Union and Employer Tactics in Ontario Organising Campaigns

Martinello, Felice; Yates, Charlotte

doi:10.1016/s0742-6186(04)13006-0

Cited by 16 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…The raw data on ULPs from British Columbia thus appear consistent with the Martinello and Yates (2003) finding that ULPs tend to be filed in cases where management "goes all out."' There are advantages of using ULPs rather than survey-based measures of employer tactics.…”

Section: Data and Methodological Issuessupporting

confidence: 68%

“…Some light can be shed on the tactics the ULP variable may be capturing by examining the results reported by Martinello and Yates (2003). The authors identified five categories of employer strategies (where one category is "do nothing").…”

Section: Data and Methodological Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Administrative data are much less prone than survey data to measurement problems such as non-response bias and recall error (see, for instance, Pierret 2001). In addition, a comparison of two Canadian surveys- Martinello and Yates (2003), which surveyed unions about employer tactics, and Bentham (2002), which surveyed employers about employer tacticsillustrates a potential pitfall of self-reported measures. A cross-survey comparison of the reported incidence of most employer tactics shows dramatically lower reported incidences in the employer-based survey than in the union-based survey, with gaps on the order of 20 percentage points for particularly egregious practices such as threats of relocation.…”

Section: Data and Methodological Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Union Certification Success under Voting versus Card-Check Procedures: Evidence from British Columbia, 1978–1998

Riddell

2004

ILR Review

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The author estimates the impact of compulsory election laws on certification success using data on over 6,500 private sector certifications from British Columbia over the years 1978-98. A unique quasi-experimental design is used by exploiting two changes in the union recognition law: first, in 1984, the introduction of mandatory elections; and second, in 1993, the repeal of elections and their replacement by the original card-check procedure. The author also estimates the effectiveness of management opposition tactics across union recognition regimes. Success rates declined by an average of 19 percentage points during the voting regime, and then increased by about the same amount when card-checks were re-instituted. The results indicate that the mandatory election law can account for virtually the entire decline. In addition, the findings suggest that management opposition was twice as effective under elections as under card-checks. Sne of the most important public policies affecting the union organizing process is the recognition procedure, that is, the mechanism by which the union attempts to demonstrate that it has sufficient support within the proposed bargaining unit to be certified. Up to the late 1980s, all Canadian provinces (except Nova Scotia after 1977) had "card-check" procedures, whereby the union could be certified without an election if it signed up a sufficient proportion of the proposed bargaining unit. The proportion required to avoid an election varied by province, but generally ranged between 50% and 55%. While it was possible for a certification bid to require a vote in a card-check province, few organizing drives actually went to an election. The Canadian system in those years contrasts starkly with the system in the United States and, until the 1999 Employment Relations Bill, with that in the United Kingdomalthough for very different reasons. As a result, the union recognition procedure

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Section: Data and Methodological Issuessupporting

confidence: 68%

Section: Data and Methodological Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Data and Methodological Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Union Certification Success under Voting versus Card-Check Procedures: Evidence from British Columbia, 1978–1998

Riddell

2004

ILR Review

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“…There is also substantial anecdotal evidence and case studies (e.g., Budd and Heinz 1996) that suggest employer behavior likely underlies variation in election delay 1 . Furthermore, we know from studies that consider the separate effects of both legal delay strategies and illegal avoidance tactics on election outcomes that the two are, not surprisingly, highly correlated (Martinello and Yates 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Causal Effect of Election Delay on Union Win Rates: Instrumental Variable Estimates from Two Natural Experiments

Riddell¹

2010

Industrial Relations

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The role of election delay in union organizing campaigns has become a key policy issue in several countries. Previous studies have documented a negative correlation between delay and union success. However, elections are generally not randomly delayed; in particular, election delay is correlated with various ''hardto-observe'' union and employer strategies. This article exploits several exogenous sources of variation in election delay to estimate a causal model. The results indicate that two-stage least squares estimates of the causal effect of election delay on union success are twice the magnitude of standard OLS estimates.

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“…The first addresses if there had been an organizing attempt in the respondent’s workplace, and if so, how long prior to the survey the most recent attempt took place. Although a prior organizing drive, especially if relatively recent, should build “capital” for the union in subsequent drives, the only study to address this possibility to date (Martinello and Yates 2004) found that past organizing drives bore no association with either the likelihood of union organizing success or the proportion of favorable votes. But this study did not address voting propensity, and there may be something unique about second‐time organizing drives that offsets any positive implications of previous drives.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncertainty and the Correlates of Union Voting Propensity: An Organizing Perspective

Godard¹

2011

Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society

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This paper argues that a barrier to union organizing is the identification of workplaces in which the union voting propensities of workers are sufficient to justify an organizing drive. It also argues that prior research into these propensities has been of limited value in this respect. It then draws on a unique telephone survey of Canadian workers to explore the implications of a variety of individual‐, work‐, and employment‐related variables for the propensity of non‐union workers to vote in favor of union representation. In so doing, it proceeds from a “union organizing” perspective, seeking not just to establish whether these variables appear to “cause” voting propensity, but also whether they are correlated with it, and hence serve as markers for union organizing, and if so, how and why they do. It also seeks to demonstrate the possible value of survey research and hence encourage a more scientific approach to union organizing choices. A wide array of variables is found to have potential implications for these choices.

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Union and Employer Tactics in Ontario Organising Campaigns

Cited by 16 publications

References 20 publications

Union Certification Success under Voting versus Card-Check Procedures: Evidence from British Columbia, 1978–1998

Union Certification Success under Voting versus Card-Check Procedures: Evidence from British Columbia, 1978–1998

The Causal Effect of Election Delay on Union Win Rates: Instrumental Variable Estimates from Two Natural Experiments

Uncertainty and the Correlates of Union Voting Propensity: An Organizing Perspective

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