Suchergebnisse

Randi Weingarten is the president of the most vocal and influential teachers' union, the American Federation of Teachers. Since rising through the ranks to AFT president in just two years, Weingarten is now a major, if not the most prominent, nongovernmental player in national education policy. She has earned deep respect from many educational policy actors. Likewise, Weingarten elicits withering criticism from others. This fascinating profile explains why, in such a brief period, she has proved to be a fierce, fearless, and effective leader under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Her experience offers invaluable lessons applicable for others working in similarly intense policy arenas.

As unions in the private sector have continued on what appears to the pessimist to be a slow march into obscurity and irrelevance, public employee unions and collective bargaining are thriving in a majority of states. In this article, the author first provides a brief overview of the relevant scholarly research, and then changes the focus to the future of unionization and collective bargaining in the public and nonprofit sectors. It is suggested that the deck continues to be stacked against federal unions and collective bargaining, but that there are portents for significant gains in the state and local sectors, depending on bargaining-friendly changes in state and federal law.

Benefits are growing in importance for state employees and capturing an increasing proportion of the total compensation package. This investigation attempts to identify factors that account for variations across the states in individual and family health insurance contributions, pension benefits, paid leave, child and elderly care, and average salary. State employee union density was found to be the most consistent and important determinant of compensation. Cost of living was also predictive of some compensation factors. These findings contribute insights into an important and underresearched area of human resource management, but improved comparativemeasures of benefits are needed to aid future research.