The causes of decentralization of the bargaining structure in the construction industry in the state of Ohio

Until recently, most collective bargaining in the construction industry in Ohio between employers and construction and trade unions took the form of "wide-area" bargaining; that is, a contract was signed between a local branch of each national union and an association of contractors which represented a geographic region of the state. Bargaining structure was thus centralized at the local employer level, with most local unions bargaining a master agreement with one or more contractor's associations which covered the majority of employers. In the early 1980s, however, the employers' associations in several cities in Ohio started to lose members, thereby forcing some local unions to bargain with increasing numbers of individual contractors. This trend toward decentralization of employer bargaining signals a change in bargaining structure, which has consequences for the nature of the relationship between labor and management, impacts bargaining outcomes, and has implications for the local and national economy. This dissertation is concerned with the changing economic and organizational factors associated with employer demand for single-employer as opposed to multi-employer barganing in the construction industry in Ohio. The employers examined in the study sample represent all eight Metropolitan Statistical Areas in Ohio, and bargain with locals affiliated with thirteen national construction and trade unions. The same cross-section of union/employer agreements were examined at two different points in time; the first time period encompasses the years 1979 through 1981, and the second the years 1982 through 1984. The research design incorporates environmental and organizational variables in a predictive model. Information on the organizational characteristics of the unions and contractors under investigation was collected by questionnaire, while economic data were taken from state and federal governmental publications and reports. The analysis reveals that employer membership in multi-employer bargaining associations did drop significantly from 1979 to 1984. The homogeneity of association membership, as measured by trade composition, was found to be consistently related to maintenance of employer membership in an employer's association over time. Results also indicate that employer membership in bargaining associations is related to the percentage of the labor market unionized in a geographic area.