Years of Service and Probability of Promotion

This study provides evidence which we believe challenges some conventional assumptions about the promotion process. Based on survey information collected from a large random sample of U.S. private sector firms, we reach two main conclusions. First,seniority independent of productivity appears to play a significant role even in nonunion promotion decisions. Second, the differences between union and nonunion promotion processes, at least with regard to the weight assigned to seniority per se, appear to be important but less dramatic than is popularly supposed.