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Author: Oh, Wonsun
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1. Oh, Wonsun
Craft versus Industrial Unions: Union Organization Within the Work Place
Ph.D. Dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1989
Cohort(s): Older Men
Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning
Keyword(s): Behavior; Collective Bargaining; Geographical Variation; Industrial Sector; Skills; Unions; Wage Gap; Wages

This dissertation examines the determinants and the economic consequences of alternative types of labor union organization. The early conflicts between craft and industrial union organizations provide strong evidence that the type of union representation is important to workers. I developed a model of the optimal integration of workers under alternative environmental conditions, including most importantly the costs of organizing and policing agreements internally and externally to the collectives. Both multiple and sequential logit estimation techniques are used to test trichotomous decision making procedure based upon the representative individual's utility maximization behavior. The main data sets used in this study are the NLS of Older Men and the Census of Manufacturers. The NLS identifies union status and also partitions the organizational structure of the union into skill levels (craft and industrial) and geographical types (local or national). It is therefore possible to identify empirically the factors that make each organizational type more or less likely, as well as to identify the payoff to each type of organization. The empirical results indicate that the rent-sharing concerns of the highly skilled workers induce them to prefer no union at all, ceteris paribus, although, if unionized, they are more likely to organize craft unions than industrial unions. Low skilled workers are also more likely to organize craft unions than industrial unions compared to semi-skilled workers. The result indicates that the traditional focus on union/nonunion status ignores an important dimension of work place bargaining structure. I then analyze the effects of unions on the relative wage gaps. The analysis of wage gaps among workers in the two distinct types of union shows that union wage differentials depend not only on the human characteristics and the nature of the work place but also on the type of bargaining structure. The type of union representation is most important for the high-skilled and workers in less concentrated industries. [UMI ADG90-14466]
Bibliography Citation
Oh, Wonsun. Craft versus Industrial Unions: Union Organization Within the Work Place. Ph.D. Dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1989.