TY  - JOUR
AU  - Freeman,Richard B.
AU  - Kleiner,Morris M.
TI  - Employer Behavior in the Face of Union Organizing Drives
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 2805
PY  - 1990
Y2  - November 1990
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2805
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w2805.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Richard B. Freeman
NBER
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA  02138
Tel: 617/868-3900
Fax: 617/868-2742
E-Mail: freeman@nber.org

Morris M. Kleiner
University of Minnesota
Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs
260 Humphrey Center
301 19th Street South
Minneapolis, MN  55455
Tel: 612/625-2089
Fax: 612/625-6351
E-Mail: kleiner@umn.edu
AB  - The direct role of employers in union organizing has long been a neglected part of the union organizing literature. In this study we examine the determinants and consequences of employer behavior when faced with an organizing drive. Our principal substantive findings are: - that there is a substitution between high wages/benefits/good work conditions/supervisory practices and "tough" management opposition to unionism. - that a high innate propensity for a union victory deters management opposition, while some indicators of a low propensity also reduce opposition. - that "positive industrial relations" raise the chances the firm will defeat the union in an election, as does bringing in consultants and having supervisors campaign intensely against the union. - that the careers of managers whose wages/supervisory practices/ benefits lead to union organizing drives, much less to union victories, suffer as a result. In general we interpret our results as consistent with the notion that firms behave in a profit maximizing manner in opposing an organizing drive and with the basic proposition that management opposition, reflected in diverse forms of behavior, is a key component in the on-going decline in private sector unionism in the United States.
ER  -