Decline In Union Membership Research Articles

The (Parlous) State of German Unions

This paper traces the profound decline in German unionism over the course of the last three decades. Today just one in five workers is a union member, and it is now moot whether this degree of penetration is consistent with a corporatist model built on encompassing unions. The decline in union membership and density is attributable to external forces that have confronted unions in many countries (such as globalization and compositional changes in the workforce) and to some specifically German considerations (such as the transition process in post-communist Eastern Germany) and sustained intervals of classic insider behavior on the part of German unions. The correctives have included mergers between unions, decentralization, and wages that are more responsive to unemployment. At issue is the success of these innovations. For instance, the trend toward decentralization in collective bargaining hinges in part on the health of that other pillar of the dual system of industrial relations, the works council. But works council coverage has also declined, leading some observers to equate decentralization with deregulation. While this conclusion is likely too radical, German unions are at the cross roads. It is argued here that if they fail to define what they stand for, are unable to increase their presence at the workplace, and continue to lack convincing strategies to deal with contemporary economic and political trends working against them, then their decline may become a rout.

Staying the Decline in Union Membership : Union Organizing in Ontario, 1985-1999

In response to a sense of crisis precipitated by the 1995 election of the provincial Conservative govemment in Ontario and more anti-union employers, unions in Ontario have increased resources invested in and priority attached to organizing the unorganized. This article examines how unions have reoriented their organizing strategies to increase organizing effort in the private service sector and amongst women while at the same time experimenting with certain innovative rank-and-file intensive strategies that have significant positive effects on the outcome of organizing drives, The paper concludes that if unions follow through with this renewed commitment to organizing, they are likely to prevent a more serious membership crisis from erupting.

Employee as Corporate Governance Stakeholder in South Africa

“The 19th century saw the foundations being laid for modern corporations: this was the century of the entrepreneur. The 20th century became the century of management: the phenomenal growth of management theories, management consultants and management teaching (and management gurus) all reflected this pre‐occupation. As the focus swings to the legitimacy and the effectiveness of the wielding power over corporate entities worldwide, the 21st century promises to be the century of governance.” This is a reflection and manifestation of how the world of work has changed over the last three centuries. The entrepreneur of the 19th century usually owned his business. The business was usually small and the employer was also the individual who owned the business. Because there were only a few employees the relationship between employer and employee was usually a personal relationship. As the era of Fordism emerged in the 20th century, the economies of scale dictated that in order for an enterprise to survive it had to be large (ie many employees) and production was dictated by post‐war Keynesian economic policies. In order to exercise control over these many employees, they had to be arranged into a hierarchy beginning at the bottom with unskilled labourers going up through a number of levels of supervisors and eventually management. Management was also divided into various levels in a hierarchical structure, beginning at lower management, going through to middle management and eventually reaching top management. This hierarchical structure resembling an army was typical of the large corporations of the 20th century. With such large enterprises, a natural consequence was the fact that the relationship between the employer (now usually a company and not an individual) was no longer a personal relationship. In the 20th century employee interests in the industrialized economies were generally protected by trade unions and collective bargaining. Collective bargaining regulated employer‐employee relations, institutionalized conflict and protected employees from “arbitrary management action”. The need to remain competitive in the global economy has resulted in a quest for flexibility. The result is inter alia flatter management structures, an ever‐increasing number of “atypical employees”, decentralization of collective bargaining, the individualization of the employer employee relationship and a general world‐wide decline in union membership and power. Given these facts it becomes necessary to look to alternate means to protect the employee against employer abuse of power in a relationship where the balance of power between the parties is inherently uneven. The possibility of corporate governance and acceptance of the stakeholder theory as a protector of employee interests is explored in this article.

Union density effects in the supermarket industry

Unions provide higher than competitive wages for members, but their effect on non-union wages is not clear. We investigate the effect of union density on supermarket wages from 1986 to 1993, a period of declining real wages and declining union membership. Full-information maximum likelihood techniques are used to estimate log wage equations for both the union and nonunion sectors. Decomposition techniques then separate the union wage premium into the relative effects of densities and union membership. We find a significant, positive effect of union density for both union and nonunion employees. This effect explains approximately one-third of the union-nonunion wage differential.

The Australian Union Merger Wave Revisited

What factors explain the Australian trade union merger wave between 1991 and 1994? Existing explanations largely attribute it to the pro –amalgamation policy of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)and other union leaders,and to declining union membership and decentralised bargaining. This paper reviews discussion of the causes of mergers and publicly available evidence upon them. It concludes that current explanations of the merger wave are an over–simplification. The effects of ACTU leadership, official union policy,and members' views are complex and not uniform and require more disaggregated analysis. Also,there has been a tendency to overstate the importance of membership decline and decentralised bargaining and to over – look other environmental factors such as changing occupational structure. The paper cautions against the assumption that variables influencing ACTU policy also shape affiate actions.

Mutual Aid and Union Renewal: Cycles of Logics of Action

The ongoing decline in union membership is generally attributed to an increasingly hostile economic, legal, and managerial environment. Samuel B. Bacharach, Peter A. Bamberger, and William J. Sonnenstuhl argue that the decline may have more to do with a crisis of union legitimacy and member commitment. They further suggest that both problems could be addressed if the unions return to their nineteenth-century, mutual aid-based roots.The authors contend that the labor movement is characterized by two models of union-member relations: the mutual aid logic and the servicing logic. The first predominated in the early days and encouraged a sense of community among members who worked to support one another. In the twentieth century, it was largely replaced by the servicing model, which asks little of members, who remain loyal only if their leaders deliver increasing wages and benefits.Regaining legitimacy and strengthening member commitment can only happen, the authors claim, if mutual aid logic is allowed to return. They examine three unions in the transportation industry to judge the effectiveness of new programs created after the old model.

The Decline of Worker Solidarity and the End of Collectivism?

Developments in industrialized societies since the end of the 1970s, it is sometimes claimed, have resulted in the erosion of traditional working-class communities and a decline in union membership. This has raised questions regarding the continuing relevance of collectivism and solidarity. Using a survey of an Irish general union, the authors examine the level and types of solidarity among the membership. The results provide little evidence that levels of solidarity in this particular union have been eroded. The authors find that the policies and practices of the union leadership are an important determinant of union activism and activism is strongly associated with solidarity.

The ‘Representation Gap’ In Australia

Drawing on recent literature from overseas, this article identifies four alternative forms of employee representation, two union-based and two non-union. Using these categories, it argues that there is in Australia a significant and growing ‘representation gap’. To some degree, this gap is not new. The system of compulsory conciliation and arbitration that dominated Australian industrial relations for decades before the 1990s delivered significant support for union forms of representation, but they were less than perfect in their effect. Furthermore, nonunion forms of representation in this earlier period were poorly developed. The gap, however, widened dramatically during the 1990s. The well-known decline in union membership and contraction in the coverage and scope of collective bargaining and state regulation constitute the core of the problem. Less acknowledged, however, is the failure of new non-union forms to deliver effective representation. It is contended that the representation gap should be treated as an urgent public policy issue by Australian governments.

Labor’s love lost? Changes in the U.S. environment and declining private sector unionism

Changes in the demographics of the work force and structural changes in the economy have played a key role in declining union membership over time. Since these trends are anticipated to continue into the future, union attempts to stem the decline must accept these changes as given and adapt in ways that allow membership to grow even as these shifts occur. Such a fundamental reorientation of priorities will be difficult, but some signs suggest that unions may be taking preliminary steps in this direction. Such change is vital to unions’ survival, both as a social movement and as a political institution.

Lawless Law? The Subversion of the National Labor Relations Act

In this paper, we demonstrate that the court-developed doctrine which allows an employer to implement its final offer upon reaching an impasse has now become a tool for lawlessness and that this important explanation for the decline of union membership in the United States has been wrongly ignored and overlooked. Our analysis of data collected from fifteen years of National Labor Relations Board decisions on this issue provides powerful support for the conclusion that employers are using this doctrine to create roadblocks to agreement and to end collective bargaining relationships. Not only does it permit employers to deunionize and refuse to negotiate, it actually creates an incentive for employers to use the law as a tool to deunionize. As a result, a law enacted to promote collective bargaining has, instead, become one which destroys collective bargaining. Implementation has become anything but an obscure or rare event. Rather, it is now common and has played a part in high-profile labor disputes, including disputes at Caterpillar, the Detroit News, the National Football League, the baseball players strike, and International Paper. Unions and workers are not the only ones to suffer its destructive role. Even in less publicized cases, its impact on employers, workers, and the government, can be sizeable. In a recent case discussed in the article, the hearing lasted 60 nonconsecutive days and more than 1000 pages of briefs were filed. Approximately 450 employees, some of whom lost $17,000 a year, are entitled to back pay in addition to recompense for cutbacks in pensions, vacations, holidays, and other sorts of employee compensation. It is estimated that backpay will exceed $40 million. The back pay is so great the employers may be put out of business. Although it did not suffer personally, trying and deciding a case lasting sixty days was also enormously expensive for the government. Our preliminary analysis of the data leads us to conclude that this labor law doctrine has advanced far down the wrong road, with direct disastrous consequences for unions and workers. However, it should be borne in mind that although they suffer the most visible losses, they are not the only victims. The government bears the cost of investigating, prosecuting, and deciding cases, the vast majority of which lead to the conclusion that employer claims of impasse are frivolous. Surely this money could be put to better uses. Employers themselves do not escape costs. They risk enormous backpay liability, and most, whether they succeed or not before the Board, must deal with extended disruption to their workforces and productivity. In the end, this may be sufficient to put the company out of business.

'Dinosaurs' Are Not Dead: the Amieu (Qld) and Industrial Relations Change

With declining union membership and an Australian industrial relations climate hostile to trade unions, how do unions, particularly those regarded as 'classic'or 'traditional', adapt in order to survive? Shrinking industry bases often further com pound the situation facing these unions. The Queensland branch of the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union is such a union in such an industry. Denounced by critics as a 'dinosaur', the AMIEU (Qld) has demonstrated that it can adapt and evolve to meet the challenges raised by the Workplace Relations Act 1996 and industry employers, thereby answering these critics and rebutting this negative epithet.

Union status of young men in Britain: a decade of change

Previous empirical studies of individual union status in Britain have been cross-sectional. In contrast, we use longitudinal data from the National Child Development Study, to estimate the determinants of male trade union membership over the period 1981–1991. As suggested by union theories, we find that it is important to control for unobserved individual heterogeneity, and our preferred model allows for correlation of individual heterogeneity with observable variables. Our estimates reveal that the observed decline in very large workplaces, and the contraction of the public sector, explain about one third of the predicted decline in union membership over the period. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Trade Unionism in Transition in Central and Eastern Europe

This article evaluates progress towards independent trade unionism in the post-command economies of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and, in most detail, the Czech Republic. A general introduction is followed by presentation of survey evidence on the views and experiences of trade unionism among workers, union members and union representatives. Issues covered include changing attitudes towards trade unions over the first seven years of capitalist transformation, types of union-management relationships, trade union influence at the workplace, and problems of union decline and retention. The article addresses the relationship between employers and managers and unions, and that between workers and their unions. The conclusions drawn are that unions have made substantial progress in establishing the institutional frameworks of labour representation; but collective bargaining is weak; and unless union membership decline is reversed, labour representation as such seems vulnerable.

The High-Pressure U.S. Labor Market of the 1990s

This paper examines the impact of selected labor market changes on the decline in the unemployment rate in the 1990s. The first section provides an overview of aggregate unemployment trends, inflation, and price and wage Phillips curves. The second section examines the effect of demographic changes on the unemployment rate. The third section examines the impact of the 150 percent increase in the number of men in jail or prison since 1985 on the unemployment rate. The fourth section examines the impact of evolving labor market intermediaries (namely worker profiling by the Unemployment Insurance system and the growth of the temporary help industry) on the unemployment rate. The fifth section explores whether worker bargaining power has become weaker, allowing for low unemployment and only modest wage pressure, because of worker job anxiety, the decline in union membership, or increased competitive pressures. The final section examines the impact of the tightest labor market in a generation on poverty. Our main findings are that changes in the age structure of the labor force, the growth of the male prison population, and, more speculatively, the rise of the temporary help sector, are the main labor market forces behind the low unemployment rate in the late 1990s.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Delegate Structures and Strategic Unionism: Analysis of Factors in Union Resilience

This article examines the pattern of union membership decline in Australia using the 1995 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey data set (AWIRS 95), including the panel of surviving workplaces drawn from the 1990 survey. It confirms recent studies that suggest that the decline is more or less comprehensive, but points to some diversity in the longitudinal findings. In particular, the article tracks the growth of delegate structures in the previous five years in unionised workplaces, employee attitudes to unions, and the much slower rate of derline associated with 'active unionism', While it has been argued, not least by Joe Isaac (1958), that workplace organisation tended to 'atrophy' under compulsory arbitration, there is no automatic process by which it will correspondingly flourish under more decentralised bargaining arrangements. The AWIRS 95 findings suggest that the future of unions will be determined by a range of factors, which include their ability to build and co-ordinate delegate networks and hence the role of the state in providing legislative support for workplace organisation and fair wages. We argue that this, not a return to centralised wage restraint, sbould be the focus of strategic unionism.

Trade Union Decline and the Distribution of Wages in the UK: Evidence from Kernel Density Estimation

This paper assesses the impact of changes in union density on the male structure in the UK over the 1980s. Using four separate data sets, we estimate the kernel density of hourly wages for men. Counterfactual densities are then generated to predict how the distribution of wages has changed over time because of the decline in union membership. We find that approximately 20 percent of the increase in the variance of log wages over the period can be attributed to changes in unionisation. The effect is particularly strong in the latter part of the period. We also present disaggregated estimates of the impact of declining unionisation. Our results are robuts across all the data sets we examine and similar results are obtained if union coverage is used rather than union membership.

In Defence of Second-best Theory: State, Class and Capital in Social Policy

The sociology of post-fordism has facilitated the development of a new welfarism which suggests that economic globalisation, labour market flexibility, more complex patterns of family life and the dissolution of traditional class structures require a new welfare settlement. Since full employment, redistribution and expensive universal services are no longer seen as feasible, the new welfare can only justify social spending as investment in human capital and as the enhancement of individual opportunities. Welfare states are all driven in the same direction by the imperatives of international competition.A review of available evidence indicates that the progress of post-fordist social change is partial. Inequalities in life-chances have grown wider. Changes in patterns of employment and new legislation weaken the working class. The ruling class is well aware of its interests. Increases in productivity at a time when investment is not rising, the decline in union membership and militancy and the intensification of work coupled with a policy stance by both main parties that supports lower taxes, a shift in the tax burden downwards and a decline in state intervention all indicate that capital is in the ascendant in the UK. Comparative work shows that the policies pursued under different regimes can make a difference to welfare outcomes despite the increased stringency of competition. The traditional agenda of social policy – class inequality, the strength of capital and the policy programme of the nation-state – merits particular attention in Britain in the 1990s.

The Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers International Union: refining strategies for labor.

In a period of declining union membership and severe economic and environmental crisis it is important that labor unions rethink their traditional roles and organizational goals. Responding to some of these problems and reflecting a history of innovative and progressive unionism, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW) has sought to address occupational and environmental health problems within the context of a political struggle. This study suggests that by joining with the environmental movement and community activists, by pursuing a strategy of coalition building, and by developing an initiative to build and advocate for a new political party, OCAW provides a model for reinvigorating trade unionism in the United States.

Women as the Paradigmatic Trade Unionists? New Work, New Workers and New Trade Union Strategies in Conservative Britain

The British labor movement has responded to a lengthy period of economic restructuring, state hostility and a consequent decline in union membership and influence, with a wide-ranging strategic reevaluation of the relationship between women and trade unions. It is primarily the nature of the locations in the labor market occupied by women, and not the specific interests or experience that women bring to collective organization or action at work, that has driven British union strategy. As a result, the major strategic union innovation of the past decade has been an enhanced emphasis upon legislation, as both a substitute and a support for trade union action.

RESEARCH NOTE: Unions and Union Membership in New Zealand: Annual Review for 1995

This note reports our most recent survey of unions and union membership in New Zealand for the year ended 31 December 1995. It builds on our earlier surveys for the 31 December years for 1991-1994. The pattern already firmly established of declining union membership has continued with unions losing a further 13,700 members in the most recent year. This represents a decline of 3.6 percent over the number of union members at 31 December 1994. These losses occur at a time when the workforce (as measured by the Household Labour Force Survey) continues to grow and accordingly union density has fallen more sharply than has union membership itself.