DigitalCommons@ILR

When Pay is Kept Secret, the Implications on Performance are Revealing

Elena Belogolovsky et al. — Thu, 23 May 2013 09:23:00 PDT

Key Findings

Pay secrecy (in contrast to pay transparency) negatively affects the performance of individuals who are less tolerant to inequity;
Pay secrecy negatively affects the perception of the link between performance and pay in individuals intolerant to equity, which in turn, decreases their performance;
In contrast, pay secrecy is associated with significantly better task performance than pay transparency for individuals who are more tolerant to inequity.

The Global Employer: The Employment Law Reform Issue

Baker & McKenzie — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:10:53 PDT

[Excerpt] In this issue of The Global Employer Employment Law Reform issue, we explore recent reforms and their likely impact on employers in 10 jurisdictions, and also provide a roundup of trends and hot topics in other regions.

The Global Employer: Europe & Middle East Quarterly Update

Baker & McKenzie — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:57:58 PDT

China Employment Law Guide, 2013

Baker & McKenzie — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:47:47 PDT

[Excerpt] This is a remarkable time for labor and employment law in China. The Employment Contract Law, which became effective on January 1, 2008, significantly changed the relationship between employer and employee to bring China more in line with international standards.

Further, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the umbrella organization for all labor unions in China, has promised to continue its campaign to unionize foreign-invested enterprises. Its stated goal is next to pressure companies to sign collective contracts, including collective wage agreements, with their labor unions.

As a result of these developments, employers must develop better methods to manage their workforce and labor costs. Companies must be aware of the key legal challenges in China. Failure to do so can lead to significant financial, legal, and reputational risks. We hope that this Employment Law Guide will help you to navigate successfully the challenges ahead.

Leveling the Playing Field Executive Summary

The Conference Board et al. — Mon, 20 May 2013 07:24:51 PDT

Recession or boom, business leaders consider finding and keeping the right talent a constant challenge. Executives spend significant amounts of time and money recruiting, retaining, and promoting the employees they think have the talent to secure success. Leveling the Playing Field: Attracting, Engaging, and Advancing People with Disabilities, a report from The Conference Board that is based on a year’s worth of research by the Research Working Group for Improving Employment Outcomes for People with Disabilities, explores how people with disabilities, including recent veterans, can be part of the talent solution—both as a source of talent and a spur to make organizations better places to work. People with disabilities may even be a bellwether of changes in the workplace for all employees. As demonstrated in a case study about Walgreens in the full research report, employers who foster the employment of people with disabilities often see benefits for all employees and the organization as a whole.

Employers may become more motivated to attract, engage, and advance people with disabilities in coming years. For one thing, the proportion of the workforce with disabilities will increase as the population ages. Improvements in technology and work design will also make access to work and the work itself easier for all employees, making it simpler to accommodate existing workers and hire people with disabilities. These employment strategies may even result in new opportunities for developing competitive advantage.

Missing Links: Referrer Behavior and Job Segregation (Appendix)

Brian Rubineau et al. — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:43:42 PDT

Missing Links: Referrer Behavior and Job Segregation

Brian Rubineau et al. — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:13:07 PDT

The importance of networks in labor markets is well-known, and their job segregating effects in organizations taken as granted. Conventional wisdom attributes this segregation to the homophilous nature of contact networks, and leaves little role for organizational influences. But employee referrals are necessarily initiated within a firm by employee referrers subject to organizational policies. We build theory regarding the role of referrers in the segregating effects of network recruitment. Using mathematical and computational models, we investigate how empirically-documented referrer behaviors affect job segregation. We show that referrer behaviors can segregate jobs beyond the effects of homophilous network recruitment. Further, and contrary to past understandings, we show that referrer behaviors can also mitigate most if not all of the segregating effects of network recruitment. Although largely neglected in previous labor market network scholarship, referrers are the missing links revealing opportunities for organizations to influence the effects of network recruitment.

Absence and Disability Management Practices for an Aging Workforce

Sarah von Schrader et al. — Thu, 16 May 2013 11:20:17 PDT

The goal of Disability and Absence Management programming is to limit absence, control costs, and retain workers to maintain a productive workforce. This can include the development of supportive policies (e.g. flexible work options), manager and employee education, supportive benefit programs, return to work programs, among others. Increasingly, older workers have become a group of interest among Absence and Disability Management professionals, in part because many baby boomers are forgoing retirement and working longer. Projections suggest that by 2020 those 55 and over could account for 25% of workers. This shift is especially important given that disability prevalence increases with age – as the workforce ages, organizations will increasingly need to ensure their programming supports older workers. During the fall and winter of 2012-13, Cornell University’s Employment and Disability Institute and the Disability Management Employer Coalition (DMEC) collaborated on a survey and key informant interviews with DMEC members and conference attendees to learn more about what organizations are doing to respond to and prepare for an aging workforce.

Technological Change, Skill Demand, and Wage Inequality in Indonesia

Jong-Wha Lee et al. — Wed, 15 May 2013 13:40:48 PDT

This paper examines the empirical implications of technological changes for skill demand and wage inequality in Indonesia. According to the National Labor Force Survey of Indonesia, the share of educated workers and wage skill premium increased significantly over 2003–2009 for overall industry and across the region. An analysis based on demand–supply framework suggests that demand shifts favoring skilled workers during the period. The decomposition of labor demand shifts shows that they were driven not only by reallocation of labor forces between industries but also by change within industries, particularly among formal workers, suggesting evidence of skill-biased technological changes. The empirical evidence from the data of manufacturing firms suggest that diffusion of new technologies through imported materials and foreign direct investment caused greater demand for skilled labor and higher wage inequality in the manufacturing sector.

Asian Development Outlook 2013: Asia's Energy Challenge

Asian Development Bank — Wed, 15 May 2013 13:16:35 PDT

[Excerpt] Developing Asia’s economies are returning to healthy growth. In the face of continued sluggishness in the United States, the euro area, and Japan, the region is finding ways to bolster its resilience. The Asian Development Outlook 2013 estimates regional growth will pick up to 6.6% in 2013 and reach 6.7% in 2014. While this is a distinct improvement on 2012, when growth stood at just over 6%, it is far from the heady double-digit pace before the global financial crisis.

But in many ways this new Asian reality is a positive development. Leading regional economies are settling into a pattern of more moderate, more sustainable growth, founded on new opportunities nearer to home. Asia’s contributions to global imbalances—its persistent current account surpluses—are smoothly winding down. Muted demand from wealthy countries is providing the impetus for the region to turn to internal sources and trade with its neighbors. With the major industrial economies expected to grow by only 1% in 2013, the roles of domestic demand and intra-Asian trade will continue to expand.

Counting Regulations: An Overview of Rulemaking, Types of Federal Regulations, and Pages in the Federal Register

Maeve P. Carey — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:04:11 PDT

[Excerpt] This report serves to inform the congressional debate over rulemaking by analyzing different ways to measure federal rulemaking activity. The report provides data on and analysis of the total number of rules issued each year, as well as information on other types of rules, such as “major” rules, “significant” rules, and “economically significant” rules. These categories have been created by various statutes and executive orders containing requirements that may be triggered if a regulation falls into one of the categories. When available, data are provided on each type of rule. Finally, the report provides data on the number of pages and documents in the Federal Register each year and analyzes the content of the Federal Register.

Seven Immigration Myths and Facts

AFL-CIO — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:37:27 PDT

The AFL-CIO prepared Seven Immigration Myths and Facts addressing current immigration issues.

U.S. Household Savings for Retirement in 2010

John J. Topoleski — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:36:13 PDT

[Excerpt] This report provides data on a variety of household wealth measures in 2010 from the Federal Reserve’s triennial Survey of Consumer Finances. Although the amount of retirement assets is the primary focus of the report, other measures of wealth (such as the amount of total assets, financial assets, total debt, net worth, and housing equity) are also included. The report classifies the amount of assets and debt by the age of the head of the household for both single and married households. In general, the amount of household wealth is higher for married households than for single households. Household wealth generally increases as the age of the head of the household increases, although some measures decrease for those households in which the head of the household is aged 75 or older. In general, the median values are less than the average values, which is an indication that some households hold relatively large amounts of wealth compared with most households.

Profile of Workplace Safety and Health in the United States

AFL-CIO — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:27:46 PDT

Prepared by the AFL-CIO Safety and Health Department, the attached document breaks down workplace fatalities, injuries/illnesses, penalties, number of inspectors, years to inspect each workplace, and program, by state for 2010.

Now is NOT the Time for the Columbia FTA

AFL-CIO — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:22:29 PDT

[Excerpt] The U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement is the wrong trade model at the wrong time. Instead of helping workers here or in Colombia, the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement would reward a country with a history of extreme violence that has utterly failed to protect workers' rights. This agreement, negotiated by the Bush Administration before the financial meltdown of 2008 and the current unemployment crisis, contains too many flawed trade policies of the past. Instead of wasting valuable time and effort advancing this inadequate agreement, President Obama should instead focus on effective job creation measures (including currency rebalancing, infrastructure investment, and robust training and education) and reforming our trade model (so that it strengthens labor rights protections for all workers, safeguards domestic laws and regulations, and promotes the export of goods rather than jobs).

AFL-CIO Legislative Guide: 112th Congress (2011–2012)

AFL-CIO — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:15:37 PDT

The AFL-CIO Legislative Guide for the 112th Congress covers the following issues as they relate to labor and public policy:

The Economy

Freedom to Form a Union

Health Care

Retirement Security

Core Labor Laws, Labor Standards and Workplace Protections

Education, Civil and Human Rights, Fair and Open Elections

The Global Economy

Untangling the Web: A Guide To Internet Research

National Security Agency — Fri, 10 May 2013 11:20:34 PDT

[Excerpt] Untangling the Web for 2007 is the twelfth edition of a book that started as a small handout. After more than a decade of researching, reading about, using, and trying to understand the Internet, I have come to accept that it is indeed a Sisyphean task. Sometimes I feel that all I can do is to push the rock up to the top of that virtual hill, then stand back and watch as it rolls down again. The Internet—in all its glory of information and misinformation—is for all practical purposes limitless, which of course means we can never know it all, see it all, understand it all, or even imagine all it is and will be. The more we know about the Internet, the more acute is our awareness of what we do not know. The Internet emphasizes the depth of our ignorance because "our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite." My hope is that Untangling the Web will add to our knowledge of the Internet and the world while recognizing that the rock will always roll back down the hill at the end of the day.

Job Safety and Health Update April 2012

AFL-CIO — Fri, 10 May 2013 10:55:17 PDT

[Excerpt] The Occupational Safety and Health Act and the Mine Safety and Health Act promise workers the right to a safe job. Unions and our allies have fought hard to make that promise a reality, winning protections that have made jobs safe, saved hundreds of thousands of lives and prevented millions of workplace injuries and illnesses. But there still is much work to be done.

After eight years of neglect and inaction by the Bush administration, the Department of Labor under the Obama administration set an ambitious agenda to develop and issue much-needed standards to protect workers from serious and life-threatening safety and health hazards, to strengthen enforcement against serious violators and to protect workers’ rights.

Facts About Worker Safety and Health - 2012

AFL-CIO — Fri, 10 May 2013 10:55:15 PDT

[Excerpt] This year marks the 41st anniversary of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the effective date of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. The Act – which guarantees every American worker a safe and healthful working environment – created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to set and enforce standards and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to conduct research and investigations. This year also marks the 43rd anniversary of the Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, and 35th anniversary of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act.

Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect

AFL-CIO — Fri, 10 May 2013 10:38:15 PDT

[Excerpt] This 2012 edition of Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect marks the 21st year the AFL-CIO has produced a report on the state of safety and health protections for America’s workers.

Four decades ago, in 1970, Congress enacted the Occupational Safety and Health Act promising workers in this country the right to a safe job.

Since that time, workplace safety and health conditions have improved. But too many workers remain at serious risk of injury, illness or death, as demonstrated by three 2010 disasters: the explosion at the Massey Energy Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia that killed 29 coal miners—the worst coal mine disaster in 40 years; the Tesoro Refinery explosion in Washington State that killed seven workers; and the BP/Transocean Gulf Coast oil rig explosion