Center Projects
Workplace Standards and Financial Performance
Sponsored by Victory Capital Management and Massachusetts Financial Services
Since 1998, Prof. Teresa Ghilarducci has directed the Workplace Standards and Financial Performance project funded by Boston-based Massachusetts Financial Services (MFS) and Victory Capital Management. The project establishes a screened universe of public corporations that have good labor relations and support workers' right to organize. Socially conscious investors then can invest in the Union Standard Fund, which promotes a long-term and equitable relationship between employers and employees. The Union Standard Fund has continued to improve its returns and, as of July 2002, it is outperforming the S&P 500 by 2 percentage points. Professor Ghilarducci has worked with students Lance Wescher, Sharon Hermes, Craig Eschuk and Mary Ursu in the past and with Connor Martin at present to maintain and refine the screening process.
American Retirement Income Security
Sponsored by the Retirement Research Foundation
The Retirement Research Foundation of Chicago, Illinois, has given generously since 1997 to the Higgins Labor Research Center to fund Teresa Ghilarducci's "Making Retirement Work" project, which supports graduate student research and study. Working papers supported by the grant include:
“Revisiting Dual Labor Markets: Total Compensation and Female Labor Markets” |
Teresa Ghilarducci and Mary Lee |
“How Employers Lower Pension Contributions with DC Plans: 1981-1998” |
Ghilarducci and Wei Sun |
“The Decline in Fringe Benefits and the Rise of Cash in America: Evidence from the Employment Cost Index and the Erosion of Fringe Benefits” |
Teresa Ghilarducci |
"The Surprising Labor Market Consequences of 401(k)s and DC Pension Plans" |
Ghilarducci and Sharon Hermes |
"The American Labor Movement's (Surprising) Economic Impact: Revisiting the Voice View of Unions" for the "Authority in Contention" conference at the University of Notre Dame |
Ghilarducci and Hermes |
“Small-Firm Pension Coverage, Multiemployer Plans, and Middle-Class Workers” |
Ghilarducci, Mary Lee, and Lance Wescher |
Douglas Dority Graduate and Post-Graduate Research Fund for Working America - Low Wage Industries - Sponsored by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union
HLRC has been conducting important research on workers and the workplace and training economists who will be similarly concerned. The director of the project, Charles Craypo, was the first HLRC Director. He has been assisted by Adrienne Birecree, David Cormier (formerly at Indiana University, currently at West Virginia University), and Suzanne Konzelmann--all PhD's in economics from Notre Dame--as well as Amy McCormley O'Hara, who is the most recent of the group to receive a graduate degree in economics here. Once Craypo and Cormier concluded their United Way-funded research on the "working poor," the team moved to research other truly "working poor" in the food and other industries. O'Hara's role in this research was crucial, not only for her contributions to the work and the opportunity to provide her with experience, mentoring and data for her doctoral dissertation, but also because it fulfilled one objective of HLRC, which is training economists interested in making "the economy for the people."
Statistical, historical and organizational data and material describe the spread of low-wage jobs in the economy and specific industries and occupations. A team of researchers led by Charles Craypo has sought to explain why the US economy is no longer affording enough workers well-paying jobs and the impact of low wages on the standard of living for workers' families and the larger society. On the basis of this analysis, the team will propose steps workers, unions, business, government, and society in general should take to halt the spread of these low-paying jobs and the deterioration of the quality of work-life in the US. In preparation for the team's work, HLRC conducted a meeting of the membership to offer suggestions about the focus, data sources, and methodology for the project. As in all projects of the Center, the team has gathered and analyzed the data objectively. If any bias has been revealed, it has been a passion for justice, especially for workers--two other objectives of the Higgins Labor Research Center at Notre Dame.