IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/2039.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Seniority Rules and the Gains from Union Organization

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph S. Tracy

Abstract

This paper examines the optimality of several seniority provisions which are common to U.S. union contracts. The paper focuses on the attempts by the initial union members to maximize their return from organizing the union. An overlapping generations model is used in the analysis. Seniority wage increases are found to serve as implicit initiation fees and thus serve as one means of appropriating rents from future union members. Layoff rules are shown to be optimal only when the organizers are constrained in the types of contracts they can write. Without these constraints, the optimal contract provides full insurance making layoff rules unnecessary. The paper concludes with a plausible set of constraints which organizers may face and discusses the conditions necessary for seniority layoff rules to result.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph S. Tracy, 1986. "Seniority Rules and the Gains from Union Organization," NBER Working Papers 2039, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2039
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w2039.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grossman, Gene M, 1983. "Union Wages, Temporary Layoffs, and Seniority," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(3), pages 277-290, June.
    2. George A. Akerlof & Hajime Miyazaki, 1980. "The Implicit Contract Theory of Unemployment meets the Wage Bill Argument," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 47(2), pages 321-338.
    3. Oswald, A. J., 1995. "Efficient contracts are on the labour demand curve: Theory and facts," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 102-102, March.
    4. Kahn, Charles M, 1985. "Optimal Severance Pay with Incomplete Information," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(3), pages 435-451, June.
    5. Peter Kuhn, 1982. "Malfeasance in Long Term Employment Contracts: A New General Model with an Application to Unionism," NBER Working Papers 1045, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Philip Taft, 1946. "Dues and Initiation Fees in Labor Unions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 60(2), pages 219-232.
    7. Ehrenberg, Ronald G & Danziger, Leif & San, Gee, 1983. "Cost-of-Living Adjustment Clauses in Union Contracts: A Summary of Results," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(3), pages 215-245, July.
    8. Freeman, Richard B, 1976. "Individual Mobility and Union Voice in the Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(2), pages 361-368, May.
    9. McDonald, Ian M & Solow, Robert M, 1981. "Wage Bargaining and Employment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 896-908, December.
    10. Milton Harris & Bengt Holmstrom, 1982. "A Theory of Wage Dynamics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(3), pages 315-333.
    11. Imai, Haruo & Geanakoplos, John & Ito, Takatoshi, 1981. "Incomplete insurance and absolute risk aversion," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 107-112.
    12. Weiss, Yoram, 1985. "The Effect of Labor Unions on Investment in Training: A Dynamic Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(5), pages 994-1007, October.
    13. Lazear, Edward P, 1979. "Why Is There Mandatory Retirement?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1261-1284, December.
    14. Gregory M. Duncan & Duane E. Leigh, 1980. "Wage Determination in the Union and Nonunion Sectors: A Sample Selectivity Approach," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 34(1), pages 24-34, October.
    15. Ronald G. Ehrenberg & Leif Danziger & Gee San, 1982. "Cost-of-Living Adjustment Clauses in Union Contracts," NBER Working Papers 0998, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. MaCurdy, Thomas E & Pencavel, John H, 1986. "Testing between Competing Models of Wage and Employment Determination in Unionized Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 3-39, June.
    17. John M. Abowd & Henry S. Farber, 1982. "Job Queues and the Union Status of Workers," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 35(3), pages 354-367, April.
    18. David Card, 1983. "Cost-of-Living Escalators in Major Union Contracts," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 37(1), pages 34-48, October.
    19. Tracy, Joseph S, 1987. "An Empirical Test of an Asymmetric Information Model of Strikes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 5(2), pages 149-173, April.
    20. Azariadis, Costas, 1975. "Implicit Contracts and Underemployment Equilibria," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 83(6), pages 1183-1202, December.
    21. Bull, Clive, 1983. "Implicit Contracts in the Absence of Enforcement and Risk Aversion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(4), pages 658-671, September.
    22. James L. Medoff & Katharine G. Abraham, 1981. "The Role of Seniority at U.S. Work Places: A Report on Some New Evidence," NBER Working Papers 0618, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Danziger, Leif & Katz, Eliakim, 1996. "A theory of sex discrimination," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 57-66, October.
    2. Paul Hek & Daniel Vuuren, 2011. "Are older workers overpaid? A literature review," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(4), pages 436-460, August.
    3. Pål Børing, 2021. "The Relationship Between Firm Productivity, Wage Level and Employees’ Age: A Sectoral Perspective," De Economist, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 367-404, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:789-848 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:1039-1089 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Nicholas Lawson, 2011. "Is Collective Bargaining Pareto Efficient? A Survey of the Literature," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 282-304, September.
    4. Louis N. Christofides & Andrew J. Oswald, 1991. "Efficient and Inefficient Employment Outcomes: A Study Based on Canadian Data," NBER Working Papers 3648, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Janet Currie Neelin, 1989. "What Do (Public Sector) Unions Do? Wage and Employment Determination Among Ontario Public School Teachers," UCLA Economics Working Papers 542, UCLA Department of Economics.
    6. Robert Dur & Heiner Schmittdiel, 2019. "Paid to Quit," De Economist, Springer, vol. 167(4), pages 387-406, December.
    7. Carstensen, Vivian, 1999. "Beschäftigungssicherung durch Arbeitszeitflexibilisierung," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-228, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    8. Carstensen, Vivian, 2000. "Employment Stability via Annualized Hours Contracts," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-230, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    9. Lloyd Ulman, 1992. "Why Should Human Resource Managers Pay High Wages?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 177-212, June.
    10. John Haltiwanger & Michael Waldman, 1984. "Insurance Aspects of Labor Market Contracting: An Overview," UCLA Economics Working Papers 348, UCLA Department of Economics.
    11. Louis N. Christofides & Thanasis Stengos, 2003. "Wage Rigidity in Canadian Collective Bargaining Agreements," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 56(3), pages 429-448, April.
    12. John Geanakoplos & Takatoshi Ito, 1982. "On Implicit Contracts and Involuntary Unemployment," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 640, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    13. Gene M. Grossman, 1984. "International Competition and the Unionized Sector," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 17(3), pages 541-556, August.
    14. Toke Aidt & Zafiris Tzannatos, 2002. "Unions and Collective Bargaining : Economic Effects in a Global Environment," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 15241.
    15. Louis N. Christofides & Amy Peng, 2007. "Real Wage Chronologies," Working Papers 0707, University of Guelph, Department of Economics and Finance.
    16. Christofides, Louis N. & Peng, Chen, 2006. "Contract duration and indexation in a period of real and nominal uncertainty," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 61-86, February.
    17. Marco Guerrazzi & Pier Giuseppe Giribone, 2021. "Dynamic wage bargaining and labour market fluctuations: the role of productivity shocks," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(8), pages 1-20, August.
    18. Haltiwanger, John & Waldman, Michael, 1986. "Insurance and Labor Market Contracting: An Analysis of the Capital Market Assumption," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(3), pages 355-375, July.
    19. Jonathan P. Thomas, 2000. "Fair pay and a Wagebill Argument for Wage Rigidity and Excessive Employment Variability," Labor and Demography 0004004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Fuest, Clemens & Thum, Marcel, 2001. "Immigration and skill formation in unionised labour markets," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 557-573, September.
    21. Louis Christofides & Thanasis Stengos, 2001. "Nominal Wage Rigidity: Non-Parametric Tests Based on Union Data for Canada," CESifo Working Paper Series 535, CESifo.
    22. António Brandão & Joana Pinho, 2018. "Productivity Shocks in a Union‐Duopoly Model," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 86(6), pages 722-756, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2039. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.