Trade Unions and Job Quality

Abstract

Abstract This chapter reviews links between trade unions and debates about job quality. It argues that job quality should be understood as a dynamic outcome of give and take within the employment relationship. The chapter starts with a review of how job quality is measured, focusing on the centrality of worker voice and emphasizing the importance of institutions of collective bargaining in securing decent work. It moves on to review evidence of how those institutions link to company-level arrangements of job regulation, thereby affecting job quality. The third section presents studies showing how, in some settings, employers can use poor quality work to push down job quality more generally. The fourth explores the ways that union strategies have sometimes had the consequence of increasing job quality for core staff, while reducing job quality for others. The fifth section considers evidence of the opportunities for unions to organize to promote and improve job quality, including in precarious occupations. The chapter concludes by noting that although there is wide literature on the roles of employers and unions in affecting job quality, there is very little attention to the potential role of the state, clearly requiring further research.