Academic Workers and Union Membership: An Inevitable Dilution of Solidarity?

The growth of service employment and new forms of work has supposedly fostered the diffusion of individual orientations at the expense of traditional forms of union solidarity. These developments suggest that academics are likely to manifest an individualist orientation and a weak attachment to trade union membership. Based on a survey of unionized employees in a university setting, we examine whether there are differences in union attachment and solidarity between professionals and other occupational groups.     

Reciprocal Loyalty and Union Mediation

This study investigates the concept of loyalty in the employment relationship using a stated preference approach and a dataset obtained through purpose‐built questionnaires. Reciprocal loyalty is defined as a gift exchange. Workers' good performance is rewarded by the employer by the provision of a job with a low likelihood of job loss. The study shows that such reciprocal employer–employee loyalty is highly rated by the workers as a desirable job attribute. Loyalty in the employer–employee relationship is differently valued by unionized and nonunionized workers. Overall, the evidence suggests that unionized workers are more receptive to arrangements involving reciprocal loyalty. This may be an outcome of adaptation to internalized norms of union behavior.     

Earnings Inequality and Unions in Canada

This paper reports research examining differences in the earnings distributions of unionized and non–unionized workers and the impact of union status on the likelihood of a worker being in each region of the earnings distribution. Average earnings of unionized workers are shown to be higher than those of non–union workers in the first four quintiles, but lower than average earnings of non–unionized workers in the top quintile. Union effects are greatest among workers situated in the lower and middle regions of the distribution, and benefit workers who are typically disadvantaged in the labour market.     

When Do U.S. Workers First Experience Unionization? Implications for Revitalizing the Labor Movement

Debates over revitalizing the U.S. labor movement often overlook when workers are first unionized. This article analyzes the frequency and nature of workers’ first unionized jobs by tracking a cohort of individuals from age 15/16 to 40/41. Though workers are most likely to be unionized when they are in their forties, this article shows that surprising numbers of individuals first encounter unionization in their jobs at a much younger age. These results highlight the importance of experiential union membership models as well as life‐cycle union representation strategies that recognize the young age at which many workers are first unionized.     

Cross-Generation Correlations of Union Status for Young People in Britain

This paper investigates whether young people whose fathers are union members are themselves more likely to join a union. We find that young people with unionized fathers are twice as likely to be unionized as those with non‐union fathers; this rises to three times higher for those whose fathers are active in the union. This supports the idea that socialization within the family plays a role in encouraging union membership. It is not the case that the cross‐generation correlations we observe are driven by common within‐family characteristics (like occupation, industry and political persuasion) that are strongly related to union membership.     

Does Union Membership Really Reduce Job Satisfaction?

We investigate the effect of union membership on job satisfaction. Using linked employer–employee data from the 1998 British Workplace Employee Relations Survey, we analyse the relationship between the membership decision and overall job satisfaction and satisfaction with pay. In this paper we account for the endogenous selection induced by the sorting of workers into unionized jobs. Controlling for both individual and establishment heterogeneity and explicitly modelling the effect of union status, we find that the marked difference in job satisfaction between unionized and non‐unionized workers disappears, suggesting that a selection effect, rather than a causal effect, characterizes the relationship.     

Unionization and Job Design Under Programmable Automation

New findings from an original national survey indicate that machining jobs include major computer programming responsibilities far more commonly than received labor process theory would lead us to expect or predict. In unionized plants, workers are less likely to program their machines, perhaps because of management's desire to avoid the constraints imposed by collective bargaining agreements. Among recent adopters of the technology, informal bargaining through joint labor-management problem-solving committees neutralizes this negative union effect.     

Union Presence and Labour Productivity in British Manufacturing Industry. A Reply to Nolan and Marginson

Evidence on the association between union presence and labour productivity in British manufacturing industry is surveyed. The weight of the evidence suggests that around 1980 highly unionized organizations had a lower level of labour productivity than corresponding less highly unionized organizations, but that during the first half of the 1980s unionized work-places, firms and industries had superior productivity growth to their less unionized counterparts. Various criticisms made by Nolan and Marginson of earlier studies on unions and productivity are evaluated.     

The Effect of Unions on Productivity Growth, Investment and Employment: A Report on some Recent Work

Using two British microeconomic data sets, this paper reports the following. (1) Union firms experienced faster productivity growth during 1980–4, but there was no difference in performance in 1975–9, or 1985–6. So unions do not necessarily reduce productivity growth. It is also unlikely that the above pattern can be explained by changes in union legislation. (2) Unionism appears to have no significant effect on in vestment, once one allows for the effects of differential productivity growth. (3) Wages in union and non-union firms are equally responsive to changes in the capital–labour ratio. (4) Contrary to what is often alleged, unionism per se does not reduce employment growth. Instead, the negative correlation observed in 1980–4 probably arises from a significant reform of working practices in unionized firms during 1980–4.     

Union Wage Effects in Nevada's Hotel and Casino Industry

I use the significant union presence in Las Vegas's hotel, gaming, andrecreation (HGR) industry juxtaposed to the near absence of unions in Reno's HGR sector to study union wage effects. I find wages of highly unionized occupations in Las Vegas's HGR industry to be significantly higher than wages of identical occupations in Reno. Furthermore, I detect little impact from Las Vegas's HGR unions on wages in the wholesale and retail trade (WRT) industry, a much less unionized sector.     

Unions and the Duration of Workers' Compensation Claims

This paper examines the effect of union status on workers' compensation claim duration in Canada. I find that unionized workers have shorter claims than nonunionized workers and that relatively little of this difference can be attributed to differences in worker or job characteristics. I interpret this as being consistent with a strong union effect that reduces union member's claim duration. Plausible explanations for this finding and directions for future research are also discussed.     

Never Say Never? Uncovering the Never‐Unionized in the United States

This paper analyses individuals who never hold a unionized job and are never represented by a union ('never-unionized'). Using 21 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 data to track individuals starting at age 15 or 16, we show that by the time workers are 40 or 41 years old, one-third of them are never-unionized, and a convex never-unionization trajectory suggests that most of them will remain never-unionized. An analysis of the demographic and labour market characteristics of the never-unionized further suggests two types of never-unionized workers — those who lack opportunities for obtaining unionized jobs and those who lack the desire to obtain unionized jobs.     

US Labour Relations in Transition: Emerging Strategies and Company Performance

This report examines strategic labour relations and operational changes pursued by large, highly unionized, US manufacturing companies over the 1975–86 period. Four fairly distinguishable strategies are identified as implemented across a sample of 105 companies. These strategies are characterized by various combinations of activities associated with union avoidance, deunionization and co-operation. In addition to describing these strategies, we examine changes in company performance associated with these strategies for a subsample of 56 companies. It is found that, on the one hand, improvements in company performance are associated with extensive cooperative efforts across unionized facilities, but, on the other hand, they are also associated with the opening of non-union facilities and the simultaneous closing of unionized facilities. In contrast, the closing of unionized facilities (but not non-union facilities) and the decertification of unions are negatively associated with company performance.     

Employees' Desire to Join or Leave a Union: Evidence from Poland

This research note provides an empirical analysis of the factors related to Polish employees' desire to join and leave a union. Our regression analysis, based on a sample of 298 unionized and 338 nonunionized employees, shows that the desire to join a union is positively associated with career prospects and negatively with company commitment, while the desire to leave a union is positively associated with one's intention to leave the company.     

Political Activism and Workplace Industrial Relations in a UK 'Failing' School

The paper draws on a qualitative case study of workplace industrial relations in an inner–city secondary school identified as 'failing' and subsequently closed. It considers the way unionized teachers and their representatives interpret, influence and resist the impact of centralized managerial and educational change. The local implementation of such change leads to an engagement with the debates on union renewal. In particular, the paper explores the dynamic interrelationship between political and trade union activism and the tension between workplace relations and formal union organization.     

Supercenters,Unionized Labor,and Performance in Food Retail

This study examines the impact of unionized labor on supermarket performance, as measured by profit and sales, accounting for the competitive presence of supercenters. The results confirm prior research that shows that supercenters have negative effects on supermarket performance. Unionized supermarkets generally outperform nonunionized supermarkets. However this effect disappears when accounting for supercenters, largely because unionized stores are less likely to compete with supercenters. I find no evidence for a significant union effect on supermarket performance. The deleterious effects of supercenters are stronger for unionized stores. Unionized supermarkets utilize less full‐time labor and more labor‐saving technology than do nonunionized ones.     

Bargaining over employment as a firm strategic choice

This paper develops a simple model as to why unionized Cournot firms acting non-cooperatively in the product market may find it optimal to commit to bargaining outcomes with their specific union, which are off the labor demand curve, hence restricting their behavior to non-profit maximizing practices in their product markets. The prediction that power over labor conceded strategically to the union by the firm is negatively linked to union wage power is not rejected on a panel of Belgian firms as well as the prediction that the union bargaining power can be affected by product market structure and other variables affecting union wages.     

A Meta‐Analysis of the Union–Job Satisfaction Relationship

The purpose of this study is to provide a systematic and quantitative review of the existing empirical evidence on the effects of unionization on overall job satisfaction. We conducted a meta‐regression analysis (MRA) with results from a pool of 235 estimates from 59 studies published between 1978 and 2015. The accumulated evidence indicates that unionization is negatively related to job satisfaction but is far from being conclusive. When primary studies control for endogeneity of union membership, the results of the MRA indicate that the difference in job satisfaction between unionized and non‐unionized workers disappears. These results suggest that reverse causation (i.e. dissatisfied workers are more likely to join a union) and time‐varying endogenous effects play a key role in explaining the relationship between unionization and job satisfaction.     

Measurement of Compensation: Union and Nonunion

For many purposes, the economic impact of unions is better measured by the proportion of union wages in total payrolls rather than by the proportion of unionized employees in the overall workforce. We use recently available Current Population Survey data to generate estimates of the former. We also show that published data from the Survey on median union and nonunion wages produce substantially larger estimates of the union 1 nonunion wage differential than figures based on mean wages. Finally, we note that the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Employment Cost Index gives undue weight to the union sector because of its Laspeyres methodology.     

Governors' Party Affiliation and Unions

Employing a regression discontinuity (RD) approach on gubernatorial elections in the United States over the last three decades, this paper investigates the causal effects of governors' party affiliation (Democrat versus Republican) on unionization of workers, and unionized workers' working hours and earnings. Surprisingly, we find no significant impact from the party affiliation of governors on union membership and union workers' labor‐market outcomes.