Unions and innovation : new insights from the cross-country evidence

We apply meta-regression analysis to the extant econometric studies and find that unions depress investment in innovation at the firm and industry level in all countries considered. However, this adverse effect has been declining over time and is moderated by country differences in industrial relations and regulations: The adverse effect appears to increase with labor market flexibility.

Unions and productivity growth: a meta-analytic review

The impact of unions on productivity growth has received extensive
attention from researchers in industrial relations and economics. Despite
a voluminous literature, controversy continues regarding the effect of unions on productivity growth. In this paper, meta-analysis and metaregression
analysis is used to quantify the association between unions and productivity growth and to accomplish a quantitative assessment of the empirical literature. The results indicate that the overall association between unions and productivity growth is negative, especially for the U.S. The search for moderator variables revealed that most of the variation in the published results is artificial and can be attributed to specification differences.

Unions and tangible investments: a review and new evidence in France

A number of conflicting theoretical hypotheses have been advanced regarding the impact of unions on investment behaviour. The net impact of unions on investment is thus an empirical issue. In this article, the available empirical literature is reviewed. In addition, new evidence of the impact of unions on investment is presented using French data. In contrast to previous studies, both aggregate and disaggregate measures of union activity are used. The results indicate that French unions, in general, have not had a negative impact on investment behaviour. However, there is some evidence that the more militant unions have a negative impact on investment.

Unions and profits : a meta-regression analysis

The effect of unions on profits continues to be an unresolved theoretical and empirical issue. In this paper, clustered data analysis and hierarchical linear meta-regression models are applied to the population of forty-five econometric studies that report 532 estimates of the direct effect of unions on profits. Unions have a significant negative effect on profits in the United States, and this effect is larger when market-based measures of profits are used. Separate meta-regression analyses are used to identify the effects of market power and long-lived assets on profits, as well as the sources of union-profit effects. The accumulated evidence rejects market power as a source of union-profit effects. While the case is not yet proven, there is some evidence in support of the appropriation of quasi-rent hypothesis. There is a clear need for further American and non-American primary research in this area.

The Australian Labor Party and its various constituencies

This paper discusses whether and how the Australian Labor Party (ALP) can balance the arguably conflicting interests and outlooks of its blue-collar 'heartland' and the socially progressive, middle-class, professional elements of its constituency. The paper includes analysis, in socio-geographical detail and in historical perspective, of the results of the November 2001 national Australian election as well as opinion poll trends and academic survey results and interpretations before and since that time. Debate intensified after Labor’s 2001 election defeat about the supposedly irreconcilable character of different Labor Party constituencies. Much of this debate however was (and remains) characterised by derogatory and judgemental categorisations of various ill-defined social groups. On the eve of the 2004 national Australian election, based on careful consideration of a range of demographic and electoral evidence, this paper contends that, while there are, at times, conflicting interests and outlooks between different elements of the ALP's constituency (just as there is amid the support base of many social democratic parties in western nations), the party's electoral future will be best served by standing on and extending as far as possible the considerable common ground between these various elements. This common ground, it is argued, consists of egalitarian economic policies which promote security in people's lives and which thus build scope for the pursuit and acceptance of more compassionate, outward looking social policies. Its consolidation requires leadership by the Party in shaping public opinion rather than mere reaction to what is assumed to be static public opinion.

Oil unions and democracy in post-Saddam Iraq

Since the invasion of 2003, a complex array of political, religious and ethno-sectarian factions have formed civil society movements; uncensored news has been consumed across the nation; ordinary citizens have taken to the streets to protest key government decisions; and various local councils have been formed, deliberating on key decisions facing their immediate communities. Given this context, this paper focuses on the specific case of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU), Iraq’s largest and most powerful independent workers union. The IFOU has repeatedly taken the Iraqi government to task over their poor pay and the dangerous nature of their work, as well as the government’s initial kowtowing to US plans to privatise the entire Iraqi oil sector. To do this, the IFOU have utilised a variety of very democratic mechanisms including peaceful strikes and protests, media campaigns and political lobbying. Such moves have met with mixed results in Baghdad – at times the central government has pandered to the requests of IFOU, but it has also gone as far as issuing arrest warrants for its senior members. The IFOU therefore serve as an interesting example of public power in Iraq and may well pose one of the greatest challenges to rising authoritarianism there.

Does globalization weaken labor unions in developing countries?

For a developing economy with a given urban wage rate, globalization in capital markets strengthens labor unions. This result hinges on the fixed urban wage rate, which leads to a constant capital–labor ratio in the urban sector. Globalization via capital inflows not only enhances the employment effect of unionization but also reduces the rent-shifting related loss in production inefficiency to domestic capital, lending a support to labor unions for developing economies. This result is contrary to the common belief that labor unions tend to be weakened during the globalization process observed after 1980s in many developed economies.

Civil society after Saddam: oil unions and democracy in Iraq

Following the intervention in Iraq by coalition forces one decade ago, the Bush Administration underwent an enormous and unprecedented project to bring the ‘Western’ liberal model of democracy to Iraq. For the first few years the project to bring democracy to Iraq had its share of successes as the Iraqi people proved themselves capable of understanding and utilizing democratic mechanisms and institutions. This culminated in a series of nation-wide elections from 2005 onwards that brought a democratically elected government to power (Isakhan, 2012). However, one of the unfortunate consequences of the war and the US effort to bring democracy to Iraq was that many key ethno-religious political factions viewed it as an opportunity to pedal their own relatively narrow and very divisive political rhetoric (Davis, 2007). This meant that the Iraqi government was constituted not so much by a body who wanted to draw Iraq together behind a common ideology and to work towards a collective and egalitarian future, as it was by representatives who would fight on behalf of their ethno-religious constituencies. Not surprisingly, a great deal of academic literature has emerged which has analysed and criticised the formal political parties and institutions of the post-Saddam era (Dawisha, 2009). Indeed, the bulk of contemporary scholarship on Iraqi politics focuses on issues such as: the increasingly authoritarian tendencies of the Iraqi government; the obstinacy and ineptitude of many elements of Iraq’s political elite; the systemic corruption that is hollowing out the coffers of the state; the moribund bureaucracy that are struggling to deliver basic services and; of course, the deep-seated divisions within and between those that represent Iraq’s three main ethno-religious blocks: the Shia Arabs, the Sunni Arabs and the Kurds.