Over the past decade, several leading U.S. scholars have advanced a new industrial relations paradigm, according to which “high performance†work and human resource management (HRM) practices have replaced unions and collective bargaining as the innovative force in industrial...

The percentage of the U.S. work force that is unionized is at its lowest level in more than 50 years. Although many studies have sought the reasons for this decline, few have investigated characteristics of unions themselves as possible factors. This paper focuses on unions as organizations, and...

Although it is commonly argued that unions need to innovate in order to grow and achieve success, little is known about the characteristics of unions that facilitate or hinder innovation. The authors of this study develop a model of union innovation and test it using data collected from many...

This paper outlines a “collective voice†approach for examining the behavioral determinants of variation in strike activity at the organizational level. The author argues that strikes should be viewed primarily as expressions of worker discontent rather than a result of imperfect or...

This analysis of data from a 2003–2004 telephone survey of 750 Canadian and 450 English workers finds that work practices and human resource (HR) practices had important implications for unions. The effects differed by the type of practice (for example, traditional versus “newâ€...

Using data collected in 2003–2004 in national telephone surveys of 750 Canadian and 450 English workers, the author finds that alternative work practices (AWPs), such as autonomous teams, quality circles, and information sharing, provided meaningful pay gains for non-union workers but not...

Using data from a 1997 telephone survey of 508 employed Canadians, the author explores the implications for workers of alternative work practices (AWPs) associated with the high-performance model. There are three main findings. First, moderate levels of AWP adoption were associated with...

This paper adopts a historical/new institutionalist perspective to explain why the decline of the American labor movement has been exceptional in comparison to other labor movements, and especially its Canadian counterpart. Under this perspective, national founding conditions and traditions...

Examining data from two national surveys of matched pairs of union and management lead negotiators, the authors evaluate the current state of practice in labor relations and test several propositions related to the transformation of American industrial relations. They find that 30–40% of...

The authors examine debates about the effects of mandatory interest arbitration on police and firefighters in New York State under the Taylor Law from 1974 to 2007. Comparing experience with interest arbitration in the first three years after the law was adopted with experiences from 1995 to...