Cohort Differences in Swedish Union Membership 1956–2019 and the Role of Individualization

Discussions of the role of cohort differences have long been part of academic research on union membership, with a central hypothesis being that the general decline in unionization is caused by changes toward more individualistic values in the younger generations. However, the short time span of most studies makes it uncertain if they can separate cohort effects from age effects. Using survey data going back to 1956, we test the individualization hypothesis. Our main result is that later Swedish cohorts are indeed less prone to join unions. In particular, the differences between cohorts born before and after ca 1970 are striking. We also provide evidence that the erosion in union membership in Sweden is not related to changes toward more individualistic values in later cohorts, or even to more negative views of unions per se.

Labor Unions in the United States

Labor unions are major participants in the world of work in the United States and abroad. Although union membership in the United States has steadily declined since the 1950s, unions continue to provide a critical countervailing force to the largely unchecked power of employers, whose strength has increased. Hence, to be successful in meeting their goals, unions must learn to deal creatively with the realities of automation, globalization, privatization, de-unionization, and the trend toward contingent work arrangements. Nonetheless, despite the disadvantages and struggles they face, labor unions in 2020 represented almost 16 million wage and salary workers, who have families who vote; therefore, they remain a core constituency for political and corporate America and a significant part of the economic landscape in this country and abroad. Unions remain a core constituency and continue to be a significant part of the economic landscape in this country and beyond.

Rationalizing the irrational: Making sense of (in)consistency among union members and non-members

Focusing on 13 OECD countries over 25 years, we examine the factors that explain why a sizable fraction of wage-earners exhibit an inconsistency between their union membership status and their confidence in unions by being either confident non-members or non-confident members. While structural factors associated with joining constraints generate inconsistency in specific labour market categories, wage-earners who have extreme ideological orientations and are highly interested in politics are much less likely to exhibit inconsistency across time and countries. For individuals who have intermediate ideological orientations and are not very interested in politics, differences in terms of non-member and member inconsistency between countries are explainable through contextual variables such as economic conditions, the level of employment protection, and historical legacies. Implications for union membership research and union strategies are discussed.

Millennials give US unions hope but need new focus

Significance Unions remain well-entrenched in the public sector, but their influence has fallen in much of the private sector. One exception is workers in knowledge-based industries, often Millennials, who are injecting activism on social issues and corporate policy into the idea of union membership. Impacts Blue-collar industrial union membership will not revive as such jobs will not return despite political claims otherwise. Job security and wage protection will remain the main attraction of unions for low-paid manual and service workers. Unions will seek large pay rises next year as, historically, unionised wages track non-unionised raises with a slight lag.

Class identity in times of social mobilization and labor union revitalization: Evidence from the case of Chile (2009–2019)

Over the past decade, there has been a revival of social protest and labor union activity in Chile. In this article, we examine the effects of this phenomenon to analyze its influence on working-class identity. Using International Social Survey Programme surveys from 2009 and 2019, we investigate whether class location and union membership affect people’s subjective identification with the working class and how that effect may have changed over the decade. Our findings suggest that subjects who are situated in a ‘subordinated’ class position (unskilled workers or informal self-employed workers) are more likely to identify with the working class compared to subjects located in a privileged class position (employers, experts, or managers). However, surprisingly, our analysis does not indicate that working-class identity is reinforced by union membership. In addition, our results do not demonstrate that the effect of class or union membership has strengthened over the past decade. At the end of this article, we offer some possible explanations for these findings.

Was it worth it? The impact of the German minimum wage on union membership of employees

This contribution scrutinises how introducing a statutory minimum wage of EUR 8.50 per hour, in January 2015, impacted German employees’ decision with regard to union membership. Based on representative data from the Labour Market and Social Security panel, the study applies a logistic difference-in-differences propensity score matching approach on entries into and withdrawals from unions in the German Trade Union Confederation (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, DGB). The results show no separate effect on withdrawals from or entries into unions after the minimum wage introduction for those employees who benefited financially from it, but a significant increase of entries overall. Thus, unions’ campaign for a minimum wage strengthened their position in total but did not reverse the segmentation of union membership patterns.

Union Membership as a Moderator in the Relationship Between Living Wage, Job Satisfaction and Employee Engagement

In many developing countries, lower-level employees are working in workplaces that pay them poverty wages. The need for workers to earn a living wage has long been argued, both within the trade union movement, employers and society, along with the link with job satisfaction and employee engagement. The present study aims to explore the relationship between living wage, job satisfaction and employee engagement, as well as union membership as a moderator in these relationships. A quantitative research approach was employed in this study, and Loess curves were used to graphically predict the relationship between study variables. There were significant relationships between a living wage, job satisfaction and employee engagement. The results indicated that the relationships between the variables were cubic and not linear. Union membership was the moderator in the relationship between living wages and employee involvement. Union membership moderated the cubic relationship between living wages and employee engagement. Union membership also moderated the cubic relationship between living wages and job satisfaction.