IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/20126.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Frustrated demand for unionisation: the case of the United States and Canada revisited

Author

Listed:
  • Gomez, Rafael
  • Lipset, Seymour Martin
  • Meltz, Noah

Abstract

In this paper we demonstrate that there is a substantial union representation gap in the United States. We arrive at this conclusion by comparing Canadian and American worker responses to questions relating to desired union representation. We find that a majority of the gap in union density between Canada and the US is a function of greater frustrated demand on the part of American workers. We then estimate potential union density rates for the United States and Canada and find that, given current levels of union membership in both countries, if effective demand for unionisation among non-union workers were realised, then this would imply equivalently higher rates of unionisation (37 and 36 percent in the US and Canada respectively). These results cast some doubt on the view that even minor reforms to labour legislation in the US, to bring them in line with those in most Canadian jurisdictions, would do nothing to improve the rate of organising success in the United States. The results also have implications for countries such as Britain who have recently moved closer to a Wagner-Act model of statutory recognition.

Suggested Citation

  • Gomez, Rafael & Lipset, Seymour Martin & Meltz, Noah, 2001. "Frustrated demand for unionisation: the case of the United States and Canada revisited," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20126, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:20126
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/20126/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. P Willman, 2000. "The Viability of Trade Union Organisation: A Bargaining Unit Analysis," CEP Discussion Papers dp0477, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    2. Stephen Nickell & Patricia Jones & Glenda Quintini, 2002. "A Picture of Job Insecurity Facing British Men," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(476), pages 1-27, January.
    3. Marsden, David, 2000. "Teachers before the 'threshold'," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 3641, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Stephen Machin, 2000. "Union Decline in Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 38(4), pages 631-645, December.
    5. Willman, Paul, 2000. "The viability of trade union organisation: a bargaining unit analysis," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20159, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Stephen Nickell & John Van Reenen, 2001. "Technological Innovation and Performance in the United Kingdom," CEP Discussion Papers dp0488, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    7. Stephen Nickell & Glenda Quintini, 2003. "Nominal wage rigidity and the rate of inflation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(490), pages 762-781, October.
    8. Litwin, Adam Seth, 2000. "Trade unions and industrial injury in Great Britain," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20169, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. A Charlwood & K Hansen & David Metcalf, 2000. "Unions and the Sword of Justice: Unions and Pay Systems, Pay Inequality, Pay Discrimination and Low Pay," CEP Discussion Papers dp0452, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    10. Metcalf, David & Hansen, Kirstine & Charlwood, Andy, 2000. "Unions and the sword of justice: unions and pay systems, pay inequality, pay discrimination and low pay," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20195, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Gospel, Howard & Lockwood, Graeme & Willman, Paul, 2000. "The right to know: disclosure of information for collective bargaining and joint consultation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20192, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Howard Gospel & G Lockwood & P Willman, 2000. "The Right to Know: Disclosure of Information for Collective Bargaining and Joint Consultation," CEP Discussion Papers dp0453, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    13. A. S. Litwin, 2000. "Trade Unions and Industrial Injury in Great Britain," CEP Discussion Papers dp0468, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Epp Kallaste & Charles Woolfson, 2009. "The Paradox of Post-Communist Trade Unionism: ‘You Can't Want What You Can't Imagine’," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 20(1), pages 93-109, December.
    2. Alex Bryson & Rafael Gomez & Morley Gunderson & Noah Meltz, 2005. "Youth-Adult Differences in the Demand for Unionization: Are American, British, and Canadian Workers All That Different?," Journal of Labor Research, Transaction Publishers, vol. 26(1), pages 155-167, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alex Bryson & P Willman, 2007. "Union Organization in Great Britain," CEP Discussion Papers dp0774, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    2. Burgess, Simon & Profit, Stefan, 2001. "Externalities in the matching of workers and firms in ritain," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 313-333, June.
    3. Stephen Redding & Mercedes Vera-Martin, 2006. "Factor Endowments and Production in European Regions," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 142(1), pages 1-32, April.
    4. Di Liberto, Adriana, 2008. "Education and Italian regional development," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 94-107, February.
    5. Dickens & David T. Ellwood, 2004. "Whither Poverty in Great Britain and the United States? The Determinants of Changing Poverty and Whether Work Will Work," NBER Chapters, in: Seeking a Premier Economy: The Economic Effects of British Economic Reforms, 1980–2000, pages 313-370, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Faggio, Guilia & Nickell, Stephen, 2005. "The responsiveness of wages to labour market conditions in the UK," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(5), pages 685-696, October.
    7. Alan Manning, 2006. "A Generalised Model of Monopsony," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(508), pages 84-100, January.
    8. David Metcalf, 2001. "British Unions: Dissolution or Resurgence Revisited," CEP Discussion Papers dp0493, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    9. Gomez, Rafael & Gunderson, Morley & Meltz, Noah, 2001. "From 'playstations' to 'workstations': youth preferences for unionisation in Canada," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20100, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Gabriele Mazzolini, 2014. "The economic consequences of accidents at work," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def015, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    11. Brian Bell & Nicholas Bloom & Jack Blundell, 2021. "This time is not so different: income dynamics during the Covid-19 recession," POID Working Papers 012, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    12. Florentino Felgueroso & María J. Pérez‐Villadóniga & Juan Prieto‐Rodriguez, 2008. "The Effect Of The Collective Bargaining Level On The Gender Wage Gap: Evidence From Spain," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 76(3), pages 301-319, June.
    13. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2005. "From sectoral to functional urban specialisation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 343-370, March.
    14. Alison L. Booth & Mark L. Bryan, 2004. "The Union Membership Wage-Premium Puzzle: Is There a Free Rider Problem?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 57(3), pages 402-421, April.
    15. Manfred Keil & Donald Robertson & James Symons, 2001. "Minimum Wages and Employment," CEP Discussion Papers dp0497, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    16. Combes, Pierre-Philippe & Duranton, Gilles, 2006. "Labour pooling, labour poaching, and spatial clustering," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 1-28, January.
    17. Richard Belfield & David Marsden, 2002. "Matchmaking: the Influence of Monitoring Environments on the Effectiveness of Performance Pay Systems," CEP Discussion Papers dp0543, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    18. repec:ilo:ilowps:455310 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Juan Francisco Canal Domínguez & César Rodríguez Gutiérrez, 2004. "Collective Bargaining and Within‐firm Wage Dispersion in Spain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 42(3), pages 481-506, September.
    20. repec:ctc:serie1:def15 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Rachel Aleks & Tina Saksida & Sam Kolahgar, 2021. "Practice What You Preach: The Gender Pay Gap in Labor Union Compensation," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 403-435, October.
    22. Jianwei Li & David Metcalf, 2005. "Chinese Unions: Nugatory or Transforming? An 'Alice' Analysis," CEP Discussion Papers dp0708, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Frustrated Demand for Unionisation: the Case of the United States and Canada Revisited;

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:20126. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.