Information Highway

January 2007

A selection of recent articles, studies, books and internet resources compiled by the AFSCME Information Center.

Reports & Articles

The New Crisis of Public Service Employment
McEntee, Gerald W., Public Personnel Management, Winter 2006, Volume 35, no. 4: pages 343-346.

These are unprecedented times for public service workers and the unions that represent their interests. The largest of these unions is the 1.4 million member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), AFL-CIO. In recent years, AFSCME has been thrust into the role of defending sweeping attacks on public employees and public budgets at every level of government.

Throughout its 70-year history, AFSCME has waged effective battles that have enabled public employees to join the ranks of the middle class—winning collective bargaining rights, facilitating the adoption of merit-based job performance systems, growing public employee pension plans, securing wage increases, and helping create a vibrant public sector that provides effective services to citizens and helps local economies realize their potential. Today, much of the historic progress achieved by public workers is at risk. Ultimately, how successfully AFSCME and its fellow public unions meet five core challenges in the areas of privatization — fiscal limits, civil service reform and pension reform — will determine the future of America’s public sector.

A Word (or Two) About Public Sector Collective Bargaining
Adler, Joseph, Public Personnel Management, Winter 2006, Volume 35, no. 4: pages 261-264.

Public Sector Collective Bargaining is a relatively recent phenomenon — its lifecycle can be traced to and indeed may be a lasting legacy of the “baby boomers” entering the public sector workforce in record numbers. Outside of a few traditionally union-friendly or politically progressive jurisdictions, union activity among government employees was virtually unknown and unheard of in the 1950s. During the next two-plus decades, however, union membership rates saw explosive growth so that by 1979 about 38 percent of public employees were either members of or represented by unions. Despite an occasional setback, public sector unions managed to stay close to this rate for the next 27 years. Ironically, the ascendancy of public sector unions almost mirrors the decline of private sector unions; at one time they represented more than one-third of America’s workers; today they represent less than nine percent.

Alternative Approaches to Interest Arbitration: Lessons from New York City
Lipsky, David B., and Harry C. Katz, Public Personnel Management, Winter 2006, Volume 35, no. 4: pages 265-282.

Scholars have not taken adequate account of variation in the interest arbitration process in their research on the effects of interest arbitration on bargaining outcomes. There are two fundamental approaches to interest arbitration, which they term the “judicial prototype” and the “negotiation prototype.” The recent cases involving the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA) of New York City and the city of New York illustrate the differences in these two approaches. ... The rise of unionism among public sector employees in the 1960s led to the passage of state-level legislation regulating collective bargaining between state and local governments and their employees. In the vast majority of states that passed such legislation, public sector employees were denied the right to strike, and legislators established impasse procedures as a substitute for the right to strike as a means of resolving public sector disputes.

Labor Management Relations: Conditions for Collaboration
Rubin, Barry., and Richard Rubin, Public Personnel Management, Winter 2006, Volume 35, no. 4: pages 283-298.

The failure to consider the collective bargaining relationship already established between labor and management constitutes a major deficiency in the research on collaboration, especially since labor unions are likely to play a significant role in organizational reform. The purpose of this research is to analyze the successful labor-management reform initiative in the city of Indianapolis using a model of collaboration developed by the authors.

The city of Indianapolis has received significant attention for its efforts in reinventing the delivery of many urban services. It has developed a system of municipal operations that is the envy of many other cities, both in the United States and abroad. Initially driven by the privatization efforts of former Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, a unique partnership has evolved between labor and management, encouraging cooperation and competition between city departments and their represented employees with private contractors. Because of the city’s approach to organizational reform, the massive shift to the private sector for the delivery of city services threatened in Goldsmith’s mayoral campaign never materialized. While the city’s success in improving the delivery of municipal services is known anecdotally throughout the United States and many other countries, little validation of this success exists. Moreover, research that has been conducted has addressed only limited aspects of the city’s efforts, has been done by organizations with a vested interest in the outcome of the analysis, or has failed to connect inputs to outcomes. Thus, the reasons behind the city’s success are not immediately obvious. Perhaps most importantly, the methods used to achieve successful reinvention of municipal service delivery in Indianapolis have not been fully documented to allow replication by other communities throughout the U.S. or the world.

Collective Bargaining and Deputy Sheriffs in Florida: An Unusual History
Pynes, Joan E., Brian Corley, Public Personnel Management, Winter 2006, Volume 35, no. 4: pages 299-310.

There is an unusual history of collective bargaining and deputy sheriffs in the state of Florida. While police officers have been allowed to unionize and collectively bargain since 1968, it has only been since 2003 that deputy sheriffs have been given that right. (Please note that despite the similarities in job duties, deputy sheriffs were not considered to be public employees for the purposes of collective bargaining.)

The Past as Prologue? A Brief History of the Labor Movement in the United States
Adler, Joseph, Public Personnel Management, Winter 2006, Volume 35, no. 4: pages 311-330.

Of the approximately 20 million public employees in the United States, more than eight million are either members of or represented by labor unions—a penetration rate of just over 40 percent. What is remarkable about this phenomenal growth is that most of the expansion of union activity in government has occurred within the last 40 years, and almost mirrors the decline of union strength in the private sector.

The rise and fall of labor in the private sector is a backdrop to the growth of public sector collective bargaining. Explanations for the dramatic increase in government union activity can be explored from a number of different perspectives. Current public policy efforts to reform civil service and allow managers greater flexibility are seen by some researchers as having the potential to impact the ability of public sector unions to represent their members effectively. The recent split within the AFL-CIO may also have consequences affecting public sector union activity. Costly and self defeating jurisdictional disputes can arise and subsequently lead to a decline in membership strength. On the other hand, increased competition can serve to reinvigorate the entire labor movement in much the same way that the original split between the AFL and CIO resulted in massive private sector organizing efforts and dramatic, if temporary membership gains.

The Psychological Contract and the Union Contract: A Paradigm Shift in Public Sector Employee Relations
Calo, Thomas J., Public Personnel Management, Winter 2006, Volume 35, no. 4: pages 331-342.

This article examines the changing nature of employee and labor relations in the United States. A significant shift has occurred in the employee relations environment between the public and private sectors. As union representation in the private sector workforce has steeply declined, there had been a sharp and steady increase in third party representation in the public sector workforce. The reasons for these changes are explored. The article goes beyond the issue of labor relations to the broader issue of positive employee relations in the workplace. Exploring employee relations from a behavioral science perspective, the article describes and discusses the psychological contract as an organizing framework for understanding and achieving positive employee relations in the workplace. The article also draws upon the author’s professional human resource experiences in the public and private sectors.

The Highwaymen
Schulman, Daniel and James Ridgeway, Mother Jones, January/February 2007, Volume 32 no. 1: pages 48-55, 84-85.

Why you could soon be paying Wall Street investors, Australian bankers, and Spanish Builders for the privilege of driving on American roads. Fifty years to the day after Ike put his pen to the Highway Act, another Republican signed off on another historic highway project. On June 29, 2006, Mitch Daniels, the former Bush administration official turned governor of Indiana, was greeted with a round of applause as he stepped into a conference room packed with reporters and state lawmakers. The last of eight wire transfers had landed in the state's account, making it official: Indiana had received $3.8 billion from a foreign consortium made up of the Spanish construction firm Cintra and the Macquarie Infrastructure Group (MIG) of Australia, and in exchange the state would hand over operation of the 157-mile Indiana Toll Road for the next 75 years.

Labor's Critical Role in Workplace Health and Safety in California and Beyond — As Labor Shifts Priorities, where will Health and Safety Sit?
Brown, Marianne, New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy, Volume 16, Number 3 / 2006: Pages 249-265

Organized labor has been largely responsible for the health and safety protections many U.S. workers take for granted. This article provides a brief history of labor's influence on California's health and safety policies—sometimes with ripple effects beyond its borders. Six cases where various successful strategies were used are examined. These gains were achieved with strong support from international health and safety staff, and, on some issues, support from the state labor federation. But in most cases local union staff involvement was key. Now that labor mobilizes to build its shrinking membership—with only 1 out of 12 workers in the private sector organized---resources are being re-directed toward organizing. Understandably, health and safety advocates have expressed concern that worker protections may suffer. Time will tell, but there is evidence that health and safety demands are front and center in a number of current and upcoming organizing campaigns. Now more than ever, it is in health and safety professionals' interest to tie their research and clinical work into these emerging campaigns.

Conflicts Over Corporate Control: The Role of Labor and Employment Relations
Sleigh, Stephen R, Perspectives on Work, Summer 2006, Volume 10, no. 1: pages 4-5.

The theme of LERA’s Annual Meeting in 2006 was “Labor and Capital in the Twenty-First Century: Human, Social, and Financial Contributions to Creating Wealth.” .... Despite the positive role large unionized companies play in American society, a fundamental conflict exists between the short-term financial focus of many in the investment and management communities and the longer-term focus of others, including employees who value job security and long-term investors who seek consistent growth. Conflicts over corporate control revolve around this tension. From a strategic union perspective, developing an action plan around making large companies more accountable to employees and other stakeholders, including long-term shareholders, must involve a number of new approaches.

Given the track record of labor’s success in trying new approaches, we have our work cut out for us. Still, unions represent employees in nearly 80 percent of the largest publicly traded companies in the United States. Perhaps more significant is the fact that nearly half the assets in American equity markets are held by the pension funds and savings plans of organized workers and union-represented employers. Taken together, unions have the potential to exert considerable leverage on capital markets.

Layoffs and Organized Resilience: Lessons for Workers, Managers, and Investors
Gittell, Jody Hoffer, Perspectives on Work, Summer 2006, Volume 10, no. 1: pages 6-8.

The Annual Meeting of LERA in 2006 emphasized the importance of financial and social capital for achieving outcomes that work for all stakeholders. This article shares some research results that reinforce this viewpoint. .. Layoffs often make sense from a traditional management perspective as a way to weather the storm by adjusting supply to demand. When demand drops, managers often reduce supply and lay off excess workers to avoid paying them when revenues are insufficient to cover costs. Another perspective, however, stresses that high-performance work systems (which produce value for workers, managers, and investors) require loyalty and commitment in order to work effectively. According to this view, managers should seek to avoid layoffs when demand falls. Furthermore, if relationships help individuals and organizations bounce back from a crisis, then it is important to avoid harming relationships at such a critical time. From this perspective, layoffs are a problem, not a solution.

PATCO, Permanent Replacement, and the Loss of Labor’s Strike Weapon
McCartin, Joseph A., Perspectives on Work, Summer 2006, Volume 10, no. 1: pages 17-19.

August 3, 2006, marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of an event that many in organized labor would prefer to forget. On that date in 1981, more than 12,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) walked off their jobs with the Federal Aviation Administration. When 11,325 of them refused to heed a back-to-work order issued by President Ronald Reagan and end their illegal walkout within forty-eight hours, they were discharged and permanently replaced. In the immediate aftermath of the PATCO strike, many commentators predicted it would mark a turning point in the history of U.S. labor relations. A quarter century later, the strike’s importance is even easier to grasp. Just as the infamous Homestead strike set the tone for labor-capital conflict at the end of the nineteenth century, the PATCO strike helped establish the pattern for labor relations in the late twentieth century. Since that ill-fated walkout, organized labor has been in a state of continuous decline.

After the Strike: The Lasting Impact of Hiring Striker Replacements
Getman, Julius, Perspectives on Work, Summer 2006, Volume 10, no. 1: pages 20-22

During the 1980s, several once-union-friendly companies took an uncharacteristically aggressive approach to collective bargaining: they demand major concessions and dared the unions to go on strike.1 Behind the new strategy was the willingness, perhaps even the desire, to respond to a strike by hiring permanent replacement workers. The companies reasoned that after the strike they would have a new, more easily managed workforce—less skilled, to be sure, but also younger, less expensive, and, best of all, non-union. This strategy led to a series of bitter strikes in major industries, which attracted media attention and scholarly study. Unfortunately, the stories typically ended when the strikes ended. Little has been written about the aftermath of permanent replacement strikes. My study of the 1987–88 strike by Local 14 of the United Paperworkers International Union (UPIU) against International Paper Company at its Androscoggin Mill in Jay, Maine, suggests that it is when the strike ends that the deep costs of hiring permanent replacements emerge.

The Campaign to Save Labor's 'Only True Weapon'
Logan, John, Perspectives on Work, Summer 2006, Volume 10, no. 1: pages 23-25.

In 1990, the AFL-CIO started a campaign to reform the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to ban permanent striker replacements, hoping to set the stage for more comprehensive revision of the NLRA. Ultimately, however, the campaign served only to illustrate organized labor’s inability to win labor law reform over the opposition of the business community. Campaigns such as that for striker replacement legislation—in which the AFL-CIO spent tens of millions of dollars on a Washington-based campaign focused on a handful of “swing” legislators and ended up with absolutely nothing to show for it—are precisely the type of campaigns that the dissident Change to Win unions have criticized as a waste of union finances that would be better spent on organizing.

Striker Replacement: A Human Rights Perspective
Compa, Lance, Perspectives on Work, Summer 2006, Volume 10, no. 1: pages 26-27.

United States labor law on workers’ right to strike meets international human rights standards—up to a point. The law does not ban strikes in the private sector. Unlike many countries that nominally allow strikes but create onerous procedural obstacles (Mexico is a prime example), the United States, aside from modest notice requirements, lets workers decide to strike. In a handful of states, public-sector workers can strike. So far, so good. But beyond this point, U.S. labor law and practice deviate from international standards. In the public sector, most strikes are prohibited even with no threat to public health or safety (the main proviso developed by the International Labor Organization). In the private sector, employers’ power to permanently replace workers who exercise the right to strike effectively nullifies that right.

Resolving Workplace Conflict: The Alternative Dispute Resolution Revolution and Some Lessons We Have Learned
Lipsky, David B., Perspectives on Work, Winter 2007, Volume 10, no. 2: pages 11-13.

The U.S. industrial relations system has undergone a historic transformation over the past three decades. One of the most significant features of that transformation has been the dramatic rise of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) as a means of addressing workplace conflict. ADR can be defined as the use of arbitration, mediation, and other third-party techniques instead of litigation to resolve workplace disputes. In the view of some experts, the rapid diffusion of ADR in employment relations, especially in the non-union sector, has represented nothing less than a revolution in dispute resolution. The ADR revolution has spread to so many other types of disputes, including family, consumer, construction, and financial disputes. In many ways, transferring the resolution of workplace disputes from public to private forums constitutes the de facto privatization of the American system of justice.

The Hidden Cost of Jobs without Health Care Benefits
Jacobs, Ken, Perspectives on Work, Winter 2007, Volume 10, no. 2: pages 14-17.

In the last half of the twentieth century American health care financing emerged as a dual system: private, employer-sponsored care for most people was supplemented by public care for the poor and elderly. Today, however, rising health insurance premiums, shifting industrial composition, increased use of temporary and part-time workers, and a weakened bargaining position of workers in the labor market are factors leading to a marked shift in the nature of health care coverage for American workers. Declining job-based coverage affects not only health care access and quality for those who are not covered; it also creates hidden costs for employers providing coverage and for taxpayers. Even worse; companies that pare down health benefits or adopt changes that make coverage unaffordable for workers undermine the market position of competitors, forcing them to follow suit as well. These, too, are hidden costs of non benefited jobs. Lawmakers at all levels in the United States are concerned about these issues and are looking for innovative solutions.

Moving Beyond Political Deadlock: Health Reform Initiatives in States
Degolia, Rachel, Perspectives on Work, Winter 2007, Volume 10, no. 2: pages 18-20.

The Massachusetts health reforms approved in April 2006 are indicative of a larger trend among states, in the absence of federal action, states—on the front lines of dealing with the nation’s health care crisis—have begun to take the lead on comprehensive health care reforms. The state experiments bubbling up around the country illustrate not only the potential for real progress, but also the problems and pitfalls of state-based health care reform. As a result of state-level health policy developments, reform advocates must grapple with new challenges. These include the need to anticipate and address the political and social consequences of state mandates and to help states devise strategies for curtailing rapidly rising health care costs.

The Employee Free Choice Act: A Skeptical View and Alternative
Adams, Roy, Labor Studies Journal, Winter 2007, Volume 31, no. 4: pages 1-14.

The AFL-CIO, along with its ally American Rights at Work, has invested a great deal of time, energy, and money in promoting passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Those of us who believe in collective representation hope that this initiative will fulfill the hopes of its promoters and produce a major advance in the number of workers with a collective voice at work. However, with Republicans in continuing control of Congress and the White House, the odds against passage if the Act would seem to be high. However, there are reasons to believe that, even if the Act should pass, the results will, unfortunately, fall short of expectations. Among the key elements of the Free Choice Act that are intended to spark new organizing are card check certification, first contract arbitration, and stiffer penalties for employers who offend the law. Since employers commonly commit unfair labor practices during certification election campaigns and stonewall during the negotiation of first contracts, American unionists believe that the establishment of procedures designed to counter those practices will significantly improve the labor movement’s organizing prospects.

Why the Employee Free Choice Act Deserves Support: Response to Adams
Friedman, Sheldon, Labor Studies Journal, Winter 2007, Volume 31, no. 4: pages 15-22.

As Roy Adams correctly notes, the workplace rights crisis in the United States is so dire that it demands urgent attention from every thinking person who cares about democracy, human rights, and social and economic justice. Of the sixty million nonunion workers who tell pollsters that they want a union in their workplace, last year fewer than seventy thousand - a proportion so small as to be almost insignificant –succeeded in forming one via the NLRB process. Of these, many will never attain an initial collective bargaining agreement and fewer still will forge an enduring collective bargaining relationship with their employer. .. In at least a quarter of these NLRB organizing campaigns, one or more of the union supporters was illegally fired, and in more than half, the workers faced direct or thinly veiled threats that their workplace would close or move if they formed a union (Bronfenbrenner 2000; Mehta and Theodore 2005). Illegal firings and threats of workplace closure, moreover, were just the tip of the iceberg of the employer campaigns that these workers were forced to endure (Logan 2002). .Many more workers than that tiny few did form unions and win initial contracts last year, but they did it in spite of the Board’s stacked-deck process by circumventing it via successful campaigns for card check and employer neutrality.

Why We Should Support the Employee Free Choice Act
Ortega, Julie Martínez, Labor Studies Journal, Winter 2007, Volume 31, no. 4: pages 23-30.

..The proposed legislation, if enacted, would make a real impact on workers trying to form unions and bargain collectively. It would also provide a vehicle for educating the public and elected leaders about the obstacles that workers face when they try to organize. We agree with Professor Adams that workers’ rights are under attack both in the United States and abroad. However, we disagree with his critique of EFCA. We believe it to be a critical part of the strategy to achieve workplace democracy. Adam’s critique of EFCA centers on three main points. He argues that it would not significantly advance the ability if U.S. workers to organize, that an international human rights approach would be better that altering U.S. labor law, and that real change in labor law will not happen without a broad social movement.

Unions Facing the Future: Questions and Possibilities
Fairbrother, Peter, Glynne Williams, Ruth Barton, Enrico Gibellieri, and Andrea Tropeoli, Labor Studies Journal, Winter 2007. Volume 31, no. 4: pages 31-54

The current circumstances of trade unions are subject to extensive debate. As a contribution to these debates, three sets of issues are addressed: how unions organize and operate in relation to members, how unions reposition and rebuild themselves against changing forms of ownership and different managerial practices, and how unions attempt to face the challenges of multinational capital. Unions have sought to renew and revitalize themselves by changing organizational practices or changing aims and ambitions, as well as by recomposing past relationships, especially between unions and state bodies. These themes are addressed via three case studies chosen to exemplify particular aspects of union organization and activity. The study concludes with a comparative evaluation of the three cases in terms of the principles of union renewal.

Legal Protections for Atypical Employees: Employment Law for Workers without Workplaces and Employees without Employers
Stone, Katherine V.W. Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law. 2006. Volume 27, no. 2: pages 251-286.

... Professor Stone examines the legal consequences of the changing nature of employment relationships for the growing number of American workers who do not have traditional employment relationships or workplaces: temporary workers, independent contractors, and homeworkers. ... That is, to be covered, a temporary worker has to prove she is an employee and not an independent contractor. ... The proposition that the temporary agency rather than the user firm is the statutory employer of a temporary worker is based on a legal fiction. ... When a temporary employee suffers discrimination on a job assignment, that employee can, in theory, sue both the user firm and the temporary agency. ..... Workplace discrimination will most likely come from the employer where a person works, not the temporary agency. ... Hence a temporary worker has protection against employment discrimination but must complain to the temporary agency as well as the user firm if it wants to get the benefit of suing both entities. ... However, when an employee works for a temporary or leasing agency and is placed with a user firm, questions arise as to which employer's workers' compensation insurer has responsibility for a workplace injury. ... Some have held that both the user firm and the temporary agency are the "employer" for purposes of the exclusive remedy of workers' compensation. ... If the homeworker is actively engaged in work when the injury occurs, then it is more likely workers' compensation will apply. ...

Shiftwork and the Law
Bird, Robert C., Niki Mirtorabi. Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law. 2006. Volume 27, no. 2: pages 383-429.

.... Professors Bird and Mirtorabi examine and describe shiftwork, the growing practice of working non-traditional hours, particularly in the evening and at night. ... " Shiftwork weakens these bonds between parent and child by reducing contact time and requiring children to remain quiet when the shiftworker sleeps during daylight hours. ... If the court in Witter can reject ADA coverage for an employee claiming a psychiatric disability not related to shiftwork, then a court likely will have little difficulty rejecting a pilot's ADA claim based upon an impairment tied to a particular shift. ... Furthermore, the employer's actions changing the plaintiff to the night shift to accommodate a white employee constituted a component of the harassment leading to an intolerable work environment, and thus constructive discharge. ... Without much discussion, the court concluded that "it could not be determined as a matter of law that a permanent transfer to the night shift cannot constitute an adverse employment action. ... If at least one court can conclude that working in the face of unnecessary pain and injury can constitute a material disadvantage in employment, certainly transfer to shiftwork, with its host of physical and mental risks, can constitute an adverse employment action under conditions where the effect of shiftwork will be the most severe. ...

Pregnancy in Pieces: The Potential Gap in State and Federal Pregnancy Leave
Holland, Sarah Stewart. Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law. 2006. Volume 27, no. 2: pages 443-468.

... Pregnancy, childbirth, and bonding with a newborn are part of a continuous experience and should be treated as such under the Family and Medical Leave Act and complementary state leave laws. ... As the Gerety decision shows, however, pregnant employees facing gaps in coverage have not always been successful when alleging disparate impact under anti-discrimination statutes. ... The FMLA does not automatically cover a pregnant employee, like Gerety, who wants to use medical leave for illness related to gestation before childbirth. ... While some employees, like Gerety, may be able to meet this higher standard because of the high-risk nature of their pregnancies, a pregnant employee attempting to receive medical leave for normal pregnancy-related illness would face a much stricter standard than a pregnant employee attempting to receive medical or parental leave for childbirth. ... Specifically, Gerety would have exhausted her pregnancy-related illness leave two months before the birth of her twins, and she would have faced a larger gap without coverage then she actually faced under Hilton's leave policy and the FMLA. ... Second, courts continually refuse to see pregnancy as a medical condition unique to women and, therefore, that any leave policy affecting only pregnant women should be seen as per se discrimination as stated in the PDA.

Worker Centers: Emerging Labor Organizations — Until They Confront the National Labor Relations Act
Rosenfeld, David. Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law. 2006. Volume 27, no. 2: pages 469-514.

... Two new books dramatically illustrate the long-term failures of workers and their traditional institutions and effectively describe the efforts of the worker center movement to fill the void in advocacy for low-income workers. ... Predictably, the employer filed a charge with the NLRB asserting that CULA was acting as a "labor organization" within the meaning of the NLRA and was engaged in illegal picketing. ... Moreover, it would not seem likely that a worker center could easily shed the attachment of labor organization status without taking decisive steps to eliminate activity which reflected "dealing with employers." ... Thus, the worker center would have to cease dealing with every employer to stop acting as a labor organization. ... The Board in CULA flatly rejected the suggestion that representation of employees before state agencies was "dealing" with employers and related to its labor organization status. ... If the NLRB, the Department of Labor, or other agencies that enforce workplace laws determine that worker centers meet the test of "labor organization," this would create a substantial impediment, if not an insurmountable barrier, to the growth of the worker center movement. ... For low-wage immigrant workers, the activity may encompass walkouts, picketing, confronting the employer, demanding higher pay, and many other activities all without the involvement of any labor organization. ... Morris has no choice but to accept full labor organization status since he is arguing for NLRA sanction for bargaining. ...

Customer Service is Just 3 Digits Away in San Antonio
Fleming, Cory, and Bryan Barnhouse. Public Management. December 2006. Volume 88, no. 11: pages 14-17.

Local governments exist to serve the needs of their residents, but determining the needs of these customers is not a simple task, whether in a community of a few thousand people or in a city with millions of residents. Defining and providing excellent customer service in local government also differs from these processes regarding customer service in the business community. Local governments must provide equitable services to all residents, whereas businesses can vary their service levels based on a customer's ability to pay. So, how do local governments determine customer needs and offer better customer service to their residents?

More Mandates, Less Dollars: Emergency Management Agencies Focused on Standards
PA Times. December 2006. Volume 29, no. 12: pages 1-2.

The just-released 2006 Biennial Report from the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) reveals ever-increasing responsibilities for state emergency management agencies; an on-going struggle for adequate federal funding and states leading the way in continuous improvement for their emergency management programs. While all states have homeland security functions, most are tasking significant homeland security responsibilities to their state emergency management agencies.

In New Orleans, Workers are Still Battered by the Flood
Slaughter, Jane. WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society. December 2006. Volume 9, no. 4: pages 449-456.

In New Orleans, as corporate profiteers scramble to benefit from the aftermath of the flood, the history of Black-Brown relations has been compressed into a volatile six months. As contractors welcome Latino immigrants, displaced Black New Orleanians find they neither have jobs nor homes to return to. Unions and grassroots groups, using different methods, are trying to build unity as they fight for a voice for workers in the city's rebuilding.

Are Sick Days Contagious? Connecting the Relationship Between Employee Absence and Corporate Benefits
Navarro, Chris, and Cara Bass. Employee Benefit Plan Review. December 2006. Volume 61, no. 6: pages 14-15.

When employees call out sick, medical illness may not be the only reason keeping them out of the office. Paid time off (PTO) is one of the most expensive employer-provided benefits, yet many organizations do not have a firm grasp on how much employee absences are really costing them. Just as each organization is unique, so are the factors that influence the rate of employee absenteeism. Armed with absence data, organizations are able to take a rigorous look at absence trends to uncover anomalies and patterns, such as days of the week when absence rates are accelerated, certain departments that experience an elevated rate of absenteeism, or other issues, in addition to illness, that contribute to employees missing work. By removing the administration of absence and attendance policies with an automated process, HR professionals are able to focus on addressing productivity issues and improving morale.

The Myths and Realities of Consumer-Driven Health Plans
Tait, Bill. Employee Benefit Plan Review. December 2006. Volume 61, no. 6: pages 16-18.

Few will argue that health care costs have increased at a record rate over the last few years in America. While much has been written on consumer-driven health plans, concerns still exist as to whether they are the best strategy for controlling health care inflation and ensuring appropriate utilization of and access to the health care system on a sustainable basis. The following are some of the most common myths about consumer-driven plans, along with the reality. 1. Consumer-driven plans are merely a cost-shifting strategy for employers to save money at the expense of their employees. 2. Consumer-driven plans force members to deny themselves necessary treatment because they have to cover more of the cost of care. 3. Prescription drug compliance rates for effective management of chronic illnesses, such as heart disease, will decline with the increasing prevalence of consumer-driven plans. 4. Consumer-driven health plans will attract "adverse selection," with only younger, healthier consumers joining them.

Bi-National Perspective on Offshore Outsourcing: A Collaboration Between Indian & U.S. Labour
Centre for Education and Communication, Communication Workers of America, Jobs with Justice, New Trade Union Initiative, Young Professionals Collective, October 2006.

Background Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) or outsourcing of business processes to external service providers has become a global phenomenon. Companies in developed countries outsource low skilled service jobs to developing countries. An educated labour force, high unemployment and relatively low wage levels make developing countries attractive for outsourcing back office service work. India has become one of the top back office service provider countries since it started to provide business services to developed countries like the US, the UK and Australia in the late 1990s. The resultant boom in the service sector in India has been accompanied by emerging global debates on the loss of service sector jobs in these developed countries. Objective and Methodology Trade unions and labour organizations in the US and India conceptualized this bi-national study in an effort to engage in a new kind of North-South dialogue. The study analyses the phenomenon of offshore outsourcing and its impact on workers in both countries from the perspective of labour rights.

The 2nd Annual EBRI/Commonwealth Fund Consumerism in Health Care Survey, 2006: Early Experience With High-Deductible and Consumer-Driven Health Plans
Fronstin, Paul., Sara R. Collins. EBRI Issue Brief. December 2006.No. 300

This report presents findings from the EBRI/Commonwealth Fund Consumerism in Health Care Survey, 2006, the second annual version of this survey. The online survey of 3,158 privately insured adults ages 21–64 was conducted to provide nationally representative data regarding the growth of consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs) and high-deductible health plans (HDHPs), and their impact on the behavior and attitudes of health care consumers.

The 'Sandwich Generation' Women Caring for Parents and Children
Pierret, Charles R. Monthly Labor Review. September 2006. Vol. 129 no. 9: pages 3-9

Data from the National Longitudinal Survey are used to estimate the number and characteristics of women 45 to 56 years old who care for both their children and their parents; these women transfer a significant amount of money to their children and time to their parents.

Left Behind: Workers and Their Families in a Changing Los Angeles
Garcia, Alissa Anderson, David Carroll, and Jean Ross. California Budget Project. Special Report, September 2006.

For generations, Los Angeles has been known as a place where one could go to achieve the American dream. Not long ago, this dream was easily realized in Los Angeles. California’s most populous county was once a place where jobs brought the middle-class lifestyle within reach of anyone who worked hard. Such jobs formed the foundation of Los Angeles’ prosperity and enabled the county to become one of the most vibrant places in California. Over the past few decades, however, economic and demographic changes have recast the landscape of the Los Angeles economy.1 Today, low-wage jobs have replaced many of the jobs that once provided a gateway to a middle-class life. As the county’s labor market has changed, many Los Angeles workers and their families have been left behind. Job growth in Los Angeles has lagged that of the rest of the state, and the gap between the wages earned by workers in Los Angeles and the rest of California has widened considerably. As Los Angeles enters the twenty-first century, its promise of the good life has faded. Workers tend to have lower wages, families tend to have lower incomes, and residents have a higher rate of poverty in Los Angeles than in the rest of the state.

Extreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Workweek
Hewlett, Sylvia Ann, and Carolyn Buck Luce. Harvard Business Review. December 2006. Vol. 84 no. 12: pages 49-59.

Today's overachieving professionals labor longer, take on more responsibility, and earn more than the workaholics of yore. They hold what Hewlett and Luce call "extreme jobs," which entail workweeks of 60 or more hours and have at least five of ten characteristics--such as tight deadlines and lots of travel--culled from the authors' research on this work model. A project of the Hidden Brain Drain Task Force, a private-sector initiative, this research consists of two large surveys (one of high earners across various professions in the United States and the other of high-earning managers in large multinational corporations) that map the shape and scope of such jobs, as well as focus groups and in-depth interviews that get at extreme workers' attitudes and motivations. In this article, Hewlett and Luce consider their data in relation to increasing competitive pressures, vastly improved communication technology, cultural shifts, and other sweeping changes that have made high-stakes employment more prominent. What emerges is a complex picture of the all-consuming career--rewarding in many ways, but not without danger to individuals and to society. By and large, extreme professionals don't feel exploited; they feel exalted. A strong majority of them in the United States--66%--say they love their jobs, and in the global companies survey, this figure rises to 76%. The authors' research suggests, however, that women are at a disadvantage. Although they don't shirk the pressure or responsibility of extreme work, they are not matching the hours logged by their male colleagues. This constitutes a barrier for ambitious women, but it also means that employers face a real opportunity: They can find better ways to tap the talents of women who will commit to hard work and responsibility but cannot put in overlong days.

Smashing the Clock
Conlin, Michelle. Business Week. December 11, 2006. No. 4013: pages 60-68.

One afternoon last year, Chap Achen, who oversees online orders at Best Buy Co., shut down his computer, stood up from his desk, and announced that he was leaving for the day. It was around 2 p.m., and most of Achen's staff were slumped over their keyboards, deep in a post-lunch, LCD-lit trance. "See you tomorrow," said Achen. "I'm going to a matinee." ....At most companies, going AWOL during daylight hours would be grounds for a pink slip. Not at Best Buy. The nation's leading electronics retailer has embarked on a radical--if risky--experiment to transform a culture once known for killer hours and herd-riding bosses. The endeavor, called ROWE, for "results-only work environment," seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours.

The Big Experiment
Peisner, Lynn. American City and County. November 2006. Vol. 121 no. 12: 4 p.

On June 22, 2005 leaders of Atlanta’s Sandy Springs community had a seemingly insurmountable task before them. Sandy Springs would be incorporated within the year, marking the end of a 30-year struggle between residents and Fulton County, but it had fewer than six months to implement the kind of government residents had been demanding. By December, volunteers with very little political experience would create one of the first “contract cities” in the United States, hiring one company to operate and manage all city services except fire, police, and 911. The five-year contract costs the city and average of $27 million per year for the first two years, and by many accounts has delivered on promises of more responsive government.

We are All Waiters Now: Why Higher Taxes Would Make Americans Happier, and Why, Despite This, We Won’t Raise Them
Geoghegan, Thomas. In These Times. December 2006. Vol. 30 no. 12: pages 28-31.

Now that the Democrats run Congress, the question becomes, “What should they do?” Yes, raise the minimum wage. And yes, fix the Medicare drug program. But will this bind a new majority to the party?... . But what the Democrats don’t have is a serious commitment—the political nerve—to make people happier in the only way they can: by raising people’s taxes. How happy more of us would be if only we could pay higher taxes! More of us at last could joyfully retire. In May 2005, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) put out a sort of Michelin Guide to the pensions of the world’s 30 wealthiest nations: the United States, Ireland and their ilk. While the United States is rich, comparatively it’s a beggar at the bottom, with a Burger King-type pension, paying on average 39 percent of after-tax income at retirement. Others pay about 70 percent on average. Germany, Sweden: pick a country. Some pay even more.

Human Resource Problems and State Management Performance Across Two Decades: The Implications for Civil Service Reform
Elling, Richard C., and T. Lyke Thompson. Review of Public Personnel Administration. December 2006. Vol. 26 no. 4: pages 302-334.

Based on the views of hundreds of managers in 10 states surveyed in 1982 and 2000, this article explores the severity of a range of human resource-related barriers to effective state management. Adequately rewarding outstanding employees, difficulty filling key staff vacancies, retaining experienced staff, disciplining low-performing employees, and—in 2000—uncompetitive pay were among the most serious impediments. Little change in the severity of various human resource-related problems occurred between 1982 and 2000, however. Despite the criticism often leveled at them, variation in civil service coverage and variation in public sector collective bargaining were typically only weakly related to the severity of particular personnel-related problems. In fact, certain problems were less serious in those states with more extensive civil service coverage or more widespread collective bargaining. There was little evidence that deregulating aspects of state human resource systems reduced the severity of personnel-related impediments.

The Impact of Discipline on the Use and Rapidity of Dismissal in State Governments
Selden, Sally Coleman. Review of Public Personnel Administration. December 2006. Vol. 26 no. 4: pages 335-355.

Although several studies have looked at voluntary turnover in public organizations, little research has examined involuntary turnover and average time to terminate employees in public organizations. This study focuses on the impact of a state’s discipline system on its use and rapidity of discharge of state employees. Results show that factors associated with utilization of dismissal of state employees differ from factors associated with how quickly states terminate employees. This study shows that states adopting at-will employment are no more likely to fire employees than states with civil service employment systems are, but they do terminate employment relationships more quickly.

Looking for Evidence of Public Employee Opposition to Privatization: An Empirical Study With Implications for Practice
Fernandez, Sergio, and Craig R. Smith. Review of Public Personnel Administration. December 2006. Vol. 26 no. 4: pages 356-381.

Contemporary public administration encompasses a wide variety of service delivery options. During the past two decades, privatization has become an increasingly utilized and legitimized approach. The perception that privatization poses a threat to public employment is seemingly widespread. Indeed, public sector unions often challenge the adoption of privatization programs. There is little evidence that individual rank-and-file public employees oppose privatization, however. In this study, the authors develop a multivariate model of support for privatization. Using a large-size public opinion data set from Georgia, the authors test the model and find that an individual’s employment in the public sector is a predictor of opposition to privatization. The authors then discuss the practical implications of public employee opposition to privatization. The authors conclude with a discussion of ways for reducing such opposition.

An Ounce of Prevention May Be Worth a Pound of Cure: How Employees Can Prepare for an Ailing Workforce in the Event of an Avian Flu Outbreak
Scott, Amy M. and Von E. Hays. Employee Relations Law Journal. Winter 2006. Vol. 32 no. 3: pages 3-9.

Much well-deserved attention has been paid to the prospect of an avian flu outbreak in the United States. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the avian flu has not reached the United States. The only countries reporting human cases are China, Turkey, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Currently, the virus is transmitted from infected birds to humans. The virus has not mutated to a from that can be transmitted directly from human to human. However, the potential for mutation exists. This potential is at the epicenter of our greatest fears, considering the devastating consequences of a global pandemic. We can either be paralyzed by such fear or we can be proactive in addressing the issue. In situations such as this, the proverbial ounce of prevention may truly be worth a pound of cure.

The impact of an avian flu pandemic is of no small consequence to employers, as the prospect of a pandemic creates a panoply of labor and employment issues. This article is designed to highlight some of those issues and provide meaningful strategies for dealing with the issues should they arise.

Where There’s Smoke: Employer Policies on Smoking
Tomkowicz, Sandra M., and Susan K. Lessack. Employee Relations Law Journal. Winter 2006. Vol. 32 no. 3: pages 48-65.

In response to a recent Surgeon General’s report highlighting the dangers of secondhand smoke, employers may be increasingly pressed to balance the rights of smokers and non-smokers. Policies that attempt to control off-the-job smoking pose higher litigation risks than policies targeted specifically at eliminating smoke in the workplace. Failing to provide a smoke-free environment also may pose a risk of litigation to employers.

The Law of Criminal Background Checks
Comisky, Hope A., and Christopher P. Zubowicz. Employee Relations Law Journal. Winter 2006. Vol. 32 no. 3: pages 66-85.

More employers are concluding criminal background checks on prospective and current employees, obtaining information relating to prior arrests or convictions. While such screening provides various benefits to employers, they must be aware of what information to seek, who should conduct the check, and how to use the information received. Employers must develop proper procedures and practices regarding background checks to avoid potential liability under federal and applicable state law.

Welfare Reform and the 'Platonic Master Science': An Interview With Lawrence Mead
Kosar, Kevin R. Public Administration Review. November/December 2006. Vol. 66 no. 6: pages 792-798.

In this conversation with the author of the 2005 Brownlow Nook Award winner, Government Matters, Lawrence Mead underscores the indispensable role of government in implementing effective welfare reform in Wisconsin. When policy makers and administrators work together conscientiously, according to Mead, old institutions can be revitalized and new ones built with remarkable speed and efficiency to achieve public purposes. Mead also shares his perspectives on the major failings of contemporary policy research.

Unequal Pay: The Role of Gender
Alkadry, Mohamad G., and Leslie E. Tower. Public Administration Review. November/December 2006. Vol. 66 no. 6: pages 888-898.

This essay, reporting on the results of a large-scale nationwide survey of public employees, detects a persistent gender bias in government wages despite applicable antibias statutes, considerable advocacy by interest groups, and alleged social change over the last 30 years. A complex mix of factors contributes to this inequity, including glass ceilings, labor segregation, and shorter job tenure, presumably to fulfill traditional female family roles. So what can be done about such wage disparities based on gender?

A Solution in Search of a Problem? Discrimination, Affirmative Action, and the New Public Service
Selden, Sally Coleman. Public Administration Review. November/December 2006. Vol. 66 no. 6: pages 911-923.

Since the arrival of equal opportunity and affirmative action in the 1960s, government employment has become a major force for social mobility among disadvantaged groups and had made the public workforce more broadly representative of the population at large. Is a representative workforce still necessary to ensure equitable outcomes? Alternatively, have societal attitudes changed sufficiently that a competent workforce – assembled on the basis of merit alone, irrespective of race, ethnicity, or gender – is capable of ensuring desired policy outcomes?

Managing Boundaries in American Administration: The Collaboration Imperative
Kettl, Donald F. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 10-19.

Complex organizational boundaries both assist and inhibit policy making across many fields today, from homeland security to welfare reform to health care. This article explores the difficulties of matching administrative systems to policy resolutions through the lens of organizational boundaries - their roles, where they are, how they are drawn, why they are critical in dealing with administrative issues, the trade-offs in their design, and the collaborative roles that may help in devising strategies to bring public administration systems in sync with their multisector operating systems.

Boundaries have long played a central role in American public administration. In part, this is because boundaries are central to the administrative process, as they define what organizations are responsible for doing and what powers and functions lie elsewhere. It is also because of the nation's political culture and unusual system of federalism, in which boundaries have always been the focus of conflict. Five boundaries have historically been important in the American administrative system: mission, resources, capacity, responsibility, and accountability. New forces make managing these boundaries increasingly difficult: political processes that complicate administrative responses, indirect administrative tactics, and wicked problems that levy enormous costs when solutions fail. Working effectively at these boundaries requires new strategies of collaboration and new skills for public managers. Failure to develop these strategies—or an instinct to approach boundaries primarily as political symbolism—worsens the performance of the administrative system.

Collaboration Processes: Inside the Black Box
Thompson, Ann Marie, and James L. Perry. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 20-32.

Social science literature contains a remarkable wealth of information that can enhance our understanding of collaborative management. Drawing on these findings, the authors conceptualize a complex construct of five variable dimensions: governance, administration, organizational autonomy, mutuality, and norms. The authors explore these five dimensions of collaboration, arguing that public managers must not only understand each one thoroughly but also manage them simultaneously.

Collaborative Public Management: Assessing What we Know and How We Know It
McGuire, Michael. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 33-43.

The range and depth of serious collaborative public management research is extensive and, according to the author, promising. What does it tell us about the structural components, types of necessary skills for effective management, and possible outcomes for collaborative processes? A great deal, this article concludes, for both practicing administrators and academic researchers.

Collaborative public management research is flourishing. A great deal of attention is being paid to the process and impact of collaboration in the public sector, and the results are promising. This article reviews the literature on collaborative public management by synthesizing what we know from recent research and what we've known for quite some time. It addresses the prevalence of collaboration (both recently and historically), the components of emerging collaborative structures, the types of skills that are unique to collaborative management, and the effects of collaboration. Collaborative public management research offers a set of findings that contribute to an emerging knowledge base that supplements established public management theory.

The Design and Implementation of Cross-Sector Collaborations: Propositions from the Literature
Bryson, John M., Barbara C. Crosby, and Melissa Middleton Stone. Public Administration Review. December 2006.

This article addresses the problem of cross-sector collaboration, which the authors defines as the linking and sharing of organizational information resources, activities, and capabilities in order to achieve solutions that single agencies cannot. The authors not only explain why cross-sector collaboration is essential in dealing with pressing 21st-century policy dilemmas but also suggest a propositional inventory for reframing our understanding of these problems that is vital for an improved research agenda on cross-sector collaboration.

People who want to tackle tough social problems and achieve beneficial community outcomes are beginning to understand that multiple sectors of a democratic society—business, nonprofits and philanthropies, the media, the community, and government—must collaborate to deal effectively and humanely with the challenges. This article focuses on cross-sector collaboration that is required to remedy complex public problems. Based on an extensive review of the literature on collaboration, the article presents a propositional inventory organized around the initial conditions affecting collaboration formation, process, structural and governance components, constraints and contingencies, outcomes, and accountability issues.

Inside Collaborative Networks: Ten Lessons for Public Managers
Agranoff, Robert. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 56-65.

Based on extensive empirical research with federal, state and local government managers who work within intergovernmental collaborative networks, this article suggests new ways in which public agencies can overcome nettlesome policy conundrums while advancing the public interest. Although networks may differ significantly from organization to organization, the author emphasizes that the “era of networks” is a modern-day administrative reality that requires effective management, much like any other organizational structure.

This paper offers practical insights for public managers as they work within interorganizational networks. It is based on the author's empirical study of 14 networks involving federal, state, and local government managers working with nongovernmental organizations. The findings suggest that networks are hardly crowding out the role of public agencies; though they are limited in their decision scope, they can add collaborative public value when approaching nettlesome policy and program problems.

Varieties of Participation in Complex Governance
Fung, Archon. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 66-75.

What are the central challenges of governance through collaborative networks? The author outlines three crucial challenges: Who participates? How do participants communicate with one another? And do such links achieve successful public action? The article offers a useful framework for comprehending these three problems, concluding that citizens can be “the shock troops for democracy,” and their active involvement may in fact yield rich pragmatic benefits for self-government. An analytic approach that jettisons preconceptions about what participatory democracy is all about remains fundamental to realizing this goal.

Citizen-Centered Collaborative Public Management
Cooper, Terry L., Thomas A. Bryer, and Jack W. Meek. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 76-88.

This article begins with a brief history of civic engagement in the United States and the develops a conceptual model of five approaches to civic engagement based on how each one contributes to citizen-centered collaborative management and enhances civic-centered collaboration, The authors point out fruitful ways to advance empirical research on this crucial topic, which can assist practicing public managers and promote active citizenship among individuals.

Ways of Knowing and Inclusive Management Practices
Feldman, Martha S., Anne M. Khademian, Helen Ingram, and Anne S. Schneider. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 89-99.

How can public managers constructively intervene to engage stakeholders in new ways of knowing about and resolving the public issues they confront? This article offers important new perspectives on how policy issues can better be understood as fluid policy networks and how public managers in particular can facilitate the framing of such issues to improve public deliberations and achieve constructive policy results.

Collaborative Public Management and Democracy: Evidence from Western Watershed Partnerships
Leach, William D. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 100-110.

Based on a random sample of empirical studies of 76 watershed partnerships in California and Washington, the author assesses the democratic merits of collaborative public management according to seven norms: inclusiveness, representativeness, impartiality, transparency, deliberativeness, lawfulness, and empowerment. The article stresses the pluses and minuses of each norm according to the actual practices discovered from an analysis of the working partnerships. Several insights and revealing patterns of collaborative relationships are drawn from this evidence. The study reveals the exclusionary nature of some partnerships and suggests that critical stakeholders are missing from many partnerships. However, representation was generally balanced. National and statewide advocacy groups were absent from most of these place-based partnerships; public agencies were the primary source of nonlocal perspectives. Deliberativeness was relatively strong, indicated by the prevalence of educational and fact-finding strategies and participants' perceptions of respectful discussion and improved social capital. Half the partnerships had implemented new policies, and two-thirds of stakeholders believed their partnership had improved watershed conditions, indicating empowerment.

What Do We Know and Need to Know About the Environmental Outcomes of Collaborative Management?
Koontz, Tomas M., and Craig W. Thomas. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 111-121.

To what extent does collaborative management lead to improved environmental outcomes? Despite the academic excitement over collaborative management, the authors of this provocative article argue that the empirical evidence on existing practices does not match the desired outcome of a better environment. Although we know a great deal about the why, how, and what of collaborative management, it is no panacea. Rather, students of this subject should remain hard-headed realists and focus on whether actual environmental improvement results. Does real-world application of collaborative management processes achieve more or less than alternative managerial methods such as traditional top-down, command and control, or newer market-driven techniques?

Incrementalism before the Storm: Network Performance for the Evacuation of New Orleans
Kiefer, John J. and Robert S. Montjoy. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 122-130.

In this timely look at evacuation before, during and after Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in New Orleans, the authors trace the actions and interactions of the key players and highlight the strengths and weaknesses of their performance during the crisis. Though it was apparent that informal collaborative networks were necessary to deal with the disaster, this article suggests that they are never sufficient alone because networks, by definition, lack legal authority and diffuse public responsibility.

Collaboration and Leadership for Effective Emergency Management
Waugh, William L. Jr., and Gregory Streib. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 131-140.

Collaboration is a necessary foundation for dealing with both natural and technological hazards and disasters and the consequences of terrorism. This analysis describes the structure of the American emergency management system, the charts development of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and identifies conflicts arising from the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the attempt to impose a command and control system on a very collaborative organizational culture in a very collaborative sociopolitical and legal context. The importance of collaboration is stressed, and recommendations are offered on how to improve the amount and value of collaborative activities. New leadership strategies are recommended that derive their power from effective strategies and the transformational power of a compelling vision, rather than from hierarchy, rank, or standard operating procedures.

Letters From the Field: Case Studies of Exemplary Collaborative Managers
Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 141-160.

These mini-case studies explore the practice of collaborative management within a variety of public sector settings, focusing on the meritorious roles played by public managers — how they performed well and why their actions mattered.

The Space Shuttle Columbia Recovery Operation: How Collaboration Enabled Disaster Response
Donahue, Amy K. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 141-142.

The initial response to the Columbia crash was as chaotic as it is for any sudden large-scale disaster, More than 18,000 calls came from citizens reporting fires, damage, and debris in their driveways, on their roofs, scattered in school yards, and blocking roads. Dozens of communities immediately activated their emergency plans and operation centers, Police, firefighters, the National Guard the American red Cross, the Salvation Army, and scores of other agencies and volunteers poured in to help. Most of these organizations had never worked together before, and many involved had little formal knowledge of incident command and management procedures.

Collaboration at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: An Interview with Two Senior Managers
Belefski, Mary. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: page 143-144

For the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the quest for collaboration, both within the agency and throughout the environmental management community, continues to evolve. Interviews with two senior managers highlight exemplary practices and provide insights on future directions for collaboration. They discuss the EPA’s institutionalization of collaborative problem solving to address multimedia environmental concerns, and the use of collaborative problem solving and alternative dispute resolution.

High-Intensity Interlocal Collaboration in Three Iowa Cities
Thurmaier, Kurt. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 144-146.

Three cities in central Iowa are hotbeds of interlocal agreements and other collaborative activities. Clive, Urbandale, and West Des Moines are currently working with a consultant to study how to collaborate further and how to improve fire and emergency medical service (EMS) operations, which tends to be tricky both politically and managerially. The city managers are confident in a successful outcome. They have a solid track record of collaboration successes that have built a high degree of interpersonal and interorganizational trust among actors at multiple levels in all three organizations.

Collaborative Capital Planning in Charlotte-Mecklenburg County, North Carolina
Eagle, Kim, and Philip Cowherd. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 146-147.

Responding to increasing service-level demands in and environment of limited resources, all levels of government are facing choices that involve collaboration as a means of scarce resources. In 1997, the City of Charlotte made the choice to collaborate with Mecklenburg County on the joint use of facilities. As a result, Charlotte embarked on an unanticipated journey of collaborative capital planning within the city organization that has produced significant benefits for more than 10 years.

The Challenger Scallop Enhancement Company: Collaborative Management of a Natural Resource Based in the Private Sector
Yandle, Tracy. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 148-150.

The Challenger Scallop Enhancement Company, based in Nelson, New Zealand, shares responsibility with the Ministry of Fisheries for managing commercial southern scallop fishery on the northern tip of the South Island of New Zealand. Challenger’s experience illustrates that collaboration need not be based in government; a private company can hold considerable responsibilities, with government, public, indigenous, and commercial interests all holding a significant stake in the process. The key to understanding how this works is understanding Challenger’s development and current operations.

Collaborative Public Management in San Francisco
Friedrichsen, Sharon. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 150-151.

In the case of the city and county of San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom has illustrated the concept of collaborative public management through two successful programs known as SFStat and the HOME Team project. San Francisco, the only consolidated city and county in the state of California is a bureaucracy unto itself. Comprising of more than 50 departments with a combined operating budget of more than $5 billion, San Francisco epitomizes metropolitan government. Both large and complex, San Francisco departments tend to operate in isolation from one another within an environment characterized by intense competition over limited budgetary allocations decided by the board of Supervisors.

The EPA Bureaucrat Who Could
Emison, Gerald Andrews. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: page 152-153.

Stan Meiburg is an executive at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who used his specialized knowledge of environmental rules and entrepreneurial management style to overcome a critical barrier to the largest mixed land-use project in metropolitan Atlanta. This set the conditions for a pathbreaking redevelopment of a steel mill into 138-acre mini-city in the heart of Atlanta, He transformed an unexpected hurdle into an opportunity to build trust among developers, city government, state government, federal agencies, and community activists on behalf of novel, environmentally friendly land use.

Encouraging Collaboration in Rural America
Sears, David W., and W. Robert Lovan. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: page 153-154.

The United States is predominately an urban and suburban society. Nevertheless, rural America, with roughly 80 percent of the nation’s land area and 25 percent of the population, remains a critical foundation of America’s economy culture. In the typical rural community, dozens of institutions play a role in building and maintaining critical economic, social, and environmental structures. From the vantage point of citizens and community leaders, working effectively with a large number of organizations to build a stronger community can be a daunting experience.

West Virginia Collaboration for Creating Universal Prekindergarten
Bushouse, Brenda. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 154-155.

On the morning of March 10, 2002, West Virginias awoke to find that the state legislature had passes Senate Bill 247 (now West Virginia Education Code §18-5-44), creating a new universal prekindergarten program. Passed literally at the eleventh hour on the last day of the legislative session, the universal pre-K legislation seemed to have come out of nowhere to everyone except a very small inner circle of legislators, their staffs, and top political appointees of the state Department of Education (DOE) and Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR). The legislation mandated collaboration between the two departments, but none of the civil servants who would be charged with implementing the program were even aware that universal pre-K legislation was being discussed, let alone drafted. This profile presents the extraordinary commitment of a team of civil servants who took a state mandate to collaborate and turned it into a truly collaborative, inclusive, and transparent rulemaking process.

Kirk Emerson and the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution
Alexander, Rob. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: page 156-157.

Create a program that connects federal agencies, private practitioners, Native American, environmental activists, industries, and citizens concerned with the resolutions of environmental conflict — that was the charge given to Kirk Emerson in 1998, when she became the first director of the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution (USIECR). At the time, this call for action seemed daunting in light of the seemingly intractable environmental disputes facing many federal agencies and the limited budget authorized for the USIECR. Yet thanks to early efforts to create capacity through collaboration across political, organizational, and sectoral lines, Emerson and her support team have succeeded in implementing programs and delivering services beyond what they could have managed alone.

Collaboration to Address the Asthma Problem among Native Americans
Collard, Erin. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 157-158.

A recent retrospective study of the prevalence of asthma at Fort Peck reservation in Montana indicated that the asthma rate among the Native American population is up to 2.5 times higher than the national average. The Fort Peck study, as well as similar studies, have demonstrated the need for as effective and comprehensive approach to improve and expand the delivery of asthma management programs to tribes in Region 8 of the Environmental Protection Agency, which comprises Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Colorado.

Preparing Leaders for High-Stakes Collaborative Action: Darrell Darnell and the Department of Homeland Security
Getha-Taylor, Heather. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 159-160.

Before the phrase “homeland security” became commonplace, policy makers and administrators worked to protect the public from terrorist attacks, particularly those involving weapons of mass destruction. In 1995, President Bill Clinton, issued Presidential Decision Directive 39, which emphasized advance preparation to “reduce vulnerabilities” to terrorist attacks. The following year, provisions in the Defense against Weapons of Mass destruction Act (also known as the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Act) signaled a paradigm shift, away from response-driven threat management toward a collaborative pre-planning approach. In order to develop a plan that would coordinate the efforts of federal, local, and state government entities and increase capacities of state and local governments to respond to acts of terrorism, the Office for State and Local Domestic Preparedness Support (OSLDPS) was created in 1998. Originally part of the U.S. Department of Justice, this office is mow known as the Office of Grants and Training (OGT) and has become a part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The contributions of the OGT’s pioneer employees, especially Darrell Darnell, are evident today and have influenced such initiatives as the National Response Plan and the development of homeland security university degree plans.

Conclusion: Parallel Play, Not Collaboration: Missing Questions, Missing Connections
Bingham, Lisa Blomgren, and Rosemary O’Leary. Public Administration Review. December 2006. Vol. 66 supplement: pages 161-167.

In their coda to this special issue of PAR, Lisa Blomgren Bingham and Rosemary O’Leary employ an intriguing scholarly lens to analyze gaps in current collaborative management research based on the findings of scholarly papers in this symposium. While pointing out the tremendous intellectual progress that is apparent in these investigations of this seminal topic, the authors conclude that there is a missing synthesis between work on collaborative public management, civic engagement, and public participation and work on negotiation, conflict resolution, dispute system design, and consensus building. The authors challenge the field to end the practice of intellectual “parallel play.”

Roots of Insecurity: Why American Workers and Others Are Losing Out
Brand, Horst. Dissent. Winter 2007. pages 70-76.

In 2004 the International Labor Office (ILO) published a voluminous though mistitled report called “Economic Security for a Better World.” This is in face a treatise about the economic insecurity that has been affecting the world’s working people for the past several decades. It is also an argument criticizing the “liberalization context” of insecurity and the policies that have deliberately fostered it. Liberalization, says the ILO, is the objective of policies formulated by international financial institutions in concert with the U.S. treasury — policies that are based on the “Washington Consensus.”

Corporate Social Responsibility: A Fledgling Movement Faces a Crucial Test
Senser, Robert A. Dissent. Winter 2007. pages 77-82.

In his best-selling book Capitalism and Freedom, first published in 1962, future Nobel Laureate and world-renowned economist Milton Friedman laid down this basic principle for corporate executives: their sole social responsibility is to maximize the income and wealth of stockholders. “Few trends,” he wrote, “could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible. This is a fundamentally subversive doctrine.” Union leaders, student activists, environmentalists, and advocates of various other types have long accepted that subversive doctrine. Of late, more and more top corporate officials, despite their own large stockholdings, have also done so. Though a tiny minority, they are pioneers in venturing outside the business path dedicated solely to maximizing the financial well-being of shareholders. Even in the business world, “the movement for corporate social responsibility has won the battle of ideas,” according to the Economist, the English-language media’s foremost defender of capitalism.

Books

Medicare: A Policy Primer
by Marilyn Moon. Urban Institute Press, 2006.

For some, Medicare is a model of what national health insurance could be in the United States. Despite its low administrative costs and significant contributions to the well-being of America's oldest and most disabled citizens, some critics assail the program as being out of sync with the needs of many senior citizens, while others often refer to it as "unsustainable" because of its high costs. Physicians and hospital administrators endlessly criticize and debate Medicare, but rely upon it for a substantial share of their revenues. In Medicare: A Policy Primer, Marilyn Moon explains what Medicare is, how it works, and where is it headed. She examines the problems facing the program and which reform options hold the most promise. She also examines the history of Medicare and how the program works in the broader context of health care, the federal government, and the economy. It is a clear introduction to one of the most critical debates in health policy and an important volume for anyone interested in the future of Medicare.

The Truth About Health Care: Why Reform Is Not Working in America
by David Mechanic. Rutgers University Press, 2006.

The United States spends greatly more per person on health care than any other country but the evidence shows that care is often poor and inappropriate. Despite expenditures of 1.7 trillion dollars in 2003, and growing substantially each year, services remain fragmented and poorly coordinated, and more than 46 million people are uninsured. Why can't America, with its vast array of resources, sophisticated technologies, superior medical research and educational institutions, and talented health care professionals, produce higher quality care and better outcomes?

In The Truth about Health Care, David Mechanic explains how health care in America has evolved in ways that favor a myriad of economic, professional, and political interests over those of patients. While money has always had a place in medical care, "big money" and the quest for profits has become dominant, making meaningful reforms difficult to achieve. Mechanic acknowledges that railing against these influences, which are here to stay, can achieve only so much. Instead, he asks whether it is possible to convert what is best about health care in America into a well functioning system that better serves the entire population.

Bringing decades of experience as an active health policy participant, researcher, teacher, and consultant to the public and private sectors, Mechanic examines the strengths and weaknesses of our system and how it has evolved. He pays special attention to areas often neglected in policy discussions, such as the loss of public trust in medicine, the tragic state of long-term care, and the relationship of mental health to health care.

For anyone who has been frustrated by uncoordinated health networks, insurance denials, and other obstacles to obtaining appropriate care, this book will provide a refreshing and frank look at the system's current and future dilemmas. Mechanic's thoughtful roadmap describes how health plans, healthcare professionals, policymakers, and consumer groups can work together to improve access, quality, fairness, and health outcomes in America.

Total Health and Safety for Health Care Facilities: Catalyzing Improvements in Employee Safety, Patient Care, and the Bottom Line
by Linda F. Chaff. American Hospital Association/Joint Commission, 2006.

This new book provides evidence that the quality of patient care can be positively affected by the health and safety of health care facility employees, and that the costs of providing care can be reduced. Readers will be able to identify the true costs and liabilities of poor health and safety performance and learn about methods to measure and consolidate the responsibility for employee health and safety. Special features include the following:

• Strategies to stop the above-average risk health care workers have in incurring a work-related injury or illness

• Tips to create a work culture where employee safety and health become routine

• A supplemental CD-ROM with full text of federal, state, and governmental agency standards, recommendations, guidelines, and other information. CD includes more than 800 documents from agencies and organizations including AMA, ASSE, BLS, CCOHS, CDC, CMS, DOT, EPA, FDA, FEMA, JCAHO, MIOSH, NFPA, NRC, OSHA, and WHO

Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign
by Michael K. Honey. W. W. Norton, 2007.

Memphis in 1968 was ruled by a paternalistic “plantation mentality” embodied in its good-old-boy mayor, Henry Loeb. Wretched conditions, abusive white supervisors, poor education, and low wages locked most black workers into poverty. Then two sanitation workers were chewed up like garbage in the back of a faulty truck, igniting a public employee strike that brought to a boil long-simmering issues of racial injustice.

With novelistic drama and rich scholarly detail, Michael Honey brings to life the magnetic characters who clashed on the Memphis battlefield: stalwart black workers; fiery black ministers; volatile, young, black-power advocates; idealistic organizers and tough-talking unionists; the first black members of the Memphis city council; the white upper crust who sought to prevent change or conflagration; and, finally, the magisterial Martin Luther King Jr., undertaking a Poor People’s Campaign at the crossroads of his life, vilified as a subversive, hounded by the FBI, and seeing in the working poor of Memphis his hopes for a better America.

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