TY  - JOUR
AU  - Cramton,Peter C.
AU  - Tracy,Joseph S.
TI  - The Use of Replacement Workers in Union Contract Negotiations: The U.S. Experience, 1980-1989
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 5106
PY  - 1995
Y2  - May 1995
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5106
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5106.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Joseph Tracy
Executive Vice President
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
33 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10045
Tel: 212/720-6344
E-Mail: joseph.tracy@ny.frb.org
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 1996-02-01
AB  - It is argued in many circles that a structural change occurred in U.S. collective bargaining in the 1980s.  We investigate the extent to which the hiring of replacement workers can account for this change. For a sample of over 300 major strikes since 1980, we estimate the likelihood of replacements being hired.  We find that the risk of replacement declines during tight labor markets, and is lower for bargaining units with more experienced workers.  We use the predicted replacement risk as an explanatory variable in a model of the union's choice between the strike and holdout threat.  We find that strike usage decreases significantly as the predicted replacement risk increases.  We estimate that a ban on the use of replacement workers would have increased strike incidence from 1982-1989 by 3 percentage points, a 30 percent increase.
ER  -