flores-Gonzales and Amalia Pallares (University of Illinois, Chicago) - "Emerging Voices: New Actors in the Chicago Protests�
  • Lisa Martinez (University of Denver) - "The Politics of Immigration in a Bellwether State: Evidence from Denver�
  • Discussant: Kim Voss (UC Berkeley)

Panel 2: Looking Back: Immigrant and Latino Mobilization in the Past

  • Maria Echaveste (UC Berkeley) - "Putting the Spring Protests in Historic Context�
  • Ruth Milkman (UC Los Angeles) - "L.A.�s Past, America�s Future? The 2006 Immigrant Rights Protests and their Antecedents�
  • Gary Segura (University of Washington, with Shaun Bowler & Francisco Pedraza) - "The Efficacy and Trust of Juan Q. Public: How the Immigration Marches Reflect Surprising Support for American Institutions of Governance�
  • Discussant: Robert Mickey (University of Michigan, Robert Wood Johnson Scholar)

Panel 3: Looking Forward: The Future and Meaning of the Protests

  • Jonathan Simon (UC Berkeley) - "What the May 1st Marchers Meant: Immigration Reform Should Not Be About Crime�
  • Louis DiSipio (UC Irvine) - "Drawing New Lines in the Sand: An Early Assessment of the Medium-and Long-Term Consequences of the 2006 Immigrant Rights Protests�
  • Taeku Lee (UC Berkeley), S.Karthick Ramakrishnan (UC Riverside), and Ricardo Ramirez (USC) - "From Pickets to Polls? Bridging Political Behavior and Social Movements Perspectives on the Immigration Protests�
  • Discussant: Rachel Moran (UC Berkeley, Director of the Institute for the Study of Social Change)

New Visiting Scholars

The following scholars will be visiting IRLE in the coming months:

Ms. Theresa Beltramo, August 2007 - September, 2008, from University of Venice, Italy
Research interest: labor markets in poor nations. Ms. Beltramo is sponsored by David Levine, Professor Haas School of Business.

Ms. Kristin Joachimsen, January, 2007 - January, 2008, Assoc. Professor -Dept. of Religous Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Oslo ,Norway, sponsored by Prof. Trond Petersen.
Ms. Joachimsen's research is 'The relation of identity to the experience of exile'.

Ms. Aekyung Kim, February, 2007 - August, 2007, Chuo University, Tokyo, Japan,sponsored by Professor Michael Reich.
Research is on Japan and U.S. non-standard work and the social security system.

Mr. PerOla Oberg, January, 2008 - April, 2008, Assoc. Professor,Uppsala University, Sweden, sponsored by Prof. Chris Ansell and Michael Reich.
Research interest focused on interest group participation in public policy-making, public administration, and industrial relations in Sweden.