Family Friendly Workplace Benefits: The U.S., Canada, and Europe

Abstract

This article utilizes an eclectic, two dimensional political-economy perspective linking class power and organizational factors as the basis for analyzing variations in family friendly benefits provided to workers by U.S. employers and by state policies in six industrialized nations. An Organizational-Class Power approach is used to develop four hypotheses concerning benefit variations as influenced by the intersection of class power and organizational structures in the U.S. employer arena. In the state policy arena, a Collective Bargaining-Class Power approach is used to explore the relationship between the proportion of workers covered by collective bargaining agreements and variations in state mandated benefit levels. Data from the 1996-1997 National Organizational Survey (NOS) are used to test our four hypotheses. The NOS findings indicate that variations in U.S. employer-provided benefits are influenced by class-based power resources reflected in and conditioned by several organizational-level variables. Those variables which trend in directions predicted to enhance worker power within organizations are associated with significantly higher worker benefit levels in the employer arena. In the state policy arena, evidence from a variety of sources reveals a pattern whereby nations with higher proportions of workers covered by collective bargaining agreements mandate higher levels of benefits than those with lower proportions of workers covered by such agreements.