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An important aspect of the impact of the economic crisis is how pay in the public sector responds – in the face not only of the evolution of pay in the private sector but also extreme pressure on public spending (of which pay is a very large proportion) as fiscal deficits soar. What are the effects on the income distribution of cutting public sector pay rates or alternative strategies to reduce the public sector pay bill? This chapter investigates these issues using data and a tax–benefit simulation model for Ireland, a country which faces a particularly severe fiscal crisis and where innovative measures have already been implemented to claw back pay from public sector workers in the guise of a ‘pension levy’, followed by a significant cut in nominal pay rates. The SWITCH (Simulating Welfare and Income Tax Changes) tax–benefit model first allows the distributional effects of these measures, which achieved a substantial reduction in the net public sector pay bill, to be teased out. The overall impact on the income distribution is assessed. This provides empirical evidence relevant to policy choices in relation to a key aspect of household income over which governments have direct influence, while at the same time illustrating methodologically how a tax–benefit model can serve as the base for such investigation.

This chapter examines the evolution of the number of days spent on sick leave following the 2011 reform which halved the maximum sick benefit provided by statutory health insurance in Hungary. This policy change sharply decreased benefits for a large group of high earners, while leaving the incentive to claim sickness benefits unchanged for lower earners, providing us with a “quasi-experimental” setup to identify the incentives effect of sickness benefits. We use a difference-in-differences type methodology to evaluate the short-term effect of the reform. We rely on high-quality administrative data and analyze a sample comprised of prime-age male employees with high earnings and stable employment. Our results show that the number of days spent on sick leave fell substantially for those experiencing the full halving of benefits. Estimating the response of the number of sick days with respect to the fall in potential sickness benefits, we find a significant elasticity of −0.45.

This chapter analyses the causes and effects of the financial crisis that commenced in 2008, and it examines the dramatic government rescues and reforms. The outcomes of this, the most severe collapse to befall the United States and the global economy for three-quarters of a century, are still unfolding. Banks, homeowners and industries stood to benefit from government intervention, particularly the huge infusion of taxpayer funds, but their future is uncertain. Instead of extending vital credit, banks simply kept the capital to cover other firm needs (including bonuses for executives). Industry in the prevailing slack economy was not actively seeking investment opportunities and credit expansion. The property and job markets languished behind securities market recovery. It all has been disheartening and scary – rage against those in charge fuelled gloom and cynicism. Immense private debt was a precursor, but public debt is the legacy we must resolve in the future.

Higher replacement rates often imply higher levels of absenteeism, yet even in generous welfare economies, employers provide sick pay in addition to the public sick pay. Using comparative population-representative workplace data for Britain and Norway, we show that close to 50% of private sector employers in both countries provide sick pay in excess of statutory sick pay. However, the level of statutory sick pay is also much higher in Norway than in Britain. In both countries, private sick pay as well as other benefits provided by employers are chosen by employers in a way that maximizes profits having accounted for different dimensions of labor costs. Several health-related privately provided benefits are often bundled. In both countries easy-to-train workers, high turnover and risky work are linked to less extensive employer provision of extended sick leave and sick pay in excess of statutory sick pay. In contrast, the presence of a trade union agreement is strongly correlated with both the provision of private sick pay and extended sick leave in Britain but not in Norway. We show that the sickness absence rate is much higher in Norway than in Britain. However, the higher level of absenteeism in Norway compared to Britain relates to the threshold for statutory sick pay in the Norwegian public sick pay legislation. When we take this difference into account, no significant difference remains.

This chapter examines regulatory experimentation in relation to gender equality and the gender pay and representation gaps. The corporate sector has long promoted a voluntarist ‘business case’ for equality as part of their wider agenda to promote CSR, an approach that fits within the second web of rules. However, slow progress prompted governments to introduce proactive legislative measures such as gender pay gap reporting and gender quotas. At the same time, the traditional web of joint regulation continues to be relevant with trade unions using equal pay litigation to challenge the historical undervaluation of work by low-paid women and negotiate new collective pay structures to deliver tangible benefits to low-paid women. Union litigation in the UK local authority sector and the New Zealand care sector are compared. The chapter argues that the three webs are more usefully understood as complements rather than substitutes.

This article examines how a profit-centered restructuring of labor relations in an academic medical center undermined team-based care practices in its intensive care unit. The Institute of Medicine has promoted team-based care to improve patient outcomes, and the staff in the intensive care unit researched for this paper had established a set of practices they defined as teamwork. After hospital executives rolled out a public relations campaign to promote its culture of teamwork, they restructured its workforce to enhance numerical and functional flexibility in three key ways: implementing a “service line” managerial structure; cutting a range of staff positions while combining others; and doubling the capacity of its profitable and highly regarded intensive care unit. Hospital executives said the restructuring was necessitated by changes to payment models brought forth by the Affordable Care Act. Based on 300 hours of participant-observation and 35 interviews with hospital staff, findings show that the restructuring lowered staff resources and intensified work, which limited their ability to practice care they defined as teamwork and undermined the unit’s collective identity as a team. Findings also show how staff members used teamwork as a sensitizing concept to make sense of what they did at work. The meanings attached to teamwork were anchored to positions in the hospitals’ organizational hierarchy. This paper advances our understanding of he flexible work arrangements in the health care industry and their effects on workers.

The relationship between the offshore oil and gas industry and southern Louisiana has been one of ongoing, mutual adaptation. The industry has long been cyclical, responding to price changes, corporate decisions, and federal and state policies. Today, however, the industry offers little guarantee of employment, difficult terms of advancement, and, in general, an uncertain future. Many of the young men and women of the communities of southern Louisiana are looking elsewhere for work. As the local labor sources diminish, companies seek out new labor supplies, including workers from outside the region and from other parts of the world. This paper discusses some of the processes that corroded the unique relationship between the region, its people, and this industry.

When subordinates violate a policy, authority figures have to decide whether to be strict and make them face the consequences or be lenient and not enforce the policy. In this chapter, we argue that when an authority figure treats a subordinate leniently, that subordinate is more likely to develop an elevated sense of entitlement, which then has various negative consequences for the authority figure and the subordinate’s group members. Drawing on the literature on the sources and consequences of psychological entitlement, we put forward propositions relating to authority leniency and subordinate entitlement. In summary, we propose (a) that single acts of leniency may lead subordinates to feel entitled to future leniency, (b) that repeated leniency may lead subordinates to develop a general sense of entitlement, and (c) that leniency and the resulting entitlement can have many negative consequences such as increasing group conflict and causing low performance. We report preliminary results in support of some propositions. For example, we show that leniency that can be attributed to something external to the subordinate may prevent the subordinate from feeling entitled. Last, we call for additional research. We hope that our chapter will cause authority figures to consider the consequences of treating subordinates leniently, including the possibility that the subordinates will subsequently feel entitled.

Macroeconomic shocks such as the recent global economic crisis can have far-reaching effects on the levels and the distribution of resources at the individual and the household levels. A recession associated with a labor market downturn and turbulent property and financial markets gives rise to significant and widespread losses for workers and households. Identifying the likely pattern of losses is, however, not straightforward. This is especially the case at the outset of a severe recession, when up-to-date information about current household circumstances is patchy, and economic conditions are subject to rapid change.