ILR Review

This paper examines the forces behind the decline in the union share of construction employment from almost one-half in 1966 to less than one-third in 1983. The percentage of construction workers employed by union contractors has declined even further because the fraction of union members working in the open shop sector rose from 29 to 46 percent between 1973 and 1981. The growth of the union-nonunion wage gap between 1967 and 1973 contributed to the initial decline in the percentage unionized, but that gap did not widen after 1973 and actually has narrowed substantially since 1978. Probably more influential has been the erosion of the productivity advantage of union contractors, which dropped substantially between 1972 and 1977 and vanished by 1982.

This paper investigates factors influencing the outcome of union organizing efforts among clerical workers in the private sector. Drawing on interviews with union officials involved in clerical organizing campaigns, the authors analyze NLRB data on elections held in 1979. They find that the percentage of clerical workers voting yes in representation elections was related positively to the strength of the union presence in the state and employment growth in the industry, and negatively to the level of strike activity in the state and management resistance to unionization. The delay between the filing of an election petition and the holding of the election had no significant effect on the vote.

Based on a survey of members of AFL-CIO-affiliated unions in Pennsylvania, this paper investigates the influence of unions on how their members voted in the 1984 Presidential election. The authors find that unions had little effect on the number of members who voted but surprisingly strong influence on the Presidential choice of those who did vote. Union members who actively participated in their union, held union leadership positions, and reported that they had received literature or telephone calls about the election from their union were significantly more likely than other members to support the candidate endorsed by their union (Mondale). The electronic media influenced voting behavior significantly, but traditional forms of union communication were more influential than many believe.

Analyzing 1978–83 panel data from more than 700 New York State school districts, the authors find evidence that school superintendents were rewarded, both by higher salary increases and by enhanced opportunities to move to better-paying jobs, for having low school tax rates and high educational achievement within their districts, relative to the values of those variables in comparable school districts in the state. The rewards were, however, quite small. The analysis also suggests that the superintendents themselves did not significantly influence either school tax rates or educational test scores in their districts.

Using data from the Displaced Workers Survey and the National Bureau of Economic Research Trade and Immigration Dataset, the author of this study finds that among manufacturing workers displaced in 1979–83, the average duration of joblessness varied directly with the rise in their industry's import share since 1972–74. This relationship appears to be due in large part to the fact that the work force in industries with rising import shares tends to have demographic characteristics associated with labor market adjustment difficulties, such as higher proportions of women and blue-collar workers than are found in other industries.

Using Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Men, the author of this paper examines the relationship between predicted future earnings for five broad fields of study and college students' choice of major. Conditional logit models of major choice that incorporate alternative predicted earnings variables are specified and estimated. The results indicate that, holding family background characteristics constant, individuals are likely to choose majors offering greater streams of future earnings rather than, as some have argued, majors with higher beginning earnings at the time of the choice. It is also found that earnings profiles corrected for self-selection bias have flattened for more recent graduates in business, liberal arts, and education. The life-cycle earnings in these disciplines appear to be more severely depressed than those in science and engineering.

This paper investigates the effects of pay and reenlistment bonuses on quit rates in the U.S. Army. A three stage least squares analysis of 1981 data shows that quit rates were negatively related to pay level and, even more so, to the size of the bonus offered. The effects on the quit rate were significantly greater, however, for soldiers in combat occupations than for those in noncombat occupations. The author speculates that the skills learned by combat soldiers are less marketable in the civilian labor market than the more general skills acquired by noncombat soldiers; he thus urges higher bonuses in noncombat occupations.