Summarizes the history of bargaining units formed to represent professional employees and presents the results of a survey of officers of 40 professional staff unions. These unions resemble conventional unions in bargaining issues such as job security and salaries and in their relationship with management. They differ in their infrequent use of…

Data from 2,061 British companies in the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey supported the hypothesis that powerful unions reduce the external threat of job loss and therefore the pace of work in unionized firms is less responsive to such threats. (SK)

A study of 1,509 British employees found that controlling for industrial relations climate reduced the negative relationship between unionization and job satisfaction. The data did not support the theory that union workers' expressions of dissatisfaction through union mechanisms were distinct from "genuine" dissatisfaction. (SK)

Kaufman attempts to identify essential characteristics that distinguish behavioral from nonbehavioral research in industrial relations. He argues that they are distinguished by the psychological model of man that is contained in the theoretical framework used to deduce or test hypotheses. Comments from Lewin, Mincer, and Cummings with Kaufman's…

A survey of 86 union representatives in worksites with employee participation programs was followed 3 years later with a survey of 66 reps and 49 corresponding managers. Only 20-30% of the programs failed, although management and union opinions differed. Union reps attributed failure to poor labor relations and were more likely than management to…

Productivity and employment data were collected from nine manufacturing plants at monthly intervals over a period of four to five years, during which time cooperative labor-management programs were introduced. Results showed productivity increased in six of eight firms and employment remained stable in eight of the nine. (Author/SK)

Analysis of data from a 1998 telecommunications industry survey indicates that institutional pressures and human resource strategies contribute to adoption of nonunion dispute resolution procedures. Employment rights litigation and court deferral to nonunion arbitration led to an increase in mandatory arbitration procedures. Threat of unionization…

Using data from two integrated steel-making sites, variation in the process and outcomes of workplace restructuring was studied. Four union capabilities were critical to success in negotiating with management over workplace restructuring: ability to access information, educate members, communicate with management, and access decision making at…

The authors explain how interaction analysis can extend existing methods of analyzing negotiations by examining economic bargaining theories. They code the transcript of a negotiation using two coding schemes and apply Markov chain analysis to the results. (Author/SK)

The study provides a picture of Norwegian party-union relations today and suggests several observations about the impact of socioeconomic factors on the development of labor's strategy. (MW)