Financialization and Deunionization

• In Event: 355 - Section on Economic Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 11. Neoliberalism and Finance

Abstract

Layoffs, deunionization, financialization and the hiring of high skilled high wage managers has been described as the managerial shift to a shareholder value orientation that stresses short term profits over long term growth. I look at the processes of the managerial shift and their interrelations between financialization and deunionization. I argue that financialization has multiple indirect negative effect on union density such as increasing capital biased technological change, skilled labor and unemployment. Arrighi’s theory of hegemonic cycles predicts that U.S. hegemonic decline has led to financialization as manufacturing becomes less profitable. Capital growth is theorized to occur in cycles of regulation and deregulation. Deunionization is a measure of deregulation and a mechanism for further financialization. I propose using aggregated secondary longitudinal data from 1970 to 2010 of industries in the private sector to statistically test the effects of financialization on union density.

Author

• Paul Joseph Peterson, University of California-Riverside