Union Status and Double-Breasting at Multinational Companies in Three Liberal Market Economies

Abstract

The relationships among employee representation, formal union status, and employer strategies within and across institutional regimes offer a variegated landscape in the context of globalization. Key questions remain as to the relative weight of macro- and micro-level influences on union status at subsidiaries of multinational companies (MNCs). This study analyzes data gathered through coordinated surveys of MNC subsidiaries in Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom and tests the extent to which union status and double-breasting depend on home-country variation, host-country influences, and particular organizational characteristics. The authors find support for a combination of effects on both union status and double-breasting. Further analyses test explicit variations on union status within each host context and support arguments that effects depend on the particularities of national industrial relations regimes.