This paper examines the effect of nominal contracting provisions on employment determination in union contracts. In most contracts the nominal wage rate is wholly or partially predetermined. Real wage rates therefore contain unanticipated components that reflect unexpected price changes and the degree of indexation. The empirical analysis, based on a large sample of indexed and nonindexed contracts, suggests that unexpected real wage changes are associated with systematic employment responses in the opposite direction. I conclude that nominal contracting provisions play a potentially important role in the cyclical properties and persistence of employment movements in the union sector.

This paper describes a simple model of labor disputes based on the hypothesis that unions use strikes to infer the profitability of the firm. The model posits the existence of a negatively sloped resistance curve between wages and strike duration. In addition, it offer a series of predictions relating wage and strike outcomes to changes in the expected profitability of the firm and changes in the alternative opportunities of striking workers. These implications are tested using data on wage outcomes, strike probabilities, and strike durations for a large sample of collective bargaining agreements.