Airline Pilot Unions in Australia,Japan and the United States : A Test of Cross-National Convergence

Abstract

There is a general proposition that common, advanced technologies similarly deployed in countries with different histories, cultures and industrial relations systems will tend to generate similar outcomes cross-nationally. Airlines operating identical aircraft in Australia, Japan and the United States provide an opportunity to test this convergence hypothesis. Despite very different normative industrial re lations systems in these three countries, pilots of Boeing 747 aircraft havefashioned pay schemes and union structures that are far more alike cross-nationally than those that generally characterise employees in other occupations and industries in the same national context. Airline pilots have, in effect, become partners with employers in sharing benefits of increased productivity of the larger or faster aircraft they fly. While acknowledging factors other than common technologies, this study supports the general convergence hypothesis when applied to an industry level. It does not support those 'post-industrial society' theorists who see the overwhelming influence of technology as eroding social and occupational distinctions between and among different classes of workers.

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