Union Contracts and the Negotiation of Work Hours and Schedules

University Of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA

Investigators

Abstract

SES-09659712 Dan Clawson Naomi Gerstel University of Massachusetts, Amherst This study asks why employees work the hours and schedules they do, and proposes to answer this question by analyzing labor union contracts and the negotiations producing them in occupations that vary by gender and class. Building on our prior research on four occupations, the research proposed here focuses on three of the same occupations -- nurses, nursing assistants, and EMTs (emergency medical technicians)-- with minor attention to the fourth, doctors, who are much less likely to be unionized. Union contracts and the negotiations surrounding them are a valuable but untapped data source. Not only are unions players in the process of shaping hours and schedules but more importantly their contracts and negotiations provide a site where we can examine the expression of employer and employee preferences, the arguments and power each deploys, the compromises each makes and the characteristics of each that shape their preferences, arguments, conflicts and compromises. We hypothesize, first, that these contracts, negotiations, and the conflict they address will often center on issues of time, and, second that both the specific concerns and the resolutions they develop will vary by gender and class. The proposed research will analyze 183 union contracts. We will first examine clauses on hours and schedules in the union contracts. Standard codes will be developed that apply across all occupations, and cover both broad categories (for example, time off) and detailed sub-categories (for example, holidays, vacations, sick leave, personal time, family leaves). Using descriptive statistics and multivariate techniques, the study will examine the extent to which these vary across occupations and from one union to another within each occupation. Next the investigators will conduct interviews with employers and employees about the negotiations surrounding the union contracts, selecting ten sites each for nurses, nursing assistants, and EMTs, and two sites for physicians, in order to understand the concerns and issues that each side identified as most important, which members participate, and the reasons for the compromises they make. At each site we will interview two union-side contract negotiators and one employer-side negotiator. Broader Impacts The research will have a broad impact both because it advances scientific knowledge and has practical implications for the daily lives of employees and employers. The research will contribute to social science understanding of organizations and families by rigorously and systematically examining the processes that underlie a set of much-debated outcomes; it does so by examining the points of stress that lead people to collective action. It makes innovative use of a data source -- union contracts and the negotiations over them -- rarely if ever used to systematically and rigorously examine points of stress. In practical terms, the proposed research addresses key concerns in employees' daily lives and key challenges faced by employers. Elucidating the aspects that employers and employees focus on, and finding ways to help reduce the strains they face, could reduce costs, improve organizational outcomes, and give employees more control over their lives at and away from the workplace.