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Worker Behavior on the Job: A Multi-Methods Study of Labor Cooperation with Management

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Abstract

In the 2000s, the leadership of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) called for labor-management cooperation from its rank and file members in response to concerns about increasing competition from the nonunionized electrical contracting sector. The IBEW’s leadership implored members to cooperate by altering their behavior on the job, thereby modifying the effort bargain between workers and management. To date, this type of cooperation with management has been little studied. Using qualitative and quantitative data collected from one Local of the IBEW, this study analyzes how workers responded to the leadership’s call and the factors guiding this behavior. Among the findings, cooperative behavior on the job is found to be strongly associated with workers’ attitudes, as measured by their commitments to their occupation and to their union.

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Notes

  1. The Code of Excellence is available at http://www.ibewhourpower.com/. [Accessed 6 December 2011].

  2. A psychological contract, as defined by Rousseau, is an individual’s beliefs regarding the terms of a reciprocal exchange between himself/herself and another party, in this case, the employer.

  3. Other motivations for cooperative behavior have been suggested as well. For instance, scholars have suggested that when workers are formed into self-managing teams, they have a greater sense of control and identify more strongly with their employer, thereby making them more likely to cooperate with management (Vallas 2006). In the case studied here, formation of teams was not used as an approach to garner cooperation and so is not explicitly examined. Concern over job security may also motivate employees to engage in cooperative behavior. For instance, Smith (2001) found that when workers perceived that their options for stable employment elsewhere were limited, they exerted more effort and took on more responsibility. Regrettably, the survey did not ask questions about perceptions of job insecurity. However, concern about lack of such information is attenuated by the fact that the survey was conducted at a single location at a single point in time, and so all workers faced the same economic reality, likely reducing the variation in perceptions.

  4. We adopt the language used in the field. Consequently, the language in the paper is not gender-neutral. Women are referred to as journeymen, wiremen, and foremen. Similarly, workers in the industrial/commercial sector are referred to as journeymen, and residential wiremen when they work in residential sector.

  5. A total of 291 surveys were returned but 20 were disqualified for various reasons, yielding the 271 figure reported in the text. Most were disqualified because the respondents indicated they were retired or they were still in the apprentice program. Two were disqualified because of the pattern of the responses – all answers were at the extremes of the scales provided, raising questions about the seriousness/truthfulness of the responses.

  6. African Americans returned 4% of usable surveys (n = 10), but the percentage employed was just 2.4%.

  7. Confirmatory factor analysis of the nine items indicated an acceptable fit for a three factor model (χ 2 = 45.29, df = 24, p = .005; CFI = .93; RMSEA = .06) which was an improvement over a one factor model (χ 2 = 74.57, df = 27, p = .000; CFI = .85; RMSEA = .08). Despite this support for three factors, low internal consistency of these factors (α) did not warrant using three separate dependent variables.

  8. Results of a confirmatory factor analysis show the items loaded on one factor (χ 2 = 3.84, df = 2, p = .15; CFI = .99; RMSEA = .061).

  9. Preliminary tests of the model indicate these variables make little difference in the results.

  10. Theoretically, the model should include measures of both social relations and management practices. Given the high pair-wise correlation of these measures (.526), they are not included together in the estimated models.

  11. Step 1 for Models I and II consists of the same set of variables. The coefficients differ because of slight differences in sample size due to missing observations on variables used in steps 2 or 3.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Business Administration and Public Policy Administration, University of Missouri-St. Louis, One University Blvd., St. Louis, MO, 63121, USA

    Deborah B. Balser

  2. Economics and Public Policy Administration, University of Missouri-St. Louis and IZA, One University Blvd., St. Louis, MO, 63121, USA

    Anne E. Winkler

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  1. Deborah B. Balser
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  2. Anne E. Winkler
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Correspondence to Deborah B. Balser.

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Balser, D.B., Winkler, A.E. Worker Behavior on the Job: A Multi-Methods Study of Labor Cooperation with Management. J Labor Res 33, 388–413 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12122-012-9133-1

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