Under a free market economic system, the managements as a minority are in control of capitals and the important production means, whereas the labors need to provide their manpower and time for the relative wages in order to maintain the bread and butter for their everyday living. An intense relationship filled with oppositions and resistances is therefore easily found between labor and management in the environment today. Owing to the special political and economic backgrounds of our country, it is difficult for unions, (and especially unions) to elaborate on the functions that the unions should play. The unions of our country had been mocked on as ¡§labor insurance unions¡¨ or ¡§flower vase unions¡¨; therefore we would like to find out whether a union exists in our country, which does not offer labor insurance or national health insurance services yet still operates and functions fully as a normal union? Do any union commitments exist between the union members and the unions? How strong are these commitments? And what are the reactions on the degree of participation to the unions? Reviews on academic literatures have shown that not much research was conducted on union commitments and member participation to the unions. Moreover, academic literatures focused on the studies on industry unions as opposed to unions. It is therefore the goal of this research to find out whether union commitments for the members would influence people¡¦s decisions to join unions, through the discussion on related theories and physical evidences. Through this research we hope that we could gather and arrange some management references worth other unions to follow, as well as providing physical suggestions for the future development of the unions of our country. The subjects of this research are the members of the ¡§Keelung City Customs Brokers¡¦ Union¡¨ (currently with 1,200 members), in total 600 questionnaires were issued where 255 of them were collected and 243 of them valid. Factor analysis was used in this research to test the reliability and construct validity of the questionnaires. On confirmation of the reliability test, statistical methods such as the analysis of variance and the regression analysis were further used to come to the following conclusions: 1. Union commitments have strong positive effects on the member participation in the union: (1) The higher the ¡§Union Loyalty¡¨ a member has for the union commitment, the higher is his/her participation to the union. (2) The higher the ¡§Willingness to Work for the Union¡¨ a member has for the union commitments, the higher is his/her participation to the union. (3) The higher the ¡§Responsibility to the Union¡¨ a member has for the union commitments, the higher is his/her participation to the union. 2. The personal statistic variables of the members have strong positive effects on their participation in the union: (1) Male members have higher union participation than female members. (2) The older member in age, the higher is his/her participation to the union. (3) The longer Member in union seniority, the higher is his/her participation to the union. (4) Members with union organizer experiences have higher union participation than members without prior union organizer experiences.

Factors Influencing Members¡¦ Commitment and Participation in the Union Abstract Due to the special situation of Taiwan economical and political development in the past, unions were unable to provide their member the function they ought to do. However Government declared martial law ended in 1989, it offered Taiwan unions a new opportunity to perform their function. Recently Human Resource Management School suggests that company never need union if they have offered work conditions satisfied by their employees. So far, neither union operation nor human resource management can coordinate Labors-Employer relation completely. Thus, it is hard to decide which way is suitable for Taiwan¡¦s situation. Therefore, the extent of Taiwan labor¡¦s commitment and participation in the union is crucial in deciding the way of coordinating Labor-employer Relation. First, this study selected some of demographics in order to realize if there are differences among members with different demographics. Second, the study also selected some factors, including Recognizing and Evaluating of Union, Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment and Union Instrumentality to realize if there are any effects among the factors of Union Commitment and Participation. The critical findings of this research are as follows: 1. There are significant differences among gender, age, married status, company run by state or local people, work tenure, union tenure and some factors of union commitment and participation dimension. But there are no significant between education and union commitment and participation dimension. 2. Some factors of recognizing and evaluating of union, job satisfaction, organizational commitment have relation in some factors of union commitment and participation dimension. Some factors of recognizing and evaluating of union, job satisfaction, organizational commitment have significant effects in some factors of union commitment and participation dimension. 3. Union instrumentality has significant positive relation and effects in union commitment and participation. Keyword: union commitment, union participation, union instrumentality, job satisfaction, organizational commitment.

The thesis deals with the participation of ministers in the Council of the European Union. The first goal is to explore the participation as such, i.e. how often the ministers attend the Council meetings and what differences there are among the member states and the Council configurations. Secondly, the thesis seeks to reveal factors at the institutional (European), national and governmental level which have an impact on the participation. From the theoretical point of view, the thesis is framed by the rational choice approach. In terms of methodology, a quantitative analysis based on extensive dataset for the period 2009 - 2015 and logistic regression have been employed. The thesis concludes that the ministers attend the Council meetings quite often - the average for the period was 64%. Regarding the individual factors, it is argued that the ministers representing the presidency country attend the sessions more often. Similarly, the participation is higher if there are many points on the agenda or if the minister represents a pro-European government. On the contrary, the probability of the participation is lower if the ministers face upcoming legislative elections at home. The analysis also shows that the public attitude towards the EU is irrelevant in this case. The results are, finally,...

This study explores the shifting roles of teacher unions in pre-and post-independence Namibia, against the backdrop of a changing political context. My aim was to understand the roles of teacher unions both before and after independence in Namibia, and to explain how they changed in the different political contexts. To do so, I examined the teacher union roles in three distinct phases, namely pre-independence, immediately post-independence, taking in the period from 1990 to 1999, and the last decade, from 2000 up until today. In approaching the research questions, I worked on the assumption that understanding and explaining the roles of teacher unions in pre- and post-independence Namibia could best be achieved by interacting with participants who were or had been involved in education and the teacher unions in Namibia. I argued that their experiences would be important in constructing knowledge on the unions, particularly regarding their roles before and after independence. I chose a narrative design for the study, because it allowed me to interact with the participants to gain deeper meanings from their individual perspectives. Narrative design was appropriate to this research, because it also allowed me to trace the way events in education mirrored those in the national political arena, and to explain why particular tendencies emerged. I used the information collected during the interviews and document analysis as the data for the study. Four themes emerged regarding the roles of teacher unions in the contexts of pre- and post-independence Namibia, around which I conceptualized the study. These were the shifting historic roles of these unions in Namibia, the institutional frameworks and modalities for union participation, the contextual factors relating to the roles of the unions, and the changed roles of the unions in contemporary Namibia. The findings of the study suggested, firstly, that teacher unions play different roles in different political contexts, and that these roles are shaped by contextual factors. Secondly, the research established that the unions in the post-independence contexts did not necessarily have a vision of a labour-driven process of radical strategic change, as postulated by the theory of strategic unionism. Instead, the findings suggest that teacher unions in contemporary Namibia are influenced and shaped by the broader political and social factors of a new hierarchical political culture, by political and economic middle-class aspirations, and by undefined party-government-teacher union relationships. I conclude the study by suggesting an expansion of the concept of strategic unionism to include the nuances of political and economic contexts and aspirations. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

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Pour devenir plus flexible, le secteur public a ouvert la voie à de nouveaux principes inspirés de la gestion propre aux firmes, soit la marchandisation des services (Fairbrother et Poynter, 2001). Notre recherche souhaite mieux comprendre les facteurs qui peuvent influencer l’implication du syndicat lorsque la marchandisation est introduite dans la gestion de la prestation des services municipaux. Pour se faire, nous avons choisi de comparer des cas des municipalités dans deux pays, la Ville de Québec et Edinburgh en Écosse, afin de nous aider à comprendre davantage les interactions entre les influences nationales et locales. Nous proposons que les ressources de pouvoir du syndicat local et la stratégie patronale influencent l’implication du syndicat dans la gestion de la prestation des services municipaux, peu importe le contexte national. Les résultats de la recherche nous indiquent que les ressources de pouvoir et la stratégie patronale influencent directement l’implication syndicale. Alors que les ressources de pouvoir donnent un rapport de force au syndicat face à l’employeur, la stratégie patronale peut encourager ou freiner l'implication syndicale. Nos résultats ont aussi soulevé certaines différences entre les contextes nationaux de l’Écosse et du Québec affectant l’implication syndicale: les législations de « Best Value » au Royaume-Uni et celles encadrant les conventions collectives et relations de travail au Québec. Ainsi, des recherches futures sont nécessaires pour mettre à l’épreuve les modèles nationaux couramment utilisés en relations industrielles pour contribuer à la création d’une nouvelle théorie comparative. / In order to become more flexible, the public sector has opened the way to new principles inspired by the private sector: the marketisation of services (Fairbrother et Poynter, 2001). Our research aims to better understand the factors which affect the participation of trade unions when marketisation is introduced in the delivery of local government services. To do so, we have decided to compare local government case studies in two different countries, Québec City and Edinburgh in Scotland, to help us better understand the interactions between local and national influences. Our hypothesis is that local trade union power resources and the employer’s strategy will influence trade union participation in the management of local government service delivery, regardless of the national context. The main findings of our research suggest that power resources and employer stategy both directly affect local trade union involvement in the management of local government service delivery. While power resources help to bolster the trade union’s power, the employer strategy can either encourage or impare trade union participation. Our results also raised differences relating to the national contexts of the UK and Québec which affected local trade union participation : « Best Value » legislation in the UK and « Code du Travail » legislation which frame collective agreements and industrial relations in Québec. We consider that future research on the subject is necessary in order to verify the current models on national industrial relations and to develop new comparative theories.

Cette étude traite du travail en équipe et de la coopération patronale-syndicale. Nous avons évalué l’influence de la coopération patronale-syndicale sur le fonctionnement et l’autonomie collective des équipes de travail. La méthodologie utilisée s’appuie sur une étude de cas contrastés du point de vue de la variable indépendante (l’intensité de la coopération patronale-syndicale), en neutralisant le plus grand nombre possible de variables de contrôle pouvant influencer la variable dépendante (fonctionnement et autonomie des équipes de travail). Des entrevues semi-structurées avec les représentants des deux usines sélectionnées ont confirmé que la coopération patronale-syndicale était élevée dans une usine et faible dans l’autre. L’analyse des données relatives à notre variable dépendante est basée principalement sur les résultats d’un questionnaire et les données obtenues indiquent que les répondants de l’usine d’Alma font des évaluations plus élevées des aspects liés aux dimensions de la variable dépendantes et celles-ci recouvrent des aspects axés sur la gestion des opérations alors que celles où les évaluations sont plus élevées à Kénogami concernent majoritairement des aspects plus secondaires. Notre hypothèse est essentiellement confirmée et démontre une relation positive entre un degré élevé de coopération patronale-syndicale et l’évaluation par les membres du fonctionnement et de l’autonomie collective de leur équipe. Cette relation positive est cependant mitigée, car elle ne se vérifie pas pour certaines dimensions qui renvoient à des aspects plus secondaires de l’autonomie collective des équipes de travail. / The main focus of the research is the analysis of the phenomena and the link between the union-management Cooperation and the work team. We are pursuing by submitting a main hypothesis: the degree of union-management Cooperation has a positive influence on the functioning and collective self-reliance of work teams. Methodology used relies on a point of multiple case study of the independent variable (the intensity of the employer-Union cooperation) in neutralizing the greatest possible number of control variables that can influence the dependent variable (operation and autonomy of the teams work). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with representative’s employer and Union. The results show that two selected plants have confirmed that the union-Cooperation was high in a factory and low in the other. Our dependent variable data analysis is based primarily on the results of a questionnaire and the resulting data indicate that Alma plant respondents have the highest ratings of dimensions related to their degree of autonomy and the functioning of their team work. Our assumption is essentially confirmed and demonstrates a positive relationship between a high degree of union-management Cooperation and assessment by the members of their team’s operations and collective self-reliance of work teams. However, this positive relationship is mixed, because it does not apply for certain dimensions that concerns more trivial aspects of the collective autonomy of work teams.

Cette étude traite du travail en équipe et de la coopération patronale-syndicale. Nous avons évalué l’influence de la coopération patronale-syndicale sur le fonctionnement et l’autonomie collective des équipes de travail. La méthodologie utilisée s’appuie sur une étude de cas contrastés du point de vue de la variable indépendante (l’intensité de la coopération patronale-syndicale), en neutralisant le plus grand nombre possible de variables de contrôle pouvant influencer la variable dépendante (fonctionnement et autonomie des équipes de travail). Des entrevues semi-structurées avec les représentants des deux usines sélectionnées ont confirmé que la coopération patronale-syndicale était élevée dans une usine et faible dans l’autre. L’analyse des données relatives à notre variable dépendante est basée principalement sur les résultats d’un questionnaire et les données obtenues indiquent que les répondants de l’usine d’Alma font des évaluations plus élevées des aspects liés aux dimensions de la variable dépendantes et celles-ci recouvrent des aspects axés sur la gestion des opérations alors que celles où les évaluations sont plus élevées à Kénogami concernent majoritairement des aspects plus secondaires. Notre hypothèse est essentiellement confirmée et démontre une relation positive entre un degré élevé de coopération patronale-syndicale et l’évaluation par les membres du fonctionnement et de l’autonomie collective de leur équipe. Cette relation positive est cependant mitigée, car elle ne se vérifie pas pour certaines dimensions qui renvoient à des aspects plus secondaires de l’autonomie collective des équipes de travail. / The main focus of the research is the analysis of the phenomena and the link between the union-management Cooperation and the work team. We are pursuing by submitting a main hypothesis: the degree of union-management Cooperation has a positive influence on the functioning and collective self-reliance of work teams. Methodology used relies on a point of multiple case study of the independent variable (the intensity of the employer-Union cooperation) in neutralizing the greatest possible number of control variables that can influence the dependent variable (operation and autonomy of the teams work). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with representative’s employer and Union. The results show that two selected plants have confirmed that the union-Cooperation was high in a factory and low in the other. Our dependent variable data analysis is based primarily on the results of a questionnaire and the resulting data indicate that Alma plant respondents have the highest ratings of dimensions related to their degree of autonomy and the functioning of their team work. Our assumption is essentially confirmed and demonstrates a positive relationship between a high degree of union-management Cooperation and assessment by the members of their team’s operations and collective self-reliance of work teams. However, this positive relationship is mixed, because it does not apply for certain dimensions that concerns more trivial aspects of the collective autonomy of work teams.