Selected References Noteworthy Book in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics, 2007, Princeton University
This book brings together research in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand to answer a series of key questions:
o What opportunities do employees in Anglo-American workplaces have to voice their concerns and what do they seek?
o To what extent, and in what contexts, do workers want greater union representation?
o How do workers feel about employer-initiated channels of influence? What styles of engagement do they want with employers?
o What institutional models are more successful in giving workers the voice they seek at workplaces?
o What can unions, employers, and public policy makers learn from these studies of representation and influence?
The research is based largely on surveys that were conducted as a follow-up to the influential Worker Representation and Participation Survey (WRPS) reported in What Workers Want, coauthored by Richard B. Freeman and Joel Rogers in 1999 and updated in 2006. Taken together, these studies authoritatively outline workers' attitudes toward, and opportunities for, representation and influence in the Anglo-American workplace. They also enhance industrial relations theory and suggest strategies for unions, employers, and public policy.
Contributors
Peter Boxall, University of Auckland
Alex Bryson, London School of Economics
Michele Campolieti, University of Toronto
Brian Cooper, Monash University
Richard B. Freeman, Harvard University
Ann Frost, University of Western Ontario
John Geary, University College Dublin
Konstantinos Georgiadis, University of Bath
Rafael Gomez, London School of Economics
Morley Gunderson, University of Toronto
Peter Haynes
Peter Holland, Monash University
Thomas A. Kochan, MIT
Keith Macky, Massey University
David Peetz, Griffith University
John Purcell, Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) and
Central Arbitration Committee
Amanda Pyman, University of Kent
Julian Teicher, Monash University
Reviews
"Freeman, Boxall, and Haynes provide the results of comprehensive on employee "voice" and the implications of their findings for labor unions in six countries. . . . Of the countries studied, the US has the most rigid, outmoded form of employee voice. Highly recommended."—G. E. Kaupins, Choice, January 2008
“A century ago, concerns about worker voice led to the recognition of trade unions as institutions that give workers voice. Globalization and other changes in the socioeconomic environment have created new obstacles on the road to giving workers voice in their workplaces. With its innovative use of data to address issues that are of great relevance and importance to the future of prosperous and sustainable societies, What Workers Say opens up many new fronts for thinking about the practice and promise of realizing worker voice."—Anil Verma, University of Toronto
“What Workers Say is a very useful addition to the literature. In summarizing research across the Anglo-American world it is invaluable to students, scholars, and policymakers."—Mick Marchington, University of Manchester
About the Author
Richard B. Freeman is Ascherman Professor of Economics at Harvard University, Codirector of the Labor and Worklife Program at the Harvard Law School, and Director of the Labor Studies Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is also Senior Research Fellow in Labour Markets at the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. He is the coauthor of What Workers Want, Updated Edition, also from Cornell. Peter Boxall is Professor of Human Resource Management at the University of Auckland. He is coauthor of Strategy and Human Resource Management and coeditor of The Oxford Handbook of Human Resource Management. Peter Haynes is a former senior trade union official. His research spans studies of worker representation and participation, union strategy, high-performance work systems, and service-sector human resource management.
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