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It is the opinion of the authors of this position paper that collective bargaining in the public sector causes an increase in strikes and employee unrest, resulting in a diminution of public services. The authors assert that public employee collective bargaining means giving unions the power to control government through intimidation of the taxpaying public. This paper includes statistical data on the frequency and number of public employee strikes in each state--data intended to bolster the authors' contention that collective bargaining in the public sector is destructive. They conclude that a method other than compulsory public employee collective bargaining would be in the public's best interest. (Author/DS) more...

College students are expanding their role in academic collective bargaining. They represent a fresh source of energy for reform that must be recognized by faculty unions and university administrators who seek higher levels of cooperation and new directions for service. This document reviews student involvement in collective bargaining. Some effects of collective bargaining on students are: (1) fear of the loss of student rights; (2) fear that increases in salaries and fringe benefits negotiated by the faculty unions will at least partly come out of students' pockets in the form of higher tuition and fees; (3) fear of strikes that would interrupt their education. Student impact on collective bargaining is felt through: (1) lobbying for legislation to protect student interests; (2) undertaking legal (court) action; (3) asking to have a student observer (or team) sit in on negotiations; (4) including students on the bargaining team of one or both sides; and (5) trying to be included in negotiations as an independent third party. The author predicts that student involvement in collective bargaining negotiations will increase in the future, especially if present action of this type proves successful. Appendixes give a table of contents of a possible contract negotiated by a student government and a list of issues involved in the student role in collective bargaining negotiations. (Author/KE) more...

Perhaps the most extensive empirical research on the topics of support for collective bargaining and for unionization in higher education is that of Ladd and Lipset (1973). Their analysis leads to a number of general propositions about faculty support for collective bargaining and for unionism, some involving properties of higher education settings and faculty status characteristics. Data available from a school-of-education study in a large, private university, permitted examination of some of Ladd and Lipset's conclusions. The objectives were to determine: (1) to what extent the faculty as a body was receptive to the idea of collective bargaining; (2) to what extent there was support for unionism; (3) what relationship, if any, there was between faculty and support for collective bargaining and desire for unionization; and (4) to what extent support for unionism was related to faculty rank, tenure, and research orientation. It appears that a contradictory picture of forces behind the push for unionism (tenure) and away from unionism (research priority) exists within this faculty. A discussion of this conclusion includes: (1) changes during the 1960's; (2) the faculty generation gap; and (3) exacerbating conditions in the early 1970's. (Author/KE) more...

Attitudes concerning faculty unionization have an impact on its rejection or acceptance and its subsequent implementation. This study was conducted to determine the level of agreement among faculty, student services staff, and students before major collective bargaining activities, such as a run-off election, take place. Assessed are attitudes held by faculty, students who are active and assumedly concerned with the welfare and the dynamics of the University, and staff members under the Office of Student Services toward aspects of collective bargaining at the Ohio State University, Columbia campus. Findings point out a variety of areas, such as fringe benefits, working conditions, and student participation that have the potential to become areas of conflict. In the event of collective bargaining at Ohio State, the question whether decisions will be made in the distributive model as a result of power, coercion, and formalization, or in the integrative model as a result of trust, reason, and shared goals will be partly dependent upon a change in the attitudes of the parties involved. Those parties must understand that they are not simply interest groups but that they constitute the University and share a variety of common goals and interests. (Author/KE) more...

The first known analysis of a substantial number of arbitration awards in higher education is presented in an effort to determine whether arbitrators have confined their awards within the contract limitations. All of the arbitration awards generated by the four-year colleges of the State University of New York as well as the awards of the Pennsylvania state colleges were reviewed. Twelve two-year SUNY colleges also responded to a letter requesting arbitration decisions, and additional cases were found in back issues of "Arbitration in the Schools." Less than half of the awards surveyed involved academic judgment issues. The majority concerned traditional contract interpretation questions such as the length of contract-mandated paid vacations, eligibility for pension benefits, and the necessity of paying for overtime work. Cases where academic consequences grew out of basically non-academic grievances are reported briefly. It is shown that the very presence of arbitration has had direct impact on academic decisions, some of which has been beneficial. Tenure and promotion decisions have been affected by the introduction of due process elements into academic personnel decisions. If the traditional system of faculty participation in decision making is to be maintained, steps must be taken to establish appropriate boundaries between academic officials' and arbitrators' authority. (LBH) more...

This document reports on a survey of faculty voting behavior. The survey was months after a second election was held to determine whether or not faculty and support professionals at Temple University would be represented by a collective bargaining agent. The survey focused on the relationship between voting behavior and two potential sources of variance: (1) faculty characteristics; and (2) attitudes and/or opinions about several key issues in academic collective bargaining. The document is presented in four major sections. The first section discusses the national and local scene relative to collective bargaining, sets the context of the election, and specifies the methods and analytic techniques used in the research. The second section presents results of the survey pertaining to the first election held. The third section is similar to the second section but deals with the second or runoff election. Survey data presented in sections two and three include: (1) open-ended response by voting behavior; (2) demographic characteristics by voting behavior; (3) association descriptors; (4) internal versus external governance factors as influences on voting behavior; (5) satisfaction with and desired negotiability of issues; (6) attitude toward strikes by voting behavior; (7) the viability of "no representative"; (8) summary of election results. The fourth section discusses and summarizes major findings of the study. (Author/KE) more...

The rejection of the "Great Forces" and "Great Man" theories of newspaper history allows a middle-range view that seeks to discover the uniqueness of the newspaper business and to explain how that uniqueness shaped the business values of the editors and proprietors. An examination of three Chicago, Illinois, newspapers--the "Tribune," the "Times," and the "Daily News'--during the 1877 railroad strike, the 1886 eight-hour day controversy, and the 1894 Pullman strike and boycott reveals that in spite of sharply opposing views on business-labor relations, these papers tended to exhibit similar fundamental business values--a commitment to public interest consumerism, an obsession with commercial order and social control, and a growing faith in organizational/bureaucratic modes of conflict resolution. The unique nature of the newspaper as it evolved in the nineteenth century explains these positions. As public institutions that saw themselves as custodians of the public interest, newspapers abhorred conflict and were committed to peace and order at all costs. Their faith in arbitration reflects journalism's faith in the efficacy of information gathering, application, and analysis. These values were essentially those of the progressive movement and point to the continuing values of contemporary journalism. (JL) more...

This study of available evidence on cooperative union-management efforts to solve employment problems indicates that roughly one-half of the larger unionized manufacturing facilities have embarked on cooperative efforts. Thus, larger firms have already made the decision to cooperate or not, and targeting government money to them to encourage cooperation would not be beneficial. The limited available evidence suggests that government assistance could make a difference by helping smaller organizations decide to cooperate and by helping them in the initial implementation of cooperative efforts. Few cooperative efforts enlist or encompass a majority of employees. The key to the success and longevity of cooperative efforts is finding mechanisms or processes by which the parties can juxtapose relative power activities and cooperative activities. The overriding policy implication is that any government assistance should be focused on helping private parties make the transition from experimentation to institutionalization. The Department of Labor should commit $500,000 to support rigorous studies and coordinate dissemination of their findings through the Bureau of Labor and Management Relations. The findings can be further disseminated through seminars and more effective use of areawide labor-management committees. (The document contains 2 figures, 5 tables, and 84 references.) (CML) more...

An examination of how employers and employees may be encouraged to adapt to changing economic conditions through innovation and cooperation rather than conflict indicates that the system of dispute resolution in the United States contains substantial disincentives to resolving disputes through negotiation and substantial incentives to resolving disputes through the exercise of legal rights. Because it operates on the basis of institutionalized conflict and adversarialism, the legal system must be reconsidered as the ultimate arbiter of such disputes. The premises of labor policy must also be changed. Government must state that negotiation, cooperation, and the private resolution of labor and employment disputes are the preferred methods of resolution and of adjusting to economic change. Among other changes, the National Labor Relations Act should be modified so that all employer decisions with a direct impact on employment would be subject to negotiation with the union; in situations where a facility must be closed and/or production shifted in order to remain competitive, the bargaining unit should be defined as the work done or products produced rather than as employees at a given location; and employers should be permitted to hire only temporary replacements for employees engaged in an economic strike. (27 references) (CML) more...