Collective Bargaining by Teachers: Issues and Evidence.

Discusses some economic, managerial, and political policy issues associated with public school teachers' collective bargaining. Current economic theories of unionism (public or private) indicate that many collective bargaining effects are basically empirical questions. The economic literature and other relevant empirical works of public employees' unionization were analyzed to identify those topics warranting additional policy-oriented research. The overwhelming majority of the previous studies are econometric wage determination models for teachers. In general, these models find that teachers' unions do increase salaries slightly compared to nonunion teachers. However, the evidence relating to nonwage issues such as a fringe benefits, educational finance, budgetary allocations, capital-labor substitutions, bargaining processes, and so on, is not adequate to derive educational policy implications. Preliminary empirical and methodological research strategies are discussed to provide a more structured understanding of collective bargaining in public education. 56 pp. Ref.