Re: productivity and unions

["Lonnie K. Stevans" <acslks@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Try this article:

Employment and Productivity Growth in Europe and North
America: The Impact of Labor Market Institutions,
International Review of Applied Economics;  v13 n3
September 1999, pp. 313-32.

               In this paper, we examine long-run employment and
               productivity growth in the major economies of North
               America and Europe from 1960 to the early 1990s. We
               develop a model in which output growth is determined by

               the growth of aggregate demand, and the relative
               contributions of employment and productivity growth to
               the growth of output depend on country specific labor
               market institutions. We find that institutions that
               promote collective bargaining, employment security and
               social protection have roughly equal and opposite
effects
               on employment growth (negative) and productivity growth

               (positive), giving rise to an inverse relationship
               between these variables. The welfare implications of
this
               finding are that labor market deregulation could result

               in more work and greater inequality and insecurity for
               workers, without significantly increasing the rate of
               economic growth.

Lonnie K. Stevans
acslks@xxxxxxxxxxx

>>> <Whitalone@xxxxxxx> 03/16/00 11:54PM >>>
Pkters,

    It has been a reoccurring theme over the years among pkt
discussions that
the decline in union representation has widen the gap in wealth
distribution.
The most basic question is how this decline in union representation has

affected the productivity and profits in those firms where this decline
has
occurred. I am wondering if anyone can provide me with resources that
analyze
productivity gains/losses in companies with strong union representation
as
opposed to those firms with weak union representation and perhaps even
with
firms with no representation.  Even better would be analysis that
discusses
these gains/losses in firms that have moved from strong to weak union
representation. The more recent the analysis the better.

thanks again

Scott Simpson