<p>This thesis consists of five essays in the discipline of labour economics. The first essay uses cross-section time series analysis to estimate the impact of mandatory votes and card check on union certification success. The second examines the behaviour of Canadian union density from 1980 to 1998 and uses projections to look at the future of the Canadian union movement. The third investigates the decline of private sector U.S. union density from 1983 to 1999. The fourth essay considers the impact of three factors on the Canada-U.S. union density gap from 1980 to 1999: the difference in overall economic performance between the U.S. and Canada; structural change; and union recognition procedures. The fifth essay describes the behaviour of earnings per week, wages per hour and hours per week of prime-aged males by skill-group (identified by earnings quintile) in the U.S. and Canada from 1981 to 1997. This essay also provides evidence on relative downward wage rigidity in Canada.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The temporary help supply (THS) industry is an ideal prism through which to view the labor market. As one of the fastest growing industries in the United States it is an important phenomenon in its own right. As a labor market intermediary which weakens the attachment between employer and employee the industry is indicative of larger changes in the organization of labor relations. Finally, as an industry two thirds of whose employees are female, it captures some of the dynamics of the way in which gender operates in the labor market. The dissertation considers three aspects of the temporary help industry. First, the relationship between the temporary help industry and the increase in female labor force participation rates is considered. A common argument in the literature is that women with family responsibilities choose THS employment because of the flexibility it affords. Using Current Population Survey microdata tapes, this hypothesis is tested and rejected. Instead, I argue that the gender of the worker is a salient feature in the determination of occupational characteristics. This is in contrast to other political economy models which view the labor market as divided into good jobs and bad jobs, with workers then allocated according to their position in a social hierarchy. Second, if growth in the industry is not being driven by employee preferences, what is driving it? Explicitly incorporating conflict into the labor market, I argue that part of the markup, i.e. the difference between what the THS firm pays the worker and what it charges its client firms, is the cost of disciplining a worker who otherwise has little stake in the company's future and therefore might incur productivity problems for the client firm. Finally, I discuss the conditions under which reliance on a temporary help firm is a viable option for employers. Using annual data from County Business Patterns I demonstrate that neither cyclical nor secular variability in demand nor the growth of service employment fully explain the growth of THS employment. Rather, THS employment reflects structural change in the system of labor relations.

Thesis--Munich. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 252-268).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1968. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1959. / Typescript. Abstracted in Dissertation abstracts, v. 19 (1959) no. 12, p. 3165-3166. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 384-403).

Employee turnover occurs when employees voluntarily or involuntary leave their jobs and must be replaced by an organisation. This can be a serious obstacle to productivity of the North West Parks and Tourism board (NWP&TB). For the smallest of organisations, a high employee turnover rate can mean that simply having enough employees to fulfil daily functions is a challenge, even beyond the issue of how well the work is done when employees are available. Employee turnover is no less a problem for major companies, which often spend millions of rands a year on turnover- related costs. The cost associated with recruitment such as advertising costs, interviewing costs, orientation costs, and training costs of new employees can be extremely high for North West Parks and Tourism Board. The implicit cost associated with employee turnover in terms production loss that might result in high levels of customer turnover. A new recruited employee might take one to six months to settle at his or her new employment before being fully productive. In this mini-disse1tations, I will explore the different factors that lead to employee turnover in organisation and how it impacts an organisation. I will explore the consequences associated with employee turnover. In this Mini-Dissertation both quantitative and qualitative research tools are used to thoroughly understand the impact of employee turnover. Qualitative methodologies are employed in order to yield a deeper and more insightful understanding of impact of employee turnover in an organisation of the ca e study group. Quantitative methodologies included a questionnaire survey that was administered to the case study group and a stratified random sample was used to select participants. The summary profiling indicates that employee turnover does negatively affect the effectiveness and efficiency of NWP&TB. Further findings show that employee turnover disrupts the operations of NWP&TB and ultimately it will lead to customer dissatisfaction. / Thesis (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2012

Harmonious employer and employee relations form the basis of a productive long term employment relationship, although not always prescribed by legislation, it becomes imperative for both parties in the employment relationship to strive towards the establishment of primary generic harmonious labour relations conditions. Through empirical research, the study seeks to identify those conditions that employers and employees should observe in order for both parties to maintain a harmonious labour relationship. These conditions, it is suggested, are critical conditions that reduce the manifestation of negative outcomes associated with the inherently conflicting needs of the interacting parties in an employment relationship. The study employed a qualitative method in gathering data, where brainstorming sessions were conducted with labour relations Post Graduate students to identify the initial thirty six conditions, followed by the administration of a qualitative questionnaire to a panel of experts to identify the ten critical harmonious conditions in a labour relationship. / Thesis (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2011

This dissertation explores labor movement political division under Brazilian democracy. The study traces the evolution of labor movement political division from the transition to democratic rule during the early 1980s to the development of the bitter dispute between the rival Central Unica dos Trabalhadores (CUT) and Forca Sindical labor centrals during the early 1990s. This examination of divided labor focuses upon these national labor leadership organizations and the collective action strategies they promoted within the labor movement and the workforce. The dissertation challenges conventional explanations of labor movement political division based exclusively upon labor leadership rivalry, organizational competition or political party contestation. This examination argues that the bitter dispute from 1991-1994 was fundamentally a conflict about the optimum collective action strategy for conceiving and pursuing workers' interests under capitalist democracy in Brazil. This type of political division, expressed by the elaboration and coordination of competing collective action strategies, emerged from three interrelated conditions. First, the structure of Brazilian capitalism intensified class conflict between workers and their employers under democracy. Second, the rising tide of class conflict was mediated through labor market segmentation. Labor market segmentation shaped the structure of choices confronting Brazilian workers. Third, the intensification of class conflict under democracy propelled the organization of a working class political threat, demonstrated by the growth of both the CUT and the Partido dos Trabalhadores. This threat to employers induced many of them to exchange immediate benefits to their employees for their political cooperation. This political exchange was promoted and coordinated by the Forca Sindical. Thus, this dissertation concludes that the bitter dispute arose from the clash between the organization and promotion of a class based strategy and one linked to political cooperation with employers. This study suggests that theories of labor movement political division be linked to the type of division in question. Also, that labor movement division based upon competition between alternative strategies be explained as the result of the interaction between economic and political variables, particularly as they impact the structures of choice facing workers under capitalist democracy.

<p> The first chapter of my thesis explores monetary policy in a New Keynesian model with Markov-switching risk aversion. The second considers the implications for the macroeconomic and financial properties of an RBC model of the presence of habit formation. The third examines the result of adding the ``Tobin constraint" that shares equal the capital stock to a benchmark RBC mdoel. The underlying theme of these endeavors is rendering macroeconomic models more realistic via the introduction of time-varying preferences, non-linear modelling, and financial frictions.</p>