Hope against Hope: Strike Activity in Canada, 1920–1939

Huberman, Michael; Young, Denise

doi:10.1006/exeh.2002.0787

Cited by 17 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Similarly, employers might be more likely to shut down a union or fight a strike if other employers are successful. Indeed, in their analysis of the determinants of strike success in Canada from 1920–1939, Michael Huberman and Denise Young (2002, p. 339) find that “Where other workers were successful, the probability of an individual win increased.”…”

Section: Historical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For a given county-by-industry cell, I compute the number of strikes and the percentage of strikes that were successful in all other industries in that county in the years prior to my observation of union presence. This method, which is similar to the one used by Huberman and Young (2002), eliminates the endogeneity between the number and success of strikes in a county-by-industry cell and the probability that a union is organized in that cell.…”

Section: Empirical Strategy and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Collective Action and the Origins of the American Labor Movement

Schmick

2018

J. Econ. Hist.

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This article examines the relationship between collective action and the size of worker and employer groups in the United States. It proposes and tests a theory of union formation and strikes. Using a new county-by-industry level dataset containing the location of unions, the location of strikes, average establishment size, and the number of establishments around the turn of the twentieth century, I find that unions were more likely to form and strikes were more likely to occur in counties with intermediate-sized worker groups and large employer groups.

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Section: Historical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Empirical Strategy and Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Collective Action and the Origins of the American Labor Movement

Schmick

2018

J. Econ. Hist.

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“…In addition to the above mixed success of the "joint costs" model, the theory is problematic in explaining the most important "stylized fact" in the strike literature, namely the empirical regularity of cyclical strike incidence (Rees, 1952, O'Brien, 1965, Ashenfelter and Johnson, 1969, Gunderson, Kervin and Reed, 1986, Vroman, 1989, Dickerson, 1994, and Huberman, 2002. As Hirsch and Addison (1986, p. 104) observe "indeed, joint strike costs seem likely to increase with the level of economic activity, leading to the incorrect prediction of counter-cyclical strike activity (incidence).…”

Section: I2 Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Asymmetrically Increasing Joint Strike Costs Need Not Lead to Fewer Strikes

Pantsios

Polachek

2017

Atl Econ J

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in How Asymmetrically Increasing Joint Strike Costs Need Not Lead to Fewer Strikes APrIl 2017Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but IZA takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The IZA Institute of Labor Economics is an independent economic research institute that conducts research in labor economics and offers evidence-based policy advice on labor market issues. Supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation, IZA runs the world's largest network of economists, whose research aims to provide answers to the global labor market challenges of our time. Our key objective is to build bridges between academic research, policymakers and society. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. How Asymmetrically Increasing Joint Strike Costs Need Not Lead to Fewer Strikes *The "joint costs" model states that the incentive to strike is inversely related to the total costs associated with workers' and firms' strike activities. Not only has this model been tested with mixed results, but also the joint costs model is problematic in explaining several stylized facts in the strike literature because higher strike costs do not always yield a lower incidence of strike activity. This paper illustrates how the joint cost model can yield these counterintuitive results. It shows that strike incidence need not decrease when joint strike costs increase. The innovation is to raise union and firm joint strike costs in an asymmetric way. Increasing a particular side's strike costs necessarily decreases its incentive to strike.However, in response, the other side's incentive can increase, since under a number of circumstances it holds out with a higher probability in order to collect the relatively larger expected rents coming about because the other side's implicit threat point decreases. To illustrate this, we model contract negotiations as a simple one-period game. (No need for more complex repeated games such as attrition since our point is only to show as simply as possible why the joint-costs model yields ambiguous results.) We use standard Hicksian concession curves to der...

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“…For information on Canadian strikes prior to this time, see Huberman and Young (2002) To a great extent, industrial relations scholars and state agencies have been concerned with "the relative degree of overall strike activity in the economy" (Gunderson et al, 2005: 348).…”

Section: Strikes In Canadamentioning

confidence: 99%

From Person-Days Lost to Labour Militancy

Briskin

2007

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Using the micro-data from Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC) on the 23,944 stoppages in Canada between 1960 and 2004, this article introduces a labour militancy perspective on work stoppages, that is, from the point of view of workers. It explores patterns of militancy with a focus on strike duration, strike size and strikes for first contracts, and supports re-interpretations which help make visible the significance of such stoppages for workers, unions and communities. A labour militancy frame presents an alternative to the employer perspective on time lost, the government concern to measure the economic impact of stoppages, and the scholarly emphasis on strike determinants. As part of re-examining the HRSDC work stoppage data from a labour militancy perspective, the paper considers the source of these data. It juxtaposes the statistical data with interviews with the provincial correspondents who collect the information for HRSDC. Examining the data in this light underscores the political nature of data collection (what is seen to be germane and not), data presentation (what is made visible and what is not), and data sources (whose voices are heard).

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Hope against Hope: Strike Activity in Canada, 1920–1939

Cited by 17 publications

References 22 publications

Collective Action and the Origins of the American Labor Movement

Collective Action and the Origins of the American Labor Movement

How Asymmetrically Increasing Joint Strike Costs Need Not Lead to Fewer Strikes

From Person-Days Lost to Labour Militancy

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