11/10/22: Suresh Naidu

[GabeNicholson]

Comment below with a well-developed question or comment about the reading for this week's workshop!

If you would really like to ask your question in person, please place two exclamation points before your question to signal that you really want to ask it.

Please post your question by Tuesday 11:59 PM, We will also ask you all to upvote questions that you think were particularly good. There may be prizes for top question askers.

[zoeyjiao1104]

Hi Professor Naidu, Thank you for sharing your work with us! I was wondering what's your data collection process like in more detail. Also, since your data is from 2010-2015, do you think the result would change significantly when the data was collected in a more recent timeframe?

[javad-e]

Thank you for presenting your work at our workshop! My question is regarding the cross-country comparison of union density. Looking at figure 2, the trends in Scandinavia seem to be very different from the United States. Of course, Scandinavia having a higher density, in general, was expected, but do you know why it has jumps in 1970s and 1990s and why the density has been decreasing in recent years? Furthermore, do we have any data on East Asian countries, particularly Japan, where unions are known to function differently?

[JerryCG]

Dear Prof. Naidu,

You delivered an excellent research arguing that by focusing on the central members of a network, there will be a greater chance of organizing success. I have some confusion about the "perceived" network concept. The notes only reflected what organizers perceive about the network, so is there possibility that the perceived "central" members are not actually central or influential in the real network, and the role of central members is doubtful. Do you have any validation about these relationships?

Best, Jerry Cheng

[hshi420]

I want to learn more about the generalizability of organizational modes and networks. In which situations these would not work properly? Thank you very much!

[ZenthiaSong]

Hello Prof. Naidu, thank you for sharing your research and I really like your research. In your research, you mentioned that organizational strategies that focus on workplace leaders are more likely to be successful. With the current pandemic factors causing many companies to adopt work from home, are there other ways that these companies can be successful?

[AlexBWilliamson]

Hello Professor Naidu. Thank you for sharing your research with us! I am not well versed in this topic, so I was wondering if you could talk a bit more on the tradeoffs of a labor organization deciding if they want to be legally classified as a union or not. In your paper you briefly mentioned the National Domestic Workers Alliance and how they decided not to become a union. You mentioned several significant advantages of not being legally considered a union. However, the only disadvantage you mentioned is that they cannot collect dues from their members. Are their other drawbacks to not being considered a union? Or is the lack of official union dues a bigger issue than I think it is?

[nijingwen]

Hi Prof. Naidu, Look forward to meeting with you to learn more details about organizational strategies and networks tomorrow

[ZHE-ZHANG-0213]

Hello, Professor Naidu, Thanks for sharing your work! Given that there are many exogenous factors that affect the ability of network structures to explain collective actions, I wonder how you would design your correlation analysis for this?

[lbitsiko]

Dear Prof. Naidu,

Many thanks for sharing your intriguing work with us. My question has to do with your choice of centrality measures: degree and eigenvector centrality. At least to my understanding, centrality is a loosely defined concept. I understand that you are comparing your results in terms of using degree or eigenvector centrality, however, is there any reason for using these two measures in your analysis? (I think for example that, at least in some networks, degree and eigenvector centrality can be highly correlated). I further wonder how sensitive the results would be if a different centrality measure was used. Many thanks once again and looking forward to your talk tomorrow!

Kind regards, Loizos

[zyang39]

Thanks for sharing your recent work! I am thinking about two questions. Firstly, I am wondering if it is possible that worker organizations paid attention to a non-central worker and this worker pass the information to the workers in the centrality of networks. How can we explain why this situation is not happening. Secondly, is it possible that the network structure changed during the research or during a period of practicing? Although in this study, the network seems to be stable, it is possible that the stability of the network may influence the result.

[kuitaiw]

Hi Prof. Naidu, Thank you for your paper. And I would like to know whether the things have changed due to COVID event. Based on the evidence between 2010 and 2015, you find the importance of workplace networks to organizing outcomes . But I think organizing strategies that focus on workplace leaders maybe less likely to be successful after COVID19.

[Coco-Jiachen-Yu]

Hello Professor Naidu,

Thank you so much for sharing you work with us and I look forward to your presentation tomorrow. I'm very interested in your research methodology in the article. Can you illustrate why you decided to use leave-one-out method in your study and what are the advantages of doing that? Also, regarding the qualitative analysis on organizer notes, what research methods did you employ?

[yutaili]

Hi Prof. Naidu,

Thanks for sharing your work about unions in the workforce and your insights on how social network contributes to successful unionization in the workforce. I'm curious about how the hierarchical structures in the workplace would affect your findings? Do you think it would be different in a flat-management team than a clear hierarchical team? Thanks.

[Sirius2713]

Hi Professor Naidu,

Thanks for sharing your work. I'm whether how accidents such as Covid and layoffs impact the workplace networks. Especially for recent large-scale layoffs, do you envision that they would reinforce workplace networks or they would destroy networks?

[HongzhangXie]

Dear Professor Naidu, thank you so much for bringing up this interesting topic about labour economics, Union, and social network for us! The paper shows that the Union density in the United States is significantly decreased. One way to solve this problem is to show the union can "add value", which means, both improving the welfare level of workers and improving the profits of employers. The paper discusses some of the relevant research on working conditions and service economics. Beyond that, can we consider unions as part of employee welfare to attract competitive employees?

[sudhamshow]

Hi Professor Naidu, Reading your research got me thinking of the merits and demerits of organised social capital. Several southern states which championed labour unions in the early twentieth century have introduced the 'Right to work' legislation, which allows people to hire workers irrespective of their membership in workers' unions. Earlier, access to several professions like teaching and mining was exclusive to members of these unions. This bill was supposedly introduced to help newcomers into the workforce who felt alienated or underrepresented. In a way, organised social capital turned out to be the problem it was supposed to abolish. Do you think there is a right way of institutionalising social capital today?

[XTang685]

Hello Professor Naidu,

Thank you for sharing you work with us! I am wondering if your conclusion can be applied in other situations. Looking forward to watching your presentation tomorrow.

[YLHan97]

Hi Professor Naidu,

Thanks for sharing your research with us. I have a question as follows: In the article “Workplace Networks and the Dynamics of Labor Organizing”, you have mentioned that results rationalize a belief widely held by labor scholars and activists that organizing strategies that focus on workplace leaders are more likely to be successful, and suggest a statistic for organizing efficacy that could be operationalized by labor unions. Since I’m really interested in the network-driven organizing applied in real world, but not so much familiar with labor organzing area, would you please provide more real world examples in your relevant area?

[Ry-Wu]

Hi Professor Naidu, Thank you for sharing your work! I'm wondering if there is any way to maximize the benefits of unions to employers and workers while minimizing the negative influences of them?

[iefis]

Hi Professor Naidu, Thank you for sharing your work! I am curious about how the strategic use of workplace networks might be applied to the unions organizing in a work environment not characterized by low-wage and high-turnover? Would it be more effective or less effective to organize following this network-based strategy?

[jiayan-li]

Hi Professor Naidu,

I love your idea that social scientists could cooperate with labor unions to generate new insights. You also mentioned the influence of online social networking sites on how labor unions operate. In that regard, my question is: to what degree do you think SNSs nowadays facilitate collective actions of labor unions or hinder them? What kind of research would you conduct to test the hypothesis?

[YutaoHeOVO]

Hi Professor Naidu, I love the idea and have two questions. First one is about the Figure on the network structure. I guess this one focuses on the rubustness issue because it just says that the signed and unsigned workers’ network structure are the same and thus selection bias should be ruled out. Is this exactly the case? Moreover, I am thinking of the compliance issue (kinda similar to the LATE framework on compliance). Indeed we observe that signed workers’ perform differently, but I think the treatment might not effectively affect all the participants. So could you introduce how to guarantee the issues like the compliance of participants of the treatment?

[pranathiiyer]

Hi prof Naidu, Thanks so much for your work! I was wondering how you might think some of your design and results could extend to more informal labour markets? I believe these too have structures and networks but are probably very different from a formal labour market.

[mintaow]

Hi Professor Naidu,

This is really interesting work! I am particularly curious about your perspective on the "tenacity" or "sustainability" of the organizing success revealed. Would it be possible that the workplace network only imposes a short-term effect on the organizing success and the positive influence dies out over time? Thanks!

[yunshu3112]

Hi Professor Naidu,

This is a very rich review of the existing literature on unionization. Thank you for bringing the problems and potential solutions to unions to the table. I have learned a lot from reading this paper.

I am especially interested in the idea of attaching union neutrality provisions to other government protections. This sounds like a feasible way of creating incentives for employers accepting unions. I wonder what are the potential cost or distortionary effect to the market? Why there are not a lot of existing policies that encourage firms' union neutrality using this method?

[WonjeYun]

Hello professor Naidu. Thank you for introducing your interesting work. I do think that labor unions, not only in the US, is becoming different from the ones in the past. Regarding the differing attitude towards unions, I have two questions. First, in my home country (South Korea), there are evident trends of younger generations inclining more towards conservative political views, which consider some of the labor unions as a harm to the economy. How would you see this shift in political ideology as a factor that hinders union formation? Second, in contrast to traditional companies, emerging giant companies tend to have their CEOs / owners strongly influence their companies (If you are thinking about Elon Musk, yes I did think of him instantly, but I am talking about in a more general sense). Do you think your incentives or methods to facilitate union formation could work under influential CEOs / owners who strongly oppose labor union? How would you see the ownership factor as a risk or advantage towards union formation?

[jiehanL]

Hi professor Naidu, thank you for presenting your work! Looking from a game theory / formal theory perspective, I'm wondering how the introduction of networks would affect the equilibrium of the coordination problem in labor organizing.

[zbchen0129]

Hi Professor Naidu, Thank you so much for sharing your work with us, which is really interesting and inspiring. I am wondering what is the logic of using membership cards signed and monthly dues as measures of collective actions. Thanks!

[shenyc16]

Dear Prof Naidu, thank you for sharing this insightful research with us. I find the work meaningful especially after COVID-19, which transforms the socioeconomic status of the society in many aspects. My question is that, since classic economists always connect employment with inflation rate, will you include the latter in a certain form as a factor in your empirical model? Thanks.

[j2401]

Hi Professor Naidu,

You mentioned in “Is There Any Future for a US Labor Movement?” that the weaker association between coworkers and the decline of human capital in the workplace might be a reason of the drop in union density. It sounds very plausible, and it immediately comes to my mind that it seems people now have access to a more extensive social network and are not limited to the physical places due to the technologies. Will this actually contribute to the possible emerge of a larger scale, and cross-sector union? I’m very curious about this logic.

[Anmin-Yang]

Hello Professor Naidu, Thank you for sharing your work. Do you think whether web 3.0 would play a different role in the establishment of unions?

[hsinkengling]

Hi Prof. Naidu.

I think the generational difference in unionizing is a very interesting point. If we assume that ordinary workers would not have the knowledge about running a union campaign, then it makes sense that these new unionizing efforts must have some kind of "veteran union" groups that advise junior union groups. Do you see patterns of this in your data? If so, how do these strategy frameworks match on to the objective patterns you observe?

[franciszz992]

Hi Prof. Naidu, It is indeed an interesting and innovative approach you took to measure organiser attention and centrality of the network by field notes. Would you mind illustrating further on how this should be a valid measurement and what are the concerns when drawing its casual relation to the collective action you study? Additionally, how are these findings relate to the matter of unionization ? Do we perceive them as similar economic problem?

[koichionogi]

Dear Prof. Naidu, Thank you so much for presenting your research. Your research on organizing power and the organization's success is unique and exciting. I wondered if this NDO correction would differ among industries or occupations. Would organizing have any industry-specific or occupation-specific impact on the outcomes in the workplace?

[C-y22]

Hello Professor Naidu, thank you for sharing this research. I am wondering since Covid-19 has largely changed people's lifestyle and thus the workplace, how do you think it will change the unionization?

[essicaJ]

Hello, Professor Naidu. Thank you so much for sharing your work with us. I wonder how the relationship between network organizing and campaign success would be generated in the real world beyond the Walmart sample in your study. Are these characteristics generalizable to other labor unions or are there some differences? Thanks so much!

[bairr1208]

Dear Professor Naidu,

Thank you for your kind sharing about the paper constructs a measure of network-driven organizing. And about the process through which the institution could be strengthened, I am deeply attracted. And for the low-wages younger workers, the market power on bargaining wages is under great debate, just, I am wondering, after COVID-19, the hybrid workplace is becoming more and more popular, what do you think is a possible solution to rearrange the bargaining?

[kunkunz111]

Dear Professor Naidu,

Thank you for your sharing! I am interested in how quantifying some abstract variables. So, could you share your experience with that?

[yiang-li]

Hi Prof Naidu, Thanks so much for sharing your work! I wondered how might you think your findings could be generalized to other labor markets?

[hantaoxiao]

Hi Professor Naidu, thank for sharing the effect working on labor organizing and I have a question about How different ideology, represented by various parties, affect Union operation?

[Anmin-Yang]

Hi Professor Naidu, thank you for sharing this exciting work. I wonder if this methodology could apply to any mental dimensions beyond facial expressions. For example, can we use GAN to probe natural language impressions or human impressions of aesthetics?

[UjjwalSehrawat]

Dear Professor Naidu,

Thank you for the wonderful presentation of your paper. The discussion about a trend of drain/exodus of talented potential leaders from the unions and into other occupations is one that caught my attention. I am curious to think how one can deal with this paradox - this paradox is also observable in so many other areas such as transnational migration of workers and so on. Would be interested to hear your thoughts about that. Thank you, again.

Warm regards

[Toushirow1]

Dear Prof. Naidu, Thank you so much for sharing your research. What are the most effective strategies for organizations to repair their reputation and audience satisfaction following a transgression, and how do these strategies differ from traditional interpersonal amends-making approaches?