6. PRODUCTIVITY, TECHNICAL CHANGE AND LABOR RELATIONS IN TRANSPORTATION INDUSTRIES

This chapter considers the evidence on productivity growth in transportation industries and provides a critical review of efforts to distinguish the nature and sources of technical progress. Regulatory reform and technological advance have contributed to productivity growth that is nonneutral across occupations and rational labor union responses will be sensitive to these asymmetric labor demand effects. Technical change alters the efficient organization of economic activity as well and a number of labor relation issues in contemporary transportation involve changes that span across the boundaries of firms, across traditional modes and even beyond the transportation sector.