Definition
Featherbedding is the practice of hiring more workers than are needed to perform a given job, or to adopt work procedures which appear pointless, complex and time-consuming merely to employ additional workers. The term “make-work” is sometimes used as a synonym for featherbedding.
Featherbedding
What is ‘Featherbedding’
Term used to describe the practice of a labor union requiring an employer to hire more workers than necessary for a particular task.
Explaining ‘Featherbedding’
Featherbedding has developed over time as unions respond to workers being laid off because of technological change. These lay-offs have caused unions to seek some way to retain workers, even though there may be little work for them to perform.
Further Reading
- Economies of scale and a featherbedding cartel?: a reconsideration of the interwar British coal industry – onlinelibrary.wiley.com [PDF]
- SMR Forum: Top Management Featherbedding? – search.proquest.com [PDF]
- Featherbedding: An assertion of property rights – journals.sagepub.com [PDF]
- Not featherbedding, but feathering the nest: Human resource management and investments in information technology – onlinelibrary.wiley.com [PDF]
- Featherbedding and labour market reforms – mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de [PDF]
- Governmental Restraints on Featherbedding – www.jstor.org [PDF]
- Do You Suffer from Technological Featherbedding? – journals.sagepub.com [PDF]
- Fifteen fatal fallacies of financial fundamentalism: A disquisition on demand-side economics – www.pnas.org [PDF]
- Railroads Aim to Win Battle… Against Competitive Subsidies, Featherbedding and Unfair Taxes – www.tandfonline.com [PDF]
