Union Commitment Research Articles

A Comparative Look at Dual Commitment: An International Study

North American scholars have had an historical interest in the extent to which workers can be committed to both their employer and their union. This is particularly relevant given the recent emphasis on greater labor-management cooperation as part of a competitive strategy. This paper reviewed the correlational literature concerning the relationship between company and union commitment. Meta-analysis procedures were applied to the results of 76 samples involving a total of 15,699 respondents and found a mean corrected effect size of .42. The extended analyses included multiple studies from Canada, Japan, Sweden, and the United States. A system-level moderator, adversarial, or consensual approach to industrial relations, was found. While further moderator analysis was warranted, studies lacked sufficient information for coding. Conceptual and practical implications from the findings are drawn.

Organizational Commitment of Professional Employees in Union and Nonunion Research Libraries

This study was a comparative exploration of organizational (library) commitment among professional library employees in unionized and non unionized research libraries. Based on a survey of 400 individuals, the study examined organizational commitment and its relationship to (1) union presence; (2) union membership status; and (3) union commitment. The results of the statistical analysis revealed that union presence was a negative predictor of organizational loyalty; registered and nonregistered union members shared similar attitudes toward their employing organization; and union commitment tended to be a positive predictor of organizational commitment

Unions and Ethnic Diversity: The Israeli Case of East European Immigrants

This study examined the union activities and attitudes of 359 East European immigrants to Israel and compared them to those of 362 native-born Israelis. Two forms of union participation (formal and informal activities) and two attitudes (union commitment and union militancy) were examined. These variables were not only compared across the two subsamples, but three explanatory models of the variables were tested as well: the personal, the economic, and the socialization models. The findings showed immigrants to be more active than native-born Israelis in both formal and informal types of activities and more committed to the union. The three models explained more variance in the attitudes and behaviors of native-born Israelis and revealed some differences in the effects of various factors across the two subsamples. Implications for future research and possible strategies that unions could undertake to gain the support of minority workers were discussed

Alternatives to Lean Production: Work Organization in the Swedish Auto Industry.

The Swedish auto industry has developed a distinct production design and work organization, exploring alternatives to the assembly line and to the traditional shop-floor hierarchy, with a model of teamwork that increases independent decision making and elicits strong union commitment. Berggren evaluates in detail the reorganization of work within the Swedish auto industry from 1970 to 1990. In his introduction to the new edition, he explores the significance of Volvo's decision to close its two most innovative plants.

Cross-level analysis of the influence of local union structure on women's and men's union commitment.

Cross-level analysis of the influence of local union structure on women's and men's union commitment.

A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Union Commitment in Australia

This paper evaluates the applicability of the different factor structures of union commitment identified in previous studies to the Australian case. Confirmatory factor analysis results using LISREL VII suggest that union commitment is best represented by four distinct factors, 'union loyalty; 'responsibility to the union; 'willingness to work for the union', and 'belief in unionism' in this sample of Australian workers. OLS regression results indicate that the four factors are differentially related to a set of common predictor variables. White-collar workers reported higher levels of commit ment than blue-collar workers. Participation in leadership positions and previous ex perience with union handling of grievances significantly increased commitment to the union. The results suggest support for the generalizability of the factor structure of union commitment to Australia. Implications for future research are discussed.

Commitment and Insurance Agents' Job Perceptions, Attitudes, and Performance

Introduction Work describes a number of concepts relating to employee attachment to work related entities. Morrow (1983) has identified five such entities or facets of work commitment: commitment to one's organization, job, career or profession, union, and work values. While these forms of work commitment have received the most attention, other commitments such as those to a community have also been proposed and investigated (Steffy and Jones, 1988). It has been suggested that, since salespeople (e.g., insurance agents) clearly have multiple loyalties, multiple forms of work commitment should be considered within single investigations (e.g., Chonko, 1986; Johnston et al., 1990). Considerable attention has been paid over the years to the qualities of the measures used to tap commitment concepts (e.g., Koslowsky, Caspy, and Lazar, 1990; Mathieu and Farr, 1991), to identifying the antecedents and consequences of these concepts (e.g., Colarelli and Bishop, 1990; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990), and recently to how these forms of work commitment might interact to influence attitudes and performance behaviors. It is the last of these topics that constitutes the focus of this article. Blau and Boal (1987) were among the first to hypothesize how various forms of work commitment might interact to affect work related attitudes and behaviors. Their model crosses high and low levels of organizational commitment with high and low levels of job involvement, producing four types of employees. Their model predicts that job attitudes such as job satisfaction and behaviors such as turnover and absenteeism can be better understood by examining the interaction between organizational commitment and job involvement than by examining either form of work commitment separately. Positioning commitment variables as antecedents is also more consistent with the view that commitment is a processual phenomenon, affecting work related perceptions and outcomes, and not just a consequence of perceptions and attitudes (Johnston et al., 1990; Mowday, Porter, and Steers, 1982; Pinder, 1984; Wiener and Vardi, 1980). Vandenberg and Lance (1992), for example, used a structural equation model to demonstrate that organizational commitment caused satisfaction rather than satisfaction causing commitment. It is also consistent with the social information processing approach (Salancik and Pfeffer, 1978; Staw, 1986), which contends that perceptions and attitudes are highly variable and relatively unstable judgments that are easily influenced by such factors as preexisting attitudes (e.g., levels of commitment). Accordingly, this study examines the effects of commitment, separately and interactively, on the attitudes and behaviors of insurance agents. Agent work commitment is an important issue to the insurance industry because of the difficulty and costs associated with attracting and retaining productive agents and because of the direct impact agents have on the insurer's financial success. Job turnover among agents at independent agencies has been shown to be relatively low, but the loss of an experienced agent can be catastrophic (CPCU Journal, 1991). In the life insurance industry, on the other hand, agent retention from 1988-1990 averaged 19 percent (King, 1992). Life insurance companies are currently emphasizing the allocation of resources for agent training and seasoning, focusing on retention rather than on new producer recruitment (King, 1992). Research on agent work commitment should prove useful to such retention efforts. Because of the nature of the insurance industry, a direct replication of Blau and Boal's model using insurance agents is not appropriate, particularly because not all forms of work commitment are equally germane to the insurance industry. Union commitment, for example, is not applicable to the insurance agent domain. Organizational commitment also has less applicability to insurance agents than to other employee populations, because many insurance agents--particularly independent agents--sell numerous types of policies from several companies; thus, it is less logical to think of an agent's psychological attachment and desire to remain with a particular company. …

Stress and the union steward's role

AbstractThis paper develops and tests hypotheses concerning some psychological correlates of role ambiguity and role conflict in a population that has not been extensively studied in relation to stress, union stewards. Survey data on role ambiguity and role conflict, the indicators of stress, were collected from 285 stewards at the local union steward meeting, with the stewards perceiving a moderate amount of role ambiguity and perceiving a lesser amount of role conflict. The stewards were also asked about their role expectations, their motivations for remaining a steward, their grievance handling strategies, and their affective commitment toward the union and employer. Each of those four sets of variables was hypothesized to be related to role ambiguity and role conflict and each was influential in explaining variance. As predicted, those stewards who were more motivated to remain stewards for personal reasons had both higher role ambiguity and higher role conflict. Further, the conditions of being more motivated to remain a steward to help the union and employees and having higher union commitment were associated with lower role conflict, but, opposite to the hypotheses, higher role ambiguity.

An Empirical Assessment of the Multidimensionality of Union Participation

The purpose of this article is to explore empirically some similarities and differences among six forms of union participation: union commitment, participation in decision making, participation in union activities, attitudinal militancy, serving in elected offices and the propensity to strike. The study examines five models of union participation: the social background model, the work dissatisfaction model, the economic model, the structural model, and the socialization model. The research sample consisted of 603 employees from white collar occupations, members of local unions in Israel. The findings demonstrate that the forms of union participation are independent constructs. They also show that different theoretical explanations apply to different forms of participation. The conclusions indicate that a fundamental direction for future research should be to develop and test hypotheses that refer to specific forms of union participation.

The Development of Members' Attitudes toward Their Unions: Sweden and Canada

This study examines two widely researched attitudes of union members—satisfaction with and commitment to their union—using 1987–88 data on 1,675 union members in professional occupations in Sweden and 476 blue- and white-collar union members in Canada. The authors find, first, that union commitment and union satisfaction are theoretically and empirically different constructs. Second, tests of a theoretical model of union attitude formation indicate that different (though overlapping) sets of factors influence union commitment and union satisfaction. One finding is that activities and processes that provide members with greater information about the union, such as new member orientation programs, newsletters sent to members' homes, and participation in union activities, effectively promote union commitment, but not union satisfaction. The results are very similar across the two samples, suggesting that they have cross-cultural generalizability.

The union and its members: a psychological approach

This work explores three key topics in social psychology: the manner in which labour unions shape organizational behaviour, a relationship which has been effectively ignored in the literature; the organization of the union itself, a fascinating test case for the organizational psychologist; and the way in which theories and methods of organizational psychology may assist labor organizations in achieving their goals. Since the union maintains unique characteristics of democracy, conflict, and voluntary participation within a larger organization, the authors offer a detailed study of a union's dynamics, including demographic and personality predictors of membership, voting behaviour, union commitment and loyalty, the nature of participation, leadership styles, collective bargaining, among other topics. This is the first book to be published in the new Industrial and Organizational Psychology Series. It will be of interest to not only industrial and organizational psychologists in industry, academica, and private and public organizations, but to graduate students in psychology departments and business schools, and to academics and professionals in business and management studying industrial relations.

Determinants of Strike-Related Militancy: An Analysis of a University Faculty Strike

This article examines the determinants of differences in militancy among the union workers involved in a faculty strike at Temple University in 1990. Three forms of strike-related militancy are investigated: voting to continue the strike, voting to defy a court injunction, and picketing and related strike-support activities. The results indicate that job attitudes, attitudes toward the union, the perceived instrumentality of striking, attitudes toward militancy, social support, and some demographic variables were related to at least one form of militancy examined. The three forms of militancy, however, had different determinants. For example, social support and union commitment were significantly related to the more risky and confrontational forms of militancy, but not to voting to continue a strike.

The Relationship Between Union Commitment and Gender: Some Qualifying Factors

The Relationship Between Union Commitment and Gender: Some Qualifying Factors

Production workers' reactions to a plant closing: The role of transfer, stress, and support

This study investigated the reactions of Canadian unionized production workers following a plant closing announcement. Workers who had been transferred reported significantly greater job security, more trust in the company, greater commitment to the company, and higher job performance than workers who remained at the plant. They also reported less trust in their union than the remaining workers. Perceived supervisor support was positively related to company trust and company commitment and perceived union support was positively associated with union trust and union commitment. High stress appraisal (perceived injustice and job insecurity) was associated with increased strain, lower job performance, reduced trust in the company, and reduced company commitment, but had no significant effect on the union-related outcomes. The implications of these findings for companies and unions are discussed.

An empirical assessment of the multidimensionality of union participation

The purpose of this article is to explore empirically some similarities and differences among six forms of union participation: union commitment, participation in decision making, participation in union activities, attitudinal militancy, serving in elected offices and the propensity to strike. The study examines five models of union participation: the social background model, the work dissatisfaction model, the economic model, the structural model, and the socialization model.The research sample consisted of 603 employees from white collar occupations, members of local unions in Israel. The findings demonstrate that the forms of union participation are independent constructs. They also show that different theoretical explanations apply to different forms of participation. The conclusions indicate that a fundamental direction for future research should be to develop and test hypotheses that refer to specific forms of union participation.

The Union & Its Members: A Psychological Approach

Organizational psychology and unions The structure of labor organizations The unionization process Union commitment Union participation Union leadership: The role of the shop steward Breakdowns in the unionization process Effects of unions on organizational behavior Concluding thoughts and challenges Index.

Attitudinal Militancy and Propensity to Strike Among Unionized Engineers and X-Ray Technicians

This study examines whether attitudinal militancy and propensity to strike represent two different constructs. The study also examines the joint effects of five models, each representing a different theoretical approach, upon the two dependent variables: propensity to strike and attitudinal militancy. Unionized employees of two occupational groups in Israel, 139 engineers, and 125 X-ray technicians, are surveyed. In general, the findings show that attitudinal militancy and propensity to strike are two independent constructs. This conclusion is supported by the factor analysis findings, the intercorrelations between the items of the measures, and the results of the regression analyses indicating different patterns of effects of the research models upon attitudinal militancy and propensity to strike. The findings also demonstrate that the commitment model and union commitment in particular, is an important determinant of union militancy. Discussion of the implications of these findings and how they relate to future investigation of union militancy conclude the paper.

Union Loyalty and Strike Propensity

Abstract Predictors of the propensity of union members to strike were examined by administering questionnaires to a group of 44 unionized university technologists and technicians in Canada. After union tenure was statistically controlled, union loyalty predicted strike propensity and inter-role conflict moderated this effect: Specifically, the relationship between union loyalty and strike propensity was significantly higher when inter-role conflict was low. Suggestions for future research on union commitment and on strike propensity are offered, and practical suggestions for enhancing union participation are identified.

THE INFLUENCE OF LAYOFF SEVERITY ON POSTLAYOFF UNION COMMITMENT AMONG SURVIVORS: THE MODERATING EFFECT OF THE PERCEIVED LEGITIMACY OF A LAYOFF ACCOUNT

This study used a moderated cross‐level design to predict union commitment among 355 union survivors after layoffs. Survivors experiencing varying degrees of layoffs at 15 job sites judged the legitimacy of the company's layoff explanation. In each case, the account implicated the union as the agent responsible for the layoff decision. Company records were used to aggregate layoff severity within job site. Survey measures were used to assess retrospective belief in the account and commitment to the union after the layoff event. Based on interactional justice theory, a significant interaction was predicted between layoff severity and belief in the account as related to postlayoff union commitment. Survivors with higher levels of belief in the account were expected to be less committed to the union than those with moderate or lower levels of belief under more severe layoffs. Moderated regression analyses of overall commitment supported the expected interaction. Regression analyses of commitment components revealed that only willingness to work for the union was affected by the interaction. Additional analyses, in which the willingness to work component was regressed onto layoff severity within high to low belief subgroups, were also consistent with the prediction. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings for company and union officials in managing union survivors are discussed.

The impact of developments in welfare corporatism upon Japanese workplace trade unionism

This paper seeks a re–evaluation of the theory of Japanese welfare corporatism as an explanatory construct for the maximizing of worker and union commitment to the objectives of the firm. Drawing upon the evidence of a workplace trade–union survey of shop stewards' and union branch officials' attitudes towards attachment to the firm, promotion expectations, the importance of trade unions and industrial relations, it is concluded that welfare corporatism is far from being a complete explanation of the state of contemporary Japanese industrial relations.