Farewell to Commitment? Changing Employment Relations and Labor Markets in the United States

2001 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arne L. Kalleberg ◽  
Peter Cappelli ◽  
David Marsden ◽  
Paul Osterman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
The United States ◽  
Employment Relations

scholarly journals Labor Markets and Economic Inequality in the United States since the End of the 1970s

2005 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 655-673 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Schmitt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Bargaining Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Competition ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
The Past ◽  
State And Local Government ◽  
Real Value ◽  
State And Local

By most measures, the United States is the most unequal of the world's advanced capitalist economies, and inequality has increased substantially over the past 30 years. This article documents trends in the inequality of three key economic distributions—hourly earnings, annual incomes, and net wealth—and relates these developments to changes in economic and social policy over the past three decades. The primary cause of high and rising inequality is the systematic erosion of the bargaining power of lower- and middle-income workers relative to their employers, reflected in the erosion of the real value of the minimum wage, the decline in unions, widescale deregulation of industries such as airlines and trucking, the privatization and outsourcing of many state and local government activities, increasing international competition, and periods of restrictive macroeconomic policy.

Different Country, Same Work

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Painter ◽  
Matthew R. Sanderson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Capital ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Economic Integration ◽  
Mexican Immigrants ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Capital Theory ◽  
Specific Knowledge ◽  
Capital Theory

This study builds on recent work investigating the process of migration channeling between analogous sectors of the Mexican and U.S. labor markets. In this study, the authors take up the question of whether channeling between Mexico and the United States promotes immigrants’ economic integration. Drawing on previous research on channeling, and using insights from human capital theory, the authors test the hypothesis that immigrants who are able to use their industry-specific knowledge, skills, and abilities acquired in Mexico within the same industry in the United States achieve higher levels of economic integration. Using a sample of Mexican immigrants from the New Immigrant Survey, we find that industrially channeled immigrants experience a wage premium of over $5,000, on average, in the United States. Our study concludes with a discussion of what industrial channeling means for Mexican immigrants’ broader integration into U.S. society.

Identity and Institutions: The Social Construction of Trade Unions in Nineteenth-Century Germany and the United States

1993 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 371-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Herrigel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Functional Adaptation ◽  
Character Structure ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Face

The aim of this research note is to begin to develop the idea that trade unions are historically constructed as much through considerations of social identity as they are through calculations of economic self-interest, market power, or functional adaptation in the face of changes in the division of labor. By social identity, I mean the desire for group distinction, dignity, and place within historically specific discourses (or frames of understanding) about the character, structure, and boundaries of the polity and the economy. Institutions such as trade unions, in other words, are constituted through and by particular understandings of the structure of the social and political worlds of which they are part. In making this argument, it should be immediately said that I in no way intend to claim that trade unions are only to be understood through the lens of identity or that they do not engage in strategic calculation either in labor markets or in the broader political economy. The point is that action along the latter lines presupposes some kind of commitment on, and even resolution of, issues concerning the former. The discussion below focuses on the emergence of trade union movements in the United States and Germany during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It Attempts first to develope the two cases as constituting a paradox and then, second, explains the paradox with an argument about identity.

Book Reviews

2016 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 598-600
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Labor Markets ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Law School ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Labor Market Institutions ◽  
University Of Minnesota ◽  
Occupational Licensing ◽  
Labor Studies

Rebecca Allensworth of Vanderbilt Law School reviews “Guild-Ridden Labor Markets: The Curious Case of Occupational Licensing,” by Morris M. Kleiner. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “Summarizes research and policy issues on occupational licensing in the United States and other countries. Intended for practitioners and others interested in the roles of public policy and labor market institutions on labor markets and society. Discusses the anatomy of occupational licensing; the evolution of occupational licensing; the costs, mobility, and quality of occupational licensing services; battles among licensed occupations; occupational licensing in different institutional and international contexts; and policy implications of the evolution of occupational licensing in the United States and elsewhere. Kleiner is a professor in the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and teaches in the Center for Human Resources and Labor Studies at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.”

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