Collective Bargaining and Faculty Job Satisfaction

Estimates of the impact of union membership on job satisfaction suffer from nonrandom self‐selection of employees into unions. In this paper, we circumvent this problem by examining the impact on satisfaction of collective bargaining representation, rather than of union membership. We use a two‐stage technique that controls for nonrandom selection of faculty into institutions, and apply that to a panel of faculty at repeatedly observed four‐year universities. We find that bargaining agreements increase satisfaction with compensation but reduce satisfaction with faculty workload. Bargaining has no statistically measurable impact on overall job satisfaction or on faculty's satisfaction with their authority to make decisions regarding their instructional duties.     

Membership Participation in Workplace Unionism: The Possibility of Union Renewal

This article reports membership involvement (participation and commitment) in five case studies. Membership participation in and commitment to workplace unionism is greater than is customarily portrayed and, additionally, there are fluctuations in both. However, the solidarity dimension of commitment is more important in discussing participation than that of ideology since active members can have either an instrumental or an ideological orientation to unionism. Surges of involvement in a workplace are experienced in response to the impact of events in the local union environment, as mediated particularly by local leadership style. The possibility for union renewal comes through building up the base level of participation by careful local leadership so that members can more easily be encouraged to take part in collective activities in times of necessity.     

Decentralized Wage Formation in Sweden

Recent Swedish collective bargaining agreements have incorporated provisions for local pay review talks and opportunities for individuals to negotiate their own wages. Using trade union data, we show that members who participate in local pay review talks and members who negotiate their own wages have significantly higher monthly wages than those who do not. Pay decentralization either improves an individual's bargaining position or attracts more productive trade union members. Either way, trade union wage policies to increase individual‐level wage variance are achieving their intended effects.     

The Social Cost of Rent Seeking by Labor Unions in the United States

The conventional welfare loss to trade unions and collective bargaining has been put at some fraction of 1.0 percent. Added to this should be the costs of resources deployed by the parties as they compete for monopoly gains. These additional social costs turn out to be on the same order as the conventional welfare loss. The analysis finds in passing that the investment by union members in paying dues yields very handsome dividends.     

The Microeconomic Impacts of Employee Representatives: Evidence from Membership Thresholds

Employee representatives in firms are a potentially key but not yet studied source of the impact of unions and works councils. Their actions can shape multiple drivers of firm performance, including collective bargaining, strikes, and training. This article examines the impact of union representative mandates by exploiting legal membership thresholds present in many countries. In the case of Portugal, which we examine here, while firms employing up to forty‐nine union members are required to have one union representative; this increases to two (three) union reps for firms with fifty to ninety‐nine (100–199) union members. Drawing on matched employer–employee data on the unionized sector and regression discontinuity methods, we find that a one percentage point increase in the legal union representative/members ratio leads to an increase in firm performance of at least 7 percent. This result generally holds across multiple dimensions of firm performance and appears to be driven by increased training. However, we find no effects of union representatives on firm‐level wages, given the predominance of sectoral collective bargaining.     

Trade Unions and Political Participation in the European Union: Still Providing a Democratic Dividend?

Decline in electoral participation is a feature of many Western democracies. In this paper, we focus on the relationship between trade union membership and political participation. Workplace authority structures, trade union membership and union presence have been identified as important influences on electoral participation. Based on a survey of employees in 15 member states of the European Union, we test for a relationship between political participation, union membership and union workplace presence. The independent effect of trade union membership on political participation was found to be both significant and positive and is associated with higher levels of political activism and electoral participation. Furthermore, an institutional context that facilitates high levels of union density seems likely to have an overall positive effect on citizen participation.     

The Viability of Trade Union Organization: A Bargaining Unit Analysis

The paper develops a model of trade union behaviour based on the concept of the viable bargaining unit. Viability rests on five conditions: membership level, service level, membership participation, employer recognition, and facilities. Unions are seen as portfolios of viable and inviable bargaining units. Six propositions are derived, concerning union scale, growth, the impact of statutory recognition provisions, the emergence of conglomerate unions, governance structures, and relations with employers. Employer dependence is central, and a simple game‐theoretic approach is used to discuss employer co‐operation. Viability at the union level is achieved by portfolio diversification and employer co‐operation.     

What Sort of Collective Bargaining Is Emerging in China?

China is experiencing a rapid expansion of what is termed ‘collective bargaining’. The article draws on workplace and sectoral examples to assess what underlies this. Recent changes in labour policy are outlined. Four studies at establishment level describe the use of hybrid representation in response to growing worker activism and internal union reform. Two studies of sectoral bargaining shed light on decentralized decision‐making on pay. Attention is drawn to the growth of employer organizations and increased articulation within the trade union. A form of collective bargaining is emerging where the union draws on state power to improve conditions of employment.     

The effect of changes in public sector bargaining laws on teacher union membership

This study uses a simple model of demand for and supply of union services to analyse the effect of public sector bargaining laws on teacher unionization. Relying on a nationally representative dataset covering 2001–2018, I exploit natural experiments that occurred in several US states to identify the effect of legal and institutional changes weakening collective bargaining rights of teachers on their union membership rate. Based on both difference-in-difference estimation and synthetic control method, I find that the new legislation significantly reduces teachers’ union membership and that the impact of the anti-union bills on unionization evolves, growing in magnitude, over time. I also find that the magnitudes of the impacts are greater for female, younger and minority teachers.     

Why Do People Join Unions in a Period of Membership Decline?

Drawing on a large survey of new members, this paper examines the reasons why people join unions and the methods of their recruitment. It shows that collective reasons remain central to union membership and that individual services are secondary in the recruitment process. While there is little variation in reasons for joining across industry, occupation and sex, there are marked differences in the methods used to recruit new members. These findings are used to examine existing explanations of membership decline and to assess the efficacy of the different recruitment policy options available to unions.     

Union Membership in Post-Socialist East Germany: Who Participates in Collective Action?

This study has two aims: first, to examine the hypothesis that East German union members are strongly individualistic, instrumental and passive with regard to participation in collective activities; second, to test a selection of social psychological theories of willingness to participate in collective action, in a post-socialist context. A survey of members of the textile union provided some initial indication that union members in East Germany do not behave in a significantly different way from their Western counterparts with regard to their willingness to become active. Regression analysis revealed two major antecedents of participation: perceived instrumentality of collective action, and union identity.     

Collective Bargaining Coverage under Trade Unionism: A Sociological Investigation

Does high union density lead to high collective bargaining coverage? Since collective bargaining is seen as the raison d'être of trade unions, this is often assumed to be the case; some observers think that union density is ‘a floor’ below which collective bargaining coverage is unlikely to fall. With its very high union density, Denmark is a case in point. This article investigates the collective bargaining coverage issue in the Danish case, based on an individual-level employee survey with 1720 respondents. Collective bargaining coverage is shown to be much lower than union density, and some methodological issues in this connection are considered. In order to find some possible explanations for this surprising finding, the question of variance of collective bargaining coverage between groups of employees is discussed in the light of theories of service society and recent research results and theories. The impact of central variables is investigated through multivariate analysis, and it turns out that by far the most important variable predicting an employee's collective bargaining coverage is a variable mostly neglected in comparative analyses: occupational status. Salaried employees have a much lower collective bargaining coverage than manual workers in Denmark, and some possible reasons for this are given.     

Does Strike Action Stimulate Trade Union Membership Growth?

Most of the literature on strikes has addressed one of four issues: causation, variation between sectors and countries, trends over time and the relationship between strikes and other forms of collective and individual protest. Very little research has addressed the equally important questions of strike outcomes and trade union membership despite the substantial body of research on the causes of trade union membership decline and strategies for membership growth. In this paper we reverse the usual sequence of trade union membership as a causal factor in the genesis of strikes and examine the impact of strikes on trade union membership levels. After setting out the relevant theory and hypotheses, we use a unique seven‐year dataset of trade union membership joiners and leavers from a major British trade union with a substantial record of strike activity. Controlling for other possible determinants of trade union membership, we find that months in which there is strike action, whether national or local, are associated with a significantly higher rate of membership growth, measured both by the number of joiners and by the ratio of joiners to leavers. Data from new union members suggest that perceived injustice and perceived union effectiveness both motivate the decision to join.     

Institutions and Strategies: Trends and Obstacles to Recruiting Workers into Trade Unions in Poland

In this article, we examine the role of institutional context, organizational structures and trade union strategies in tempering membership decline in the number of trade unions in Poland. Empirical data include membership statistics collected for NSZZ Solidarno?? and 54 affiliates of two other largest trade union confederations (OPZZ and FZZ) supplemented by semi‐structured interviews with union leaders. In a decentralized collective bargaining system in Poland, a centralized trade union confederation (NSZZ Solidarno??) can more easily shift resources to efficiently organize workers than decentralized confederations, OPZZ and FZZ, whose development is mostly driven by competing trade unions representing narrower occupational groups. In conclusion, this observation is put in a broader context of the debates about trade union renewal in Eastern Europe.     

Linking Union Density and Union Effectiveness: The North American Experience

This study considers how union performance in terms of organizing, bargaining, and political activity are related to severely declining union density (the percentage of the workforce in unions) in the United States and the higher and stable union density in Canada. Canadian unions have remained active in recruiting new members and assign a high priority to organizing, while American unions have shown diminished organizing effort and ability. Canadian unions have demonstrated superior performance in collective bargaining as measured by resistance to concession bargaining and negotiated wage gains, among other factors. Finally, although Canadian unions experienced some political setbacks, they wielded more political influence than their American counterparts in promoting union-specific as well as broad social legislation. Density is examined as both a consequence and determinant of the divergence in union performance.     

Peak Union Campaigning: Fighting for Rights at Work in Australia

Many peak unions are in crisis, their traditional reliance on economic or political exchange with employers and the state undermined through falling union membership and the collapse of national bargaining systems. New methods, chiefly as agents of mobilization, and new sources of power, including community organizations, are often advanced as solutions. In Australia, where trade unions faced a fundamental and immediate threat from a national government after an election in 2004, the ‘Your Rights at Work’ campaign signalled a shift in peak union strategy. Although this campaign unseated the government in 2007, its legacy is unclear: reviving the power of peak unions and conceptualizing the means to do so remain difficult.     

The Evolution of Enterprise Unionism in Japan: A Socio‐Political Perspective

This article proposes an alternative framework for understanding enterprise unionism by emphasizing political dynamics and the role of the state in labour relations. Our framework delineates the strategic behaviour patterns of each of the tripartite IR actors under collective bargaining. It maintains that the initial period of the collective bargaining era constituted a critical juncture for state labour policy that occurred in distinctive ways in different countries and that these differences played a central role in shaping the different union structures in the following decades. Our historical analysis shows that unlike its Western counterparts, the Japanese state was able to eradicate the horizontal union movement at the onset of the collective bargaining era because of its advantages as a late developer and Cold War politics, which resulted in enterprise unionism in Japan.     

Union–Member Relations and Satisfaction with Unions in South Korea

This paper uses a large sample of South Korean union members working in different industries and occupations to test a model of union satisfaction. The results suggest that union–member relations — member representation and union leader effectiveness — are more important than the economic results that unions provide to members. These findings are in line with our general argument that, where unions rely on decentralized collective bargaining as the prime method of employment regulation, they depend heavily on internal union relations for their effectiveness. We contend that, if unions are to limit the decline in their influence, assessing and changing internal union relations should be a priority.     

The Foundations of Social Partnership

‘Social partnership’ between capital and labour is a distinctive characteristic of German industrial relations. Based on a survey of 142 German employers’ associations, we investigate differences in their support for partnership with unions. We find that organizational characteristics (e.g. membership density) as well as positive experiences with their union counterparts explain why employers’ associations adhere to the norms of social partnership. Building on an analysis that combines political and organizational institutionalism, we find that the positive evaluation of social partnership held by employers is associated with their positive experiences in more recent interactions with unions in collective bargaining, a more encompassing definition of an association's policy domain and a long‐term history of mutual collaboration.