importance of unions essay

Ten reasons why unions are important

Today, working people in the UK are facing unprecedented attacks on their right to organise, including their right to strike – with the current UK government introducing the most repressive legislation in decades. A new anti-strike law undermines hard won workers’ rights and aims to silence those who challenge the UK government’s broken economic policies.  

War on Want is proud to stand in solidarity with workers in the UK and around the world — many of whom face intimidation and retaliation for organising into trade unions.    

There are so many reasons why unions are important — here are just ten of them:  

1. Unity is strength

Unions enable workers to come together as a powerful, collective voice to communicate with management about their working terms and conditions – and to push for safe, fair and decent work.  

Working people need the protection of a union now more than ever. Many employers around the world have tried to divide workers and cut through workers’ rights legislation by shifting the focus away from their own responsibilities towards their workers. Whether by arguing that ‘gig-economy’ workers are self-employed ‘contractors’ rather than employees; or by distancing themselves from the workers in Global South supply chains, who produce the products they profit from.  

Global corporations and fashion brands are keen to point to the thousands of jobs they create. However, without ensuring the essential rights of workers are respected and maintained, this is not decent work.  

Decent work is about the right to employment to begin with, and that employers should provide a living wage for the employee and the family. It should ensure workplace safety without discrimination and the right of employees to organise as trade unions. Anton Marcus , Joint Secretary of FTZ&GSEU in Sri Lanka

2. Better terms and conditions

Workers who join a trade union are more likely to have better terms and conditions than those who do not, because trade unions negotiate for their members through collective bargaining agreements and protect them from bad management practices.   

All aspects of working life should be the subject of discussion and agreement between employers and employees under the protection of a trade union. Trained representatives of the union lead these negotiations on behalf of employees. Unions work constructively with progressive employers to ensure that company changes affecting employees are in the interest of both workers and employer. 

3. More holiday

Unions won the right for workers to have paid holidays. The average trade union member in the UK gets over 25% more annual leave a year than a non-unionised worker.  

4. Higher wages

You earn more in a unionised workplace. Trade union members in the UK earn on average 10% more than non-unionised members. This is the power of collective bargaining.

While many companies post record profits, workers in the UK are feeling the devastating effects of years of real-term pay decreases and cuts to vital public services. Amid a cost-of-living crisis that is dragging more and more people towards poverty, hundreds of thousands of unionised public sector workers have been left with no alternative but to go on strike.  

The UK government should be getting around the table and having meaningful discussions with workers and trade unions to find solutions to the deepening in-work poverty people are facing. Instead, it is undermining the vital role of unions in representing and fighting for the rights of workers.     

Strike action is always a last resort — no worker wants to go on strike and lose pay. But throughout history, union-organised strike action has been a crucial tactic for workers in securing fair pay and working conditions.  

In 2017, MacDonald’s workers made history when they joined the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union (BFAWU) and went on strike — the McStrike  — for the first time ever.  McDonald’s makes billions every year, but it doesn’t pay its fair share of taxes – or its workers living wages. The McStrike industrial action won McDonald’s workers across the UK the biggest pay rise in over ten years.  

5. Equal opportunities, and protection against discrimination  

Unions fight for equal opportunities in the workplace. Trade unions have fought for laws that give rights to workers: the minimum wage, maximum working time, paid holidays, equal pay for work of equal value as well as anti-discrimination laws.   

It is the trade union movement that is fighting back against the discriminatory and unjust practices of our broken economic system. In Sri Lanka, War on Want’s trade union partner FTZ-GSEU has been at the forefront of battling for workers for over 30 years. So-called ‘free-trade zones’ have eroded the rights of workers around the globe; and in Sri Lanka, as elsewhere, it is mainly women who are most affected by reduced regulations and weak worker protections. 

Separately, women from across the world have joined together to speak out about the sexual harassment they have faced whilst working at McDonald’s. Workers in the USA have even taken strike action. In the UK, the BFAWU-led campaign has led to McDonald’s entering a legal agreement with the Equality and Human Rights Commission to protect workers from sexual harassment. 

6. Better parental leave

Unions are responsible for securing and improving maternity, paternal and carer leave for millions of workers.    

In the UK, unionised workplaces are much more likely to have maternity, paternal and carer leave policies in place which are more generous than the statutory minimum.  

7. Security and stability

Trade union members are more likely to stay in their jobs for longer, on average five years more than non-unionised workers.

8. Health and safety  

Unionised workplaces are safer workplaces.  In the UK, there are 50% fewer accidents in unionised workplaces. Local safety representatives, appointed by trade union shops, deal with issues ranging from stress and mental health issues to hazardous substances, representing their colleagues’ health and safety interests to management.  

9. Legal support

If you have a problem at work, unions can offer legal services and advice.  

In situations such as disciplinary and grievance hearings, your union representative can give you expert advice, support and representation from start to finish. Unions have legal teams who will make sure you are treated fairly and won’t charge you legal fees. Your union will be there for you whether the problem is with employment contracts, harassment, redundancy, pensions or discrimination.  

10. Having someone in your corner

As a union member you are part of something bigger – and have the support of the union when you need it.  

Trade unions are part of an international movement. Global worker solidarity is crucial to ending the worst abuses and injustice working people face, and to push back against poverty, climate breakdown and inequality. War on Want regularly asks our affiliates from the UK trade union movement to stand in solidarity with other workers across the world in their own struggles to protect their livelihoods and right to organise.

Workers against poverty 

War on Want believes that poverty is political. It is the result of decisions made by those who hold power — governments and corporations — and a broken economic system which generates increasing wealth and power for elites at the expense of the majority of people on this earth. Unions have been central to War on Want’s work throughout our history as they are crucial to the fight against global poverty. We know that around the world, organised workers achieve more collectively than they can as individuals.  

The Covid-19 pandemic shone a light on those workplaces and sectors where poor pay and conditions had become almost normalised, where the gap between rich and poor has grown exponentially, and where wealth is rewarded while poverty is punished. 

Here in the UK, it was the trade union movement, not the government, who fought for the furlough scheme which helped many workers to keep their heads above water. And in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, it was garment worker unions who fought for compensation for workers dismissed in factory closures when global fashion brands cancelled orders – and didn’t pay for work already completed – while continuing to make huge profits.  

Our partnerships with workers’ associations and trade unions focus on building strong, representative and effective worker-led organisations that have the knowledge and skills to create and use opportunities to engage with government and employers to realise safe, decent work. War on Want will continue to work with our affiliates here in the UK and our partners representing and organising workers across the Global South. 

First published on 12 Feb 2018, updated in Feb 2023. 

More debt won't solve Sri Lanka's debt crisis

Secrets and Fries: McDonald’s £295 million tax dodge

Garment Workers: Paying the price of the pandemic

• Garment workers

• Poverty is political
• Trade deals
• Global Green New Deal
• Militarism and repression
• Take action
• Become a member
• Affiliate your trade union
• Sign up for emails
• Leave a gift in your will
• Fundraise for War on Want

Subscribe to Heddels

Don’t miss a single Heddels post. Sign up for our free newsletter below!

What Are Unions and Why Are They Important?

What is a labor union and when were they first formed?

Dispatch riders waiting outside the TUC headquarters in 1926, UK. Image via TUC

Union formation really began to pick up in the United Kingdom around the time of the Industrial Revolution (1760-1840), when new factories popped up swiftly and had little regard for the conditions its employees had to endure. Workers fought back and settled many disputes, giving rise to “combinations” of colleagues protecting their rights.

Most early unions were on behalf of those in textile industries, as well as mechanics and blacksmiths, and although they laid the groundwork for organizations to continue to improve the lives of workers across the world, it’s worth remembering that they certainly weren’t inclusive of everyone. Despite the National Labor Union’s attempts to insist that it didn’t discriminate against “race or nationality” in 1869, the organization continually failed to fight hard enough for the rights of African-Americans and women, so in the same year, the Colored National Labor Union was formed.

Like this? Read these:

Incense 101: History and Products

Home Grows – How to Garden New Life From Throwaways

What are unions like today.

A woman strikes at the Grunwick film processing plant in London, 1976. Image via The Guardian

Unionized teachers on strike in Chicago in 2019. Image via Quartz.

At this point, it’s worth noting that laws surrounding unions vary drastically between different countries, depending on its history and politics. 

What are the plus (and minus) points of unions?

Martin Luther King Jr. and Joachim Prinz at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. Image via AFL-CIO

How does the “right to work” relate to labor unions in the United States?

Campaigners from the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists in 2017. Image via In These Times

The general gist is that it entitles workers to be employed in ‘unionized’ workplaces (what’s called a ‘closed shop’) without joining a union. They can also leave a union at any time without having to fear losing their job, as was once the case. As well, even if an employee isn’t a union member, the right-to-work state law allows them to still access the benefits that the organizations offer, only they’ll likely be required to pay a fee for certain services.

Women in Bangladesh campaign for better working conditions with a representative from the labor rights organization Solidarity Centre. Image via Solidarity Centre

In the region, labor unions have become so key to the improvement of working conditions, pay, and job security that their representation can often be the difference between life and death.

Previous Article

Sage de cret’s khaki field jacket flaunts corduory, nylon, and terry cloth, next article, square trade’s incense cones are hand-dipped in richmond, va.

Related Articles

Home — Essay Samples — Life — Labor Union — History, Functions, and Future of Labor Unions

History, Functions, and Future of Labor Unions

• Categories: Labor Union

About this sample

Words: 554 |

Published: Jan 30, 2024

Words: 554 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

History of labor unions, functions and benefits of labor unions, criticisms and controversies surrounding labor unions, current challenges and future of labor unions, major milestones in the labor union movement, protection of workers' rights, advocacy for worker-friendly policies.

• Johnston, R. M. (2012). The history of the labor movement in the United States. Princeton University Press.
• Greenhouse, S. (2014). The big squeeze: Tough times for the American worker. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
• Hacker, J. S., & Pierson, P. (2015). American amnesia: How the war on government led us to forget what made America prosper. Simon & Schuster.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof Ernest (PhD)

Verified writer

• Expert in: Life

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

3 pages / 1579 words

2 pages / 808 words

6 pages / 2883 words

2 pages / 1019 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Labor Union

Sweatshop labor, also known as slave labor, is a prevalent issue in many developing countries where workers are exploited for low wages and subjected to harsh working conditions. This essay will examine a case study of a [...]

In his essay Panopticism, Michel Foucault discusses power and discipline, the manipulation there of, and their effect on society over time. He also discusses Jeremy Benthams Panopticon and other disciplinary models. However, [...]

The degree in finance or business is a condition for getting jobs in the financial industry, but what if you don't acquire one , and really want to work in this field? While it is more difficult for someone with a non-financial [...]

I strongly agree with the statement above that people work more productively in teamwork than individually. For my part, through cooperation in teamwork, we can not only divide our work and emphasize specialization to achieve [...]

In the case that the general evaluation, development, as well as, management of a patient’s care requires highly skilled services, then there is the need for the involvement of both technical and on the other hand professional [...]

Agriculture accounts for 17.5% of India’s GDP and about half of the total employment (2015-16). Two-thirds of India’s population depends on agriculture and related activities for livelihoods. Indian government plays a vital [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

• Competition
• Inequality & Mobility
• Tax & Macroeconomics
• Value Added
• Elevating Research
• Connect with an Expert
• In the Media
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy

Connect with us

• Washington Center for Equitable Growth
• 740 15th St. NW 8th Floor
• Washington, D.C. 20005
• Phone: 202.545.6002

Factsheet: How strong unions can restore workers’ bargaining power

May 1, 2020.

Bargaining Power

Job Mobility

Minimum Wage

Unions in the United States have long been one of the most powerful institutions through which workers achieved higher pay and better working conditions. In the middle decades of the 20th century, a strong labor movement empowered workers and helped them secure many of the rights and protections that now are also part of many nonunionized workers’ nonwage benefits, including the expansion of healthcare, access to family leave, the minimum wage, and work-free weekends, just to name a few.

But a decades-long decline of unions has weakened workers’ ability to fight for a fairer workplace. About 10 percent workers are union members today, compared to 35 percent of the U.S. workforce in the mid-1950s. Over the past 40 years, the power of organized labor has declined alongside a steep rise in income inequality, the erosion of labor standards, and employers’ ability to dictate and suppress wages.

Yet unions still play an important role in shaping U.S. labor market outcomes, helping both union and nonunion members share in the economic value they create. This factsheet details those outcomes, including:

• Strong unions benefit both union and nonunion members.
• A small share of workers are part of a union today, but many want to belong to one.
• Strong unions can counteract employers’ wage-setting power.
• Strikes remain a powerful way for workers to achieve fair wages and better working conditions.

Before examining each of these in turn, however, it’s important to look briefly at how the steady decline in the power of unions since the 1970s is one of the most important causes behind the rise of income inequality in the United States.

Rising U.S. income inequality amid declining union membership

At least since 1936, there has been a strong inverse relationship between union membership and income inequality. More than just a story of correlation, research shows that from 1940 to 1970—the decades when U.S. union density was at its highest—organized labor represented a greater share of workers of color and workers with lower levels of education, raising their wages and narrowing the gap between incomes at the top and the bottom of the income ladder. As membership rates declined and the composition of unions changed, however, the equalizing effect of organized labor became less powerful. (See Figure 1.)

This research on declining union membership challenges an influential explanation of why income inequality has risen sharply since the 1970s. The theory of skills-biased technological change proposes that workplace innovations raised employers’ demand for workers with higher levels of education, leaving behind those without a college degree. According to this theory, highly skilled workers’ improved labor market standing drives them to exit unions because they can obtain higher wages without collective bargaining.

Yet the opposite happened. Unions now represent workers with higher levels of education , and in the past two decades, income inequality has grown most between workers with the same level of education, with women and black workers with higher education degrees experiencing greater pay gaps.

Strong unions benefit all workers

The first set of facts about the importance of unions is that they benefit all workers. Union members have higher wages than their nonunionized peers—what researchers call the union wage premium —but organized labor helps create conditions that make all workers better off. By leveraging the possibility of unionizing, workers overall are in a better bargaining position to negotiate for higher pay and better working conditions.

More generally, strong unions are able to set job-quality standards that nonunion businesses have to meet in order to compete for workers. Known as the spillover effect , this mechanism helps explain why:

• Low- and middle-waged workers experienced important pay and benefits gains during the height of the labor movement in the middle of the 20th century.
• Residents of states with greater unionization rates are more likely to have access to health insurance.
• Average nonunion wages are higher in highly unionized industries.

Strong unions also allow organized labor to institutionalize norms of equity and fair pay . Even though the majority of union members were white and male during the height of the labor movement, organized labor strongly supported redistributive public policies that contributed to narrowing racial and gender pay gaps. Research shows, for example, that collective bargaining’s positive effect on earnings is particularly strong for black and Hispanic workers, helping reduce wage inequality. Likewise, women who are part of a union experience smaller gender wage gaps than their nonunionized peers.

A small share of workers are part of a union today, but many want to belong to one

The second set of facts show that workers are eager to join unions. U.S. labor law and a business environment antagonistic to organized labor prevent many workers from joining a union, yet public attitudes toward the U.S. labor movement have become increasingly positive over the past 30 years. A 2018 study found, for example, that 48 percent of nonunion workers would vote to join a union if they had the opportunity to do so. This number represents an important increase with respect to similar surveys conducted in 1977 and 1995, when only a third of respondents answered they would.

This research also shows that the ability to bargain collectively is very important to workers. Respondents to surveys asking why they wanted to become part of a union answered that the legal right to negotiate wages, benefits, and working conditions would significantly raise the likelihood of them joining a union. Workers were also enthusiastic about the prospect of joining labor organizations that allowed them to access unemployment benefits, as well as portable health insurance and retirement savings coverage.

Strong unions can counteract employers’ wage-setting power

The third set of facts demonstrates why unions can offset employers’ wage-setting power. The decades-long decline in union density has limited workers’ ability to push back against what economists call monopsony power : firms’ ability to use their market power to dictate and suppress earnings. Challenging traditional economic thinking on the wage-setting process, new sources of data have enabled researchers to show that labor markets are often uncompetitive, with wide-ranging factors such as corporate concentration , the widespread use of noncompete agreements , and the declining value of the federal minimum wage making it more difficult to move easily between jobs and, in turn, increasing employers’ power vis-à-vis workers.

Through an exhaustive analysis of the existing literature, researchers find evidence that monopsonistic labor markets are widespread, leading to important markdowns in wages for many workers. Using data from the hiring website CareerBuilder.com, for example, empirical research shows that going from a more competitive local labor market to a more concentrated one was associated with a 17 percent decline in the wages that employers posted on the website.

Unions can counteract monopsony power by limiting firms’ ability to extract “rents” from workers, where rents are defined as employers’ capacity to pay workers less than the value of what they produce. To do so, however, unions need the support of legislation that protects the right to organize, enforcement of regulation that prevents workplace abuses, and policies that allow collective action such as strikes.

Strikes remain a powerful way for workers to achieve fair wages and better working conditions

The fourth set of facts shows why the right to strike remains important. By striking, workers are able to use their labor as leverage and demand higher pay, better working conditions, and protest unfair practices by employers. That strikes are now much less frequent, successful, and popular than during the height of the labor movement has therefore weakened unions’ ability to counterbalance the power of employers.

Yet strikes keep playing an important role in workers’ struggle for a fairer workplace. There has been a significant rise in work stoppages since 2018, and the evidence shows that strikes can continue to be successful tools for the U.S. labor movement, particularly when organizers are able to build up goodwill though political education.

When studying the large-scale walkouts by public schools in 2018, for example, economists found that parents who had firsthand exposure to these strikes were more likely to support and join organized labor. The researchers found that strikes improved attitudes toward unions because educators were able to both leverage school staffing shortages and effectively communicate the worthiness of their demands, convincing parents of the public goods that collective action generates for their children and communities.

How to restore workers’ bargaining power

Unions remain important to all workers, as our sets of facts above detail, but in order to foster broadly shared economic growth, both unions and existing labor law need to adapt to the changing nature of work. During the past 40 years, the erosion of U.S. labor standards and changes in the way firms structure their businesses has made it harder for workers to join unions and bargain collectively.

Rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court have limited the ability of public-sector unions to collect dues, as well as made it more difficult for workers overall to band together and sue their employers for workplace misconduct. Likewise, businesses’ shift away from directly employing workers and toward contracting—a phenomenon researchers call the fissuring of the workplace —hurt workers’ career-advancement opportunities and earnings, as well as unions’ ability to counteract the power of employers.

Because of these new challenges, unions need to advocate for an updated vision for U.S. labor policy. Through their “ Clean Slate Agenda ,” Sharon Block and Benjamin Sachs of Harvard Law School developed such a framework, creating a series of proposals for structural legal changes that would protect workers and give them the ability to countervail employers’ power. Their recommendations include:

• Sectoral collective bargaining that enables unions to negotiate with industries rather than individual firms, increasing organized labor’s power to lift wages, set industrywide standards, and reach agreements that benefit a greater number of workers
• Laws that expand and protect workers’ right to engage in collective action, including the creation of funds that allow workers to engage in strikes or walkouts without jeopardizing their financial security
• An inclusive labor law reform that places the need to address gender, racial, and ethnic inequities at its center by extending protections to domestic, incarcerated, and undocumented workers, as well as expanding rights and protections for independent contractors

Other proposals include:

• The creation of labor market institutions such as wage boards, which set minimum pay standards by industry and occupation, and lead to wage gains for those at the bottom and middle of the income distribution
• Passing legislation such as the PRO Act , which would make it easier for workers to organize into unions, and would also curtail employers’ ability to misclassify workers as independent contractors, who do not have the right to unionize under federal U.S. law

These measures would expand workers’ rights and allow unions to balance power in the labor market, ensuring that the economic gains they create are broadly shared.

Aligning U.S. labor law with worker preferences for labor representation

February 18, 2020

‘Clean slate for worker power’ promotes a fair and inclusive U.S. economy

January 29, 2020

A first-time meta-analysis of monopsony demonstrates its breadth across labor markets

February 5, 2020

Factsheet: The PRO Act addresses income inequality by boosting the organizing power of U.S. workers

February 6, 2020

What kind of labor organizations do U.S. workers want?

August 28, 2019

First Jobs Day report since the onset of the coronavirus recession exposes a U.S. labor market in crisis

April 3, 2020

Explore the Equitable Growth network of experts around the country and get answers to today's most pressing questions!

U.S. Department of the Treasury

Labor unions and the u.s. economy.

By Laura Feiveson, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Microeconomics

Today, the Treasury Department released a first-of-its-kind report on labor unions, highlighting the evidence that unions serve to strengthen the middle class and grow the economy at large. Over the last half century, middle-class households have experienced stagnating wages, rising income volatility, and reduced intergenerational mobility, even as the economy as a whole has prospered. Unions can improve the well-being of middle-class workers in ways that directly combat these negative trends. Pro-union policy can make a real difference to middle-class households by raising their incomes, improving their work environments, and boosting their job satisfaction. In doing so, unions can help to make the economy more equitable and robust.

Over the last century, union membership rates and income inequality have diverged, as shown in Figure 1. Union membership peaked in the 1950s at one-third of the workforce.  At that time, despite pervasive racial and gender discrimination, overall income inequality was close to its lowest level since its peak before the Great Depression, and was continuing to fall.  Over the subsequent decades, union membership steadily declined, while income inequality began to steadily rise after a trough in the 1970s. In 2022, union membership plateaued at 10 percent of workers while the top one percent of income earners earned almost 20 percent of total income.

Figure 1: Union Membership and Inequality

While the overall U.S. economy has grown over the past few decades, the rise in inequality can be a proxy for the experience of many middle-class households. The income of the median family rose only 0.6 percent per year, in contrast to average personal income per household which rose 1.1 percent per year, as seen in Figure 2.  And, notably, other markers of middle-class stability have deteriorated since the 1970s. Income has become more volatile, [1] the amount of time spent on vacation has fallen, [2] and middle-class Americans are less prepared for retirement. [3] Intergenerational mobility has declined—90 percent of children born in the 1940s earned more than their parents did at age 30, while only half of children born in the mid-1980s did the same. [4]  

Figure 2: Income and Wage Growth since the 1960s

So, how could unions help? Treasury’s report shows that unions have the potential to address some of these negative trends by raising middle-class wages, improving work environments, and promoting demographic equality. Of course, unions should not be the only solution to these structural trends. But the evidence below and in the report suggests that unions can be useful in building the economy from the middle out.

Wages 

One of the most oft-cited benefits of unions is the so-called “union wage premium”—the amount that union members make above and beyond non-members.  While simple comparisons of the wages of union workers and nonunion workers find that union workers typically make about 20 percent more than nonunion workers, [5] economists turn to other types of analysis to capture causal effects of unions on wages. The first approach controls for many worker and occupation characteristics with the goal of comparing the wages earned by two similar workers that differ only in their union status. The other empirical approach is “regression discontinuity analysis,” which compares the wages in workplaces which just barely passed a vote to unionize against wages in workplaces that barely failed to pass the unionization vote. All in all, the evidence from these two approaches points to a union wage premium of around 10 to 15 percent, with larger effects for longer-tenured workers. [6]

Work environments

Worker wellbeing is greatly affected by non-wage benefits. Some benefits, such as healthcare benefits and retirement benefits, are a part of the compensation package and have substantial monetary value. Other features of the work environment, like flexible scheduling or workplace safety regulations, may not have direct monetary value but could still be highly valued by workers. For example, one study estimated that the average worker is willing to give up 20 percent of wages to avoid having their schedule frequently changed by their employer on short notice. [7] Another study, co-authored by Secretary Yellen, found that 80 percent of people who like their jobs cite a non-wage reason as the primary cause of their satisfaction and, conversely, 80 percent of people who dislike  their jobs cite non-wage reasons to explain their dissatisfaction. [8]

There is strong evidence that unions improve both fringe benefits and non-wage features of the workplace. Figure 3 shows how much more likely it is for a union worker to be offered certain amenities than a nonunion worker. While these simple comparisons reflect correlations only, studies that use more robust empirical approaches find the same: unions have had a large hand in improving work environments on many dimensions and, in doing so, raise the wellbeing of workers and their families. [9]

Figure 3: Fringe Benefits and Amenities

Workplace Equality

The diverse demographics of modern union membership mean that the benefits of any policy that strengthens today’s unions would be felt across the population.Union membership is now roughly equal across men and women. In 2021, Black men had a particularly high union representation rate at 13 percent, as compared to the population average of 10 percent. [10]  

Unions promote within-firm equality by adopting explicit anti-discrimination measures, supporting anti-discrimination legislation and enforcement, and promoting wage-setting practices that are less susceptible to implicit bias. As an example of egalitarian wage-setting practices, single rate or automatic progression wage structures contribute to lower within-firm income inequality compared to firms that make individual determinations. [11] These types of practices, and others like publicly available pay schedules, benefit women and vulnerable workers who can be less likely to negotiate aggressively for pay raises. 

Empirical studies have confirmed that unions have, indeed, closed race and gender gaps within firms. For example, one study finds that the wage gap between Black and white women was significantly reduced due to union measures. [12] Another study provides evidence of how collective bargaining has reduced gender wage gaps amongst teachers. [13]

The positive effects of unions are not limited to union workers. Nonunionized firms in competition with unionized workplaces may choose to raise wages, change hiring practices, or improve their workplace environment to attract workers. [14] Unions can also affect workplace norms by, say, lobbying for workplace safety improvements, or advocating for changes in minimum wage laws. [15] The empirical evidence finds that these positive spillovers exist. Each 1 percentage point increase in private-sector union membership rates translates to about a 0.3 percent increase in nonunion wages. These estimates are larger for workers without a college degree, the majority of America’s workforce. [16]  

Unions may also produce benefits for communities that extend beyond individual workers and employers by enhancing social capital and civic engagement. Union members vote 12 percentage points more often than nonunion members, and nonunion members in union households vote 3 percentage points more often than individuals in nonunion households. [17] In addition, union members are more likely to donate to charity, attend community meetings, participate in a neighborhood project, and volunteer for an organization. [18]

Increased unionization has the potential to contribute to the reversal of the stark increase in inequality seen over the last half century. In turn, increased financial stability to those in the middle or bottom of the income distribution could alleviate borrowing constraints, allowing workers to start businesses, build human capital, and exploit investment opportunities. [19]  Reducing inequality can also promote economic resilience by reducing the financial fragility of the bottom 95 percent of the income distribution, making these Americans less sensitive to negative income shocks and thus lessening economic volatility. [20] In short, unions can promote economy-wide growth and resilience.

All in all, the evidence presented in Treasury’s report challenges the view that worker empowerment holds back economic prosperity. In addition to their effect on the economy through more equality, unions can have a positive effect on productivity through employee engagement and union voice effects, providing a road map for the type of union campaigns that could lead to additional growth. [21] One such example found that patient outcomes improved in hospitals where registered nurses unionized. [22]

The Biden-Harris Administration recognizes the benefits of unions to the middle class and the broader economy and has taken actions, outlined in Treasury’s report, to empower workers. There have been promising signs: union petitions in 2022 rose to their highest level since 2015, [23] and public opinion in support of unions is at its highest level in over 50 years. [24] The evidence summarized here and in Treasury’s report suggest these burgeoning signs of strengthening worker power are good news for the middle class and the economy as a whole. 

[1] Dynan, Karen, Douglas Elmendorf, and Daniel Sichel. 2012. “The Evolution of Household Income Volatility.” The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy 12 (2).

[2] Van Dam, Andrew. 2023. “The mystery of the disappearing vacation day.” The Washington Post, February 10, 2023.

[3] Johnson, Richard W., and Karen E. Smith. 2022. “How Might Millennials Fare in Retirement?” Urban Institute , September 2022.

[4] Chetty, et al. (2017).

[5] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2023. Table 2.: Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers by union affiliation and selected characteristics. Last modified January 19, 2023.

[6] For example: Gittleman, Maury, and Morris M. Kleiner. 2016. "Wage effects of unionization and occupational licensing coverage in the United States."  ILR Review  69 (1): 142–172; Kleiner, Morris M., and Alan B. Krueger. 2013. “Analyzing the Extent and Influence of Occupational Licensing on the Labor Market.” Journal of Labor Economics 31 (2): S173–S202; DiNardo, John, and David S. Lee. 2004. “Economic Impacts of New Unionization on Private Sector Employers: 1984–2001.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 119 (4): 1383–1441; Frandsen, Brigham R. 2021. “The Surprising Impacts of Unionization: Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data.” Journal of Labor Economics 39 (4): 861–894.

[7] Mas, Alexandre, and Amanda Pallais. 2017. "Valuing alternative work arrangements."  American Economic Review  107 (12): 3722–59.

[8] Akerlof, George A., Andrew K. Rose, and Janet L. Yellen. 1988. "Job switching and job satisfaction in the US labor market."  Brookings Papers on Economic Activity  1988 (2): 495–594.

[9] Knepper, Matthew. 2020. “From the Fringe to the Fore: Labor Unions and Employee Compensation.” The Review of Economics and Statistics  102 (1): 98–112.

[10] Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and author’s calculations using BLS data, accessed through IPUMS. Data reflect 2022 values. Sample is employed 16+ year olds. Excludes workers represented by, but not a member of, unions.

[11] See, e.g., Card (1996) and Freeman (1982). Freeman, Richard B. 1982. "Union wage practices and wage dispersion within establishments." ILR Review 36 (1): 3–21.

[12] Rosenfeld, Jake, and Meredith Kleykamp. 2012. “Organized Labor and Racial Wage Inequality in the United States.” American Journal of Sociology 117 (5): 1460–1502.

[13] Biasi, Barbara, and Heather Sarsons. 2022. "Flexible wages, bargaining, and the gender gap."  The Quarterly Journal of Economics  137 (1): 215–266.

[14] Fortin, Nicole M., Thomas Lemieux, and Neil Lloyd. 2021. "Labor market institutions and the distribution of wages: The role of spillover effects."  Journal of Labor Economics  39 (S2): S369–S412; Taschereau-Dumouchel, Mathieu. 2020. "The Union Threat."  The Review of Economic Studies  87 (6): 2859–2892.

[15] The impact of changes in government policy arising out of union advocacy is not the focus of this paper; however, Ahlquist (2017) suggests that advocacy plays an important role in unions’ impacts on the labor market. Spillovers and “threat effects” within the labor market, however, are discussed in this paper. Ahlquist, John S. 2017. “Labor Unions, Political Representation, and Economic Inequality.” Annual Review of Political Science 20 (1): 409–432. 

[16] Note: Rosenfeld, Denice, and Laird (2016) do not interpret their estimates causally. Their approach suffers from many of the CPS’s sample size limitations. Although the CPS ostensibly reports quite detailed occupational codes, Rosenfeld, Denice, and Laird estimate regressions with only four occupational codes and 18 industry codes. This data limitation greatly increases the risks that the regression-adjusted approach cannot control for selection effects into unionization. 

[17] This 12-percentage-point union voting premium largely reflects socioeconomic factors associated with individuals who join a union. However, when comparing members with non-members who exhibit similar characteristics, there remains a union voting premium of 4 percentage points. Freeman, Richard B. 2003. “What Do Unions Do…to Voting?” National Bureau of Economic Research , working paper no. 9992.

[18] Zullo, Roland. 2011. “Labor Unions and Charity.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 64 (4): 699–711. 

[19]  Aghion, P., E. Caroli, and C. Garcia-Penalosa. 1999. “Inequality and Economic Growth: The Perspective of the New Growth Theories.” Journal of Economic Literature 37 (4): 1615–60.

[20]  Kumhof, Michael, Romain Rancière, and Pablo Winant. 2015. “Inequality, Leverage, and Crises.” American Economic Review 105 (3): 1217–45.

[21] Doucouliagos, Christos, Richard B. Freeman, and Patrice Laroche. 2017. The Economics of Trade Unions: A study of a Research Field and Its Findings . London: Routledge.

[22] Dube, Arindrajit, Ethan Kaplan, and Owen Thompson. 2016. “Nurse unions and patient outcomes.”  ILR Review  69 (4): 803–833.

[23] National Labor Relations Board. 2022. “Election Petitions Up 53%, Board Continues to Reduce Case Processing Time in FY22.” Press release. October 6, 2022.  https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/election-petitions-up-53-board-continues-to-reduce-case-processing-time-in .

[24] McCarthy, Justin. 2022. “U.S. Approval of Labor Unions at Highest Point Since 1965.” Gallup , August 30, 202 2.

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Am J Public Health
• v.106(6); Jun 2016

The Role of Labor Unions in Creating Working Conditions That Promote Public Health

All authors contributed to the conceptual development of the study. C. A. Paras and H. Greenwich coordinated data collection. All authors collaborated on study design. J. Hagedorn was the primary author of data analysis and interpretation and drafted the article with significant support from A. Hagopian and H. Greenwich. All authors revised content and approved the final version to be published.

We sought to portray how collective bargaining contracts promote public health, beyond their known effect on individual, family, and community well-being. In November 2014, we created an abstraction tool to identify health-related elements in 16 union contracts from industries in the Pacific Northwest. After enumerating the contract-protected benefits and working conditions, we interviewed union organizers and members to learn how these promoted health. Labor union contracts create higher wage and benefit standards, working hours limits, workplace hazards protections, and other factors. Unions also promote well-being by encouraging democratic participation and a sense of community among workers. Labor union contracts are largely underutilized, but a potentially fertile ground for public health innovation. Public health practitioners and labor unions would benefit by partnering to create sophisticated contracts to address social determinants of health.

Labor unions improve conditions for workers in ways that promote individual, family, and community well-being, yet the relationship between public health and organized labor is not fully developed. 1 Despite historic and current efforts by labor unions to improve conditions for workers, public health institutions have rarely sought out labor as a partner. 2,3

In 2014, American labor union density was at a 99-year low. 4 Low union density has left workers vulnerable to reduced health and safety standards, and has fed the decline in public perception of the value of unions. 5,6 Unions have helped to codify economic equity in the workplace, and the decline of their power is associated with the greatest level of economic inequity in our nation’s history. 5,7–9 The erosion of union density has undermined the role of organized labor as a societal power equalizer. 8

Income is a primary social determinant of health, associated with the living environment and overall well-being of individuals or families. 10–16 Income is higher in union jobs than in nonunion jobs, especially for lower-skilled workers. 5,16–18 Retirement or pension plans create the financial stability to promote health into old age. 19 Union employees are more likely to have a retirement or pension plan and are more likely to participate in a retirement plan sponsored by their employer than employees who are not members of a union. 20,21

Researchers have established a correlation between unionized work and a higher percentage of pay coming in the form of highly valued benefits. 22,23 Unions have historically been involved in creating healthy and safe workplaces, advocating regulations that are monitored and enforced by public health entities such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. 3,24

Autonomy and control over one’s life are associated with positive health outcomes, 25–28 and social support in the work environment enhances psychological and physical health. 29,30 Conversely, perceived job insecurity is associated with risk factors for poor health outcomes, contributing to racial and socioeconomic health disparities. 31–35 Unions help members gain control over their scheduling 36,37 and job security, 38 and union membership is associated with increased democratic participation. 39

The American Public Health Association is on record supporting the role of labor unions in promoting healthy working conditions, health and safety programs, health insurance, and democratic participation. 40–42 The decline of union density may undermine public health in the United States, making this a critical time for public health to actively support labor unions.

Previous researchers published in AJPH have highlighted the links between unions, working conditions, and public health, but called for more research to establish the precise mechanism of the relationships. Malinowski et al. proposed the social–ecological model as theoretical framework for connecting public health and labor organizing. 43 Both labor unions and public health organizations intervene in the conditions that make people healthy through individual life choices, and social and community networks, as well as general socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental conditions. Malinowski et al. illustrates the overlapping interests of labor unions and public health and how their lack of coordination has created barriers for both institutions.

One mechanism unions use to promote public health is the union contract. These are legally binding, durable over a designated time, and specific. They are durable because they cannot be unilaterally changed, and contracts that follow often build on the progress of previous negotiations. Even after a contract expires, federal labor law provides a process and momentum for the negotiation of a new one.

We hypothesized that union contracts promote the health status of workers. If true, contracts have untapped potential for public health professionals working to improve the health of individuals and communities.

We designed this cross-sectional, mixed-methods study to identify specific mechanisms that link labor union representation and public health outcomes. Our primary unit of analysis was the negotiated contract between management and labor for a variety of unions in the Puget Sound region of Washington State. We supplemented a textual analysis of the contracts with interviews of union organizers and union members.

In the summer of 2014, we established a partnership between a University of Washington master of public health graduate student (J. H.) and Puget Sound Sage, a nonprofit organization that promotes alignment among labor, environmental, and community interests to “grow communities where all families thrive.” We identified 6 union locals in the region that represented hotel workers, truck drivers, home-care workers, construction workers, child-care workers, office workers, and grocery store workers. Sage held preexisting relationships with these unions, either through representation on Sage’s board or some other form of collaboration, which greatly facilitated our data requests. For each union, we obtained 1 or more labor contracts, for a total of 16 contracts ( Table 1 ).

TABLE 1—

Union Contracts Dated 2010 to 2014 Analyzed for Mechanisms That Advance Health of Employees and Their Families: Pacific Northwest, United States

Note. SEIU = Service Employees International Union; UFCW = United Food and Commercial Workers; UNITE HERE = Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union. Data for this article came from the 16 union contracts analyzed for their health-related factors, obtained from 5 Puget Sound labor unions in 2014.

Through a comprehensive literature review of the work-related determinants of health, we identified health-related factors that theoretically might be addressed in a labor contract. We then created a spreadsheet abstracting specific language from each contract by each of the theoretical constructs, and, through an iterative process, settled on 12 health factors. For example, we created a cell for “fair and predictable pay increases,” into which the following Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 775 contract language was placed:

Employees who complete advanced training beyond the training required to receive a valid Home Care Aide certification (as set forth in the Training Partnership curriculum) shall be paid an additional twenty-five cents ($0.25) per hour differential to his/her regular hourly wage rate.

After creating the 12 large categories, we further analyzed the contract language in our spreadsheet to generate 34 subcategories ( Table 2 ). We suggest that these 34 factors, taken together, comprise the specific mechanisms by which labor contract language supports public health. We determined whether the indicators were present in each contract (Table A, available as a supplement to the online version of this article at http://www.ajph.org ) and Table 2 reports what proportion of contracts contained language on each of the 34 factors. When “all” contracts have an indicator, this means each of the 16 contracts contains health-protecting language on the topic. “Almost all” refers to 14 or 15 contracts, “most” means 7 to 13 contracts, and “some” refers to 5 or 6 contracts.

TABLE 2—

Factors That Advance Health of Employees Theorized to be Found in Union Contracts, and Their Presence in 16 Union Contracts Dated 2010 to 2014: Pacific Northwest, United States

Note. All = 16 contracts; almost all = 14 or 15 contracts; most = 7 to 13 contracts; some = 5 or 6 contracts. Data for this article came from the 16 union contracts analyzed for their health-related factors, obtained from 5 Puget Sound labor unions in 2014.

To supplement our analysis, we interviewed 1 member from each of the 6 unions covered by a contract in our analysis, as well as 7 union organizers representing those members ( Table 3 ). In 1-hour interviews with union organizers, we explored how contract language is aligned with public health outcomes through questions about their job and the role of the union. We asked workers about the dangers in their job and if or how the union helps to protect them, we asked about safety and health problems and the union’s role in addressing those, and we asked about conflict in the workplace and whether the union helps to resolve issues. We also asked workers to compare any workplaces they had experienced without a union to their current workplace.

TABLE 3—

Interviews Conducted With Union Members and Organizers: Pacific Northwest, United States, 2015

Note. SEIU = Service Employees International Union; UFCW = United Food and Commercial Workers; UNITE HERE = Union of Needletrades, Industrial, and Textile Employees and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union. Interviews conducted between January and April 2015 with Puget Sound–area labor union staff and industry employees to supplement our understanding of the role of labor union contracts in protecting employee health.

Each union assisted in identifying a covered member for us to interview. Usually, an e-mail was sent to members the organizer thought may be interested in the study. These members were compensated $50 for their 1-hour interviews, with funds provided by Sage. In interviews with members, we asked about the most dangerous or hazardous aspects of their jobs and how the union helps to mitigate those risks, as well as other benefits of being a union member.

There is consistency among contracts negotiated by same union (Table A). Contracts with public sector entities (such as 925.2, Headstart Program; 775.3, State of Washington; and 242.3, Seattle School District) have fewer provisions that contribute to health in their contracts.

Compensation

We created compensation indicators illustrating how the wages of employees are augmented when employers are prohibited from externalizing their costs by having employees pay for work-related travel, training, and materials.

All contracts include minimum wages by employee classifications, including overtime. Higher income and overtime wage gains are built over time. Income is augmented when employers are directed to cover specific work-related expenses. Most contracts compensate employees for the cost of traveling between work sites and the cost (or partial costs) of trainings. Some contracts also provide money for materials, such as United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) contract 21.2, which states, “The Employer shall bear the expense of furnishing and laundering aprons, shop coats, and smocks, for all employees under this Agreement.” Other contracts ensure employers will not call in more employees than needed and then send them home; they do this by creating a “show-up pay” provision. Laborers’ contract 242.1 describes this as

Employees reporting for work and not put to work shall receive two hours pay at the regular straight time rate, unless inclement weather conditions prohibits work, or notified not to report at the end of the previous shift or two hours prior to the start of a shift.

One child-care worker explained how union advocacy has increased the supplement provided by the state for the extra challenges posed by caring for low-income children, saying “For family childcare workers, who are often very underpaid for the amount of hours that they work, we have seen over the last 8 years, a 22% increase in our subsidized childcare. That is big!” Another worker from Teamsters Local 117 said, “I know there are guys doing the same job [in nonunion warehouses] making $10 less an hour.”

Predictable and fair increases.

All contracts provide wage increases on the basis of qualifications, duties, and duration of time at the company. Workers can increase their wages by increasing their training or by assuming additional responsibilities, including mentoring peers, accepting clients with higher needs, working less-desirable hours, doing more physically strenuous labor, or taking on leadership roles within a working group. Some contracts require transparency in paycheck calculations, mandating employers to itemize hours, overtime, and sometimes the cumulative number of sick days or holidays used, allowing employees to check the calculations.

An organizer with UFCW (grocery) Local 21 explained, “[employers] see experience as a cost and not a driver of sales.” The organizer explained that without the contracts, employers would not raise wages over time, especially for jobs viewed as requiring fewer technical skills.

Retirement and pension.

Almost all contracts include retirement or pensions. Most of these are set up in the form of trusts, with a collaborative process for management and employees to manage money and benefits. This language usually exists in a separate document referred to by the contract.

A retired member of Laborers Local 242 described how he was able to adjust his hours to make the money he needed, but also be able to retire comfortably because of his savings and pension. He explained, “I retired early. I wanted to do things that I wasn’t able to do when I was younger because I had to support the family.”

We created indicators to track evidence-based factors related to physical and psychological health, including time off and access to health care. 44–46

Paid time off.

Most contracts include the indicators of paid annual leave, paid rest periods, and bereavement leave. The amount of annual leave varies, but usually increases as the employee gains seniority. Paid rest periods are usually defined as short, 15- to 30-minute periods. Bereavement leave to attend a funeral or grieve a loss can be used for specific family members in some contracts, whereas others allow its use for a broader range of relationships.

Health care coverage.

Health insurance is included in all contracts. We did not attempt to distinguish among contracts with regard to affordability, comprehensiveness, or number of dependents covered because health care is managed by trusts, much like retirement or pension benefits.

All of the organizers discussed the benefits of union health coverage. An organizer from UFCW Local 21 explained,

Members have consistently traded wages for health benefits. They have been willing to have slowed wage increases in order to maintain their strong health benefits over and over and over. What I see if I go into a [unionized grocery] I see a much higher percentage of people who have children who rely on their health insurance.

Health and Safety

Most contracts guide how health and safety regulations are communicated to workers, including written and verbal forms.

Health and safety information.

Although most contracts include health and safety information, they are usually not very specific. For example, Teamsters’ contract 117.1, states,

[T]he Company may require the use of safety devices and safeguards and shall adopt and use practices, means, methods, operations and processes which are adequate to render such employment and place of employment safe and shall do all things necessary to protect the life and safety of all employees.

Most contracts also include a provision allowing the union to post and maintain a bulletin board to communicate information to members. Contracts also generally ensure union representative access to the worksite. For example, SEIU contract 925.2 (child-care workers) states,

The designated Stewards or Chief Stewards shall have access to the premises of [Community Development Institute Head Start] to carry out their duties subject to permission being granted in advance.

Training and mentorship.

Almost all contracts explicitly require training. Some contracts include compensation for providing mentorship to encourage more senior employees to provide support to new employees or employees taking on new roles.

One organizer from Laborers Local 242 described how important it is for workers to know how to do their work safely, for themselves, coworkers, workplace clients, and their own families. For example, a hospital demolition crew should know how to contain particulate matter to avoid contaminating patients or bringing it home to expose their children. The organizer said training ensures “If you hire a [union] laborer, you know you’re going to get the best product. We have the safest workforce. We’re the most experienced.”

Promotion of a culture of workplace safety.

Most contracts detail the employer’s responsibility to provide and maintain protective clothing and equipment. Most contracts also protect bringing a safety hazard to the attention of a supervisor. For example, SEIU contract 775.5 states, “the employee will immediately report to their Employer any working condition the employee believes threatens or endangers the health or safety of the employee or client.” Some contracts have a provision allowing workers who return to work after an injury to receive less strenuous work, or “light duty.” Both Laborers’ contracts contain this provision, an important provision for physically demanding work.

Promoting Individual, Family, and Community Well-Being

We analyzed indicators that measure the role of contracts in reinforcing social support in the work environment.

Job protections and security.

All contracts contain specific and detailed grievance procedures, the process of reporting, mediating, and resolving conflicts in the workplace. Almost all contracts confirm the right to have a union representative present during meetings with managers. Some contracts, such as SEIU 775.1, make it the employer’s responsibility to make this known:

In any case where a home care aide is the subject of a written formal warning the Employer will notify the home care aide of the purpose of the meeting and their option to have a local union representative present when the meeting is scheduled.

Most contracts also establish or maintain a labor relations or management committee. Although the language about this committee may differ, the purpose of the group is to create a space in which workers and employers can negotiate problems that arise between negotiations of new contracts.

Almost all contracts contain a commitment to creating a discrimination-free workplace. Most contracts create the opportunity for a worker to take a leave of absence without sacrificing seniority for maternity leave, further education, religious holidays (e.g., Yom Kippur, Easter), military leave (for the employee or spouse), domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, or union activity.

Fair and predictable scheduling.

Most contracts include a mandatory notice of schedule changes. As UFCW contract 21.1 explains,

The Employer recognizes the desirability of giving his employees as much notice as possible in the planning of their weekly schedules of work and, accordingly, agrees to post a work schedule.

Some contracts specify the amount of notice required for a schedule change. Those that change regularly may require posting the week before. Most contracts also include an amount of time required between shifts or minimum shift length, and how employees can request additional hours.

Democratic participation.

Most contracts provide employees the opportunity to participate in union-sponsored legislative “lobby days,” or to engage in political work while being paid by their employer. As SEIU contract 925.1 explains,

As part of our ongoing campaign to provide the highest possible standard of childcare and engage in an ongoing public campaign to explain the direct relationship between funding and the quality of care, it is in each party’s best interest to provide reasonable opportunity for members of the bargaining unit to participate in these efforts.

Contracts require all union members to pay dues. Some contracts also specify how a union member can contribute to a political action fund, which generates revenue to represent employee interests in the policy arena. One home health worker explained that she is getting more involved in politics and collective bargaining because of union engagement, saying,

I like belonging to a union that believes in me as an individual and as a caregiver. They’re behind us every step of the way. They help us to look at things that otherwise we might not be aware of, like state legislation and contract negotiation.

Public health practitioners have not typically viewed unions as partners in promoting public health, nor have they explored contract negotiations as a way to ensure health protections. We suggest that this is a missed opportunity. Our findings demonstrate that union contract language advances many of the social determinants of health, including income, security, time off, access to health care, workplace safety culture, training and mentorship, predictable scheduling to ensure time with friends and family, democratic participation, and engagement with management. This article provides a provisional framework to explore further the factors that create public health opportunities in union contracts.

We examined selected union contracts in the Pacific Northwest, which may not be generalizable. Our sample included only those unions in a relationship with Puget Sound Sage, perhaps suggesting unique perspectives or priorities. We compared our sampled unions to those in the King County Labor Council, however, and although there were some industries not represented (e.g., aerospace, teachers, assembly line workers), we believe the types of workplaces in our sample are reasonably representative of the landscape of unions in the county. We did not attempt to incorporate the views of the respective employers on these contracts.

The language in the contracts we reviewed included rights won at the bargaining table along with restatements of existing city, state, and federal laws. For example, leave without pay contract provisions match the Washington State Family Leave Act. When union negotiators include these indicators in contracts, they generate awareness of health-promoting regulations and protections. Laws and policies can change, but a union contract can only change if the union agrees to renegotiate the contract or if the contract has expired. Union stewards learn the details about a contract, but cannot be expected to know the full range of laws from a variety of jurisdictions. The contract works to reinforce the knowledge of workers and their representatives. Although it was beyond the scope of our study, contracts must be enforced to actualize their health-related benefits. Effective enforcement mechanisms for contracts are also potentially beneficial to public health officials. 22,27,47

We identified many contract indicators that advance health for more than just employees. Unions generate higher prevailing wages in a community. 7,48 Unions invest in campaigns to raise wages for both union and nonunion workers, such as the $15 hourly wage initiative in SeaTac, Washington. 49,50 A safer environment for home-care and child-care workers creates safer environments for the people they serve. A culture of safety on construction sites ensures that environmental hazards are minimized for people who live nearby. Parents earning a living wage can avoid taking second jobs and use the time to engage in children’s schools or community councils. A healthy and happy workforce is more productive and less likely to leave a job, reducing the cost of turnover and absenteeism for employers. In spite of the many benefits unions confer to workplaces and communities, union membership is now limited to only 1 in 10 American employees. 4

The decline of labor union density is related to both the rise of corporate power and to mistakes made by labor. 1 After a period of radical inclusivity and left-leaning solidarity with broader political movements, unions moved toward racism and red-baiting in the 1950s, undermining their strength. 51 Unions are still working to reduce racial and gender disproportionality within their leadership. 52

Despite historical shortcomings, labor unions (and their contracts) offer an underutilized opportunity for public health innovation. As illustrated by Malinowski et al., public health practitioners often work in the “outer” layers of the social–ecological model, promoting environments that can better shape population health. 43 This is also true of labor unions. Public health practitioners could help unions negotiate more sophisticated contracts to address the social determinants of health. Public health practitioners could also work with policymakers to heighten awareness of how unions might help mitigate the forces that threaten health in the workplace and beyond. Supporting progressive labor union contracts is public health work.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge a grant from the University of Washington Harry Bridges Labor Center that made this work possible. Also, thank you to Puget Sound Sage for providing the compensation for labor union members who were interviewed.

HUMAN PARTICIPANT PROTECTION

Ethical approval for the project was provided by the University of Washington institutional review board, approval 48520-EJ.

UAW workers pose with signs.

US Unions Must Look Beyond Themselves to Save Themselves

Either we think about unionism in new ways and establish new ways of joining other movements, or most of our unions die a long, slow, painful death..

The labor movement in the United States used to be respected and looked to for leadership; people cared about what positions labor took, watched when they mobilized, and noticed the causes they supported. This was especially true among the left. Today, for most of the country, crickets. Including much of the left. And yet, labor is a source of potential power unrivaled by any other bottom-up social grouping in the country.

As one who has written extensively about labor around the world and in the United States— see my list of publications with many links to the original articles—I have been thinking over a number of years about the future direction of the U.S. labor movement. But this thinking is not just based on writing or academic research; I’ve done that and also have years of experience as a labor activist and as one who has worked in blue, white, and pink collar jobs over the past 40+ years and in multiple locations across the country.

I argue that we haven’t had a labor movement in the U.S. since 1949, when the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) expelled 11 so-called “left-led” unions with somewhere between 750,000 and 1 million members; we’ve had only a trade union movement. What’s the difference? A labor movement looks out for the well-being of all working people in the country, while a trade union movement only looks out for members of its member unions.

We see workers creating reform movements trying to transform their unions for the benefit of the entire membership, if not all workers.

And, especially since 1981, when the trade union movement failed to defend the striking air traffic controllers in the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) strike when attacked by then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the trade union movement leaders have done little but watch its ranks shrink, its prestige fall, and its power decline. Millions of jobs have been shipped overseas while the manufacturing economy has been decimated, and most of the service sector jobs since created have remained ununionized, underpaid, and with many fewer protections for workers. Yes, acting together, the trade union movement has worked to elect Democrats such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to office, but between signing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, and the failure to pass a bill to enhance labor organizing, I’d say neither could be considered blazing successes. Individual unions have succeeded here and there, but only episodically and not consistently, and usually only because of some tactical feature that gave them a winning advantage in a particular struggle. Inspiring not.

The only consistent trade union success since the early 1980s has been in sucking up U.S. government money—often between $30-75 million annually—which has allowed AFL-CIO foreign policy leaders to act behind the backs of most of the organization’s leaders and all of its affiliated union members, in our name, in efforts generally intended to undercut foreign workers’ struggles against multinational corporations and U.S. government foreign policy projects.

Worse, even while nonetheless being helpful to foreign workers in a few cases, the AFL-CIO has acted to legitimize the imperialist National Endowment for Democracy (NED) by serving as one of its four “core institutes,” along with the international wing of the Democratic Party, the international wing of the Republican Party, and the international wing of its domestic archenemy, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in NED’s on-going project of supporting and advancing the U.S. Empire.

Thus, the trade unions’ leadership has generally done little to advance the interests and well-being of U.S. workers, while acting in differential manners—usually bad—with foreign workers. I don’t think this was what Karl Marx and Frederick Engles were expecting when they echoed the French feminist, Flora Tristan, urging, “Workers of the World, Unite!”

Yet, despite the general failure of the trade union movement leadership, especially since 1981, the reality is that unions are one set of institutions that, at their best, are of the workers, by the workers, and for the workers. You see workers fighting to make their unions “real”—trying to make them part of a labor movement that serves the interests of all workers if not the entire society—over the years. We see workers creating reform movements trying to transform their unions for the benefit of the entire membership, if not all workers.

Perhaps the most famous of late has been the reform organization Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD) inside the United Auto Workers. UAWD came together to fight for direct elections of UAW leadership instead of the convention elections, which had led to a one-party state since 1946 and the election of Walter Reuther. Over time, a number of top-level UAW leaders were charged with corruption, and in a consent agreement with the federal government, the UAW had to shift to direct elections for top officers. UAWD put forth a partial slate headed by Shawn Fain, and then proceeded to win every leadership position they sought, ultimately gaining control of the international union’s executive board.

In turn, Fain and his administration led the 2023 fight against the Big Three auto companies—General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis, the parent of Chrysler—and won the strike in the fall. While the UAW did not win all of its demands in the strike, it clearly demonstrated the power of organized workers who have a leadership that will fight for and with them. And following that successful strike, Volkswagen workers at Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted to join the UAW, with help from the German union, IG Metal, although in the face of governors from six southern states telling them to not do so.

It is critical to understand that unions are important to many workers; that they make a difference in the workplace; and that they usually mean higher wages, better benefits, seniority systems, and a recognizable “rule of law” in the workplace, the latter which places some limits on management authority and discipline; a big difference from the situation of most workplaces where workers give up most if not all of their rights when they enter company grounds.

So, where does this lead us?

I want to build off a study that I did originally for my doctoral dissertation in 2003. It was a comparative-historical sociological study of unionization in the steel and meatpacking industries in the greater Chicago area (including northwest Indiana) between 1933-1955, examining how the unions addressed racial oppression in the workplace, union, and communities in which these workers operated. Long story short: Despite drawing from the exact same labor pool—white ethnics from Eastern and Southern Europe, African Americans from the rural South, and some Mexicans—the steelworkers’ organizations ignored the issues of white supremacy and racism, while the packinghouse workers directly confronted it. In 1939, in racist, segregated Chicago, 8 out of 14 packinghouse local unions were headed by African Americans!

From this study, and differing from much research on the CIO—the labor organization both of these unions ultimately joined—I recognized there were two different conceptualizations of trade unions within the CIO; ultimately, I referred to that of the steelworkers as a “business” union and that of the packinghouse workers as a “social justice” union. And this was important because I found that how the members thought about their union determined subsequent organizational behavior.

Transforming business unions into social justice unions offers a solution: They build on their foundation in the workplace but join with community members—however defined—to work together in ways to improve life for all concerned.

And that brings things to where we are now: There are still two forms of unionism available to unions and their members. Business unions focus the power they are able to mobilize to fight for workers in the workplace, such as wages, working conditions, seniority, “rule of law,” etc. However, they generally ignore anything beyond the workplace, despite workers having lives outside of the workplace. Social justice unions focus that power in the workplace to not only address workplace issues, but they use the power in the workplace to also address things in workers’ lives beyond the workplace, including things such as racism, misogyny, and homophobia, as well as things like healthcare, education, the climate crisis, etc. Ideally, unions becoming or transforming themselves into social justice unions would consider the range of interests from the local to the global, ultimately seeking to join with unions and other people’s organizations around the world to make things better for all.

Recognizing these two different possibilities and what union members want to do in light of this understanding is important. It is important that these issues get discussed by the members of each union themselves; this is not limited to union leadership or even activists.

The reality is that the trade union movement today is so weak that unions rarely have a chance to win their battles without gaining public support. Unions have often recognized this and have appealed to community support to help them win. Yet, what do the communities get back from the unions? Often nothing. This one-way form of “solidarity” is simply not sustainable; you can only withdraw from the well so many times without giving back before it runs dry.

There are issues that simply cannot be solved on a local, regional, or even national basis; the climate crisis jumps immediately to mind, although there are other issues such as global sexual slavery and related issues, pandemics, war, and empire that can only be approached from a global perspective. We have to understand issues such as these from a global perspective and begin educating and organizing our union sisters and brothers on this level. But our ideas about our unions must at least allow for this, if not actively encourage work on this level by all members. Key to this is implementing an educational program that confronts these issues and encourages workers to think about how their union could work to address issues key to workers in this larger sense. The old slogan, “Think globally, act locally,” encapsulates these ideas.

This, however, is not going to change by itself: Activists in each union need to stimulate discussion within their organization about whether they should confine their unionism just to the workplace, or to use that power for the good of all.

I would suggest trying to find a group of union members that think having this debate within one’s union is crucial, and work to unify this core. Then they could create a campaign to spread this issue throughout the union, initially through one’s workplace and local and then through the national or international union they are affiliated with. It should be run the same way as any organizing campaign; and that is to win.

When confronted by this question—how do we want our union to go forward, alone or with our neighbors (from the local area to the globe)?—this is a question that encourages workers to think about these issues and get involved in participating in strengthening the union. Once a union is seen as something everyone participates in, or at least as many as possible, instead of just something that “others” do, we strengthen our individual unions. When we come to common responses, then we can extend our conceptualization of the union to other unions, locally, regionally, and nationally.

This can be extended globally when we find out what is happening elsewhere: There are workers across the planet seeking to join to fight for a better world for all. Yes, this is happening among workers in other imperial countries but, as we see in the case of Southern Initiative on Globalization and Trade Union Rights, workers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are finding ways to unite across their geographical regions and the globe to organize. I think they would be delighted to have North Americans join in their project, and that can only happen when unions take that broader, social justice union approach.

In short: innovate or stagnate. The business unionism of the past 40 years (in particular) has been a failure. Either we think about unionism in new ways and establish new ways of thinking about and joining other movements, or most of our unions die a long, slow, painful death.

It’s time we start rebuilding the labor movement: for the good of all!

Join Us: News for people demanding a better world

• Betrayal of Railway Workers Ignites Working-Class Fury Toward Biden and Democrats ›
• 'They Are Saving Our Lives': Demand Grows for Grocery Store Employees, Other Frontline Workers to Receive Hazard Pay Amid Coronavirus Outbreak ›
• We Need an Economic Bill of Rights to Save American Democracy ›
• What You Need To Know About Gen Z's Support for Unions - Center ... ›

Report | Unions and Labor Standards

How unions help all workers

Report • By Matthew Walters and Lawrence Mishel • August 26, 2003

Briefing Paper #143

Download PDF

Share this page:

Unions have a substantial impact on the compensation and work lives of both unionized and non-unionized workers. This report presents current data on unions’ effect on wages, fringe benefits, total compensation, pay inequality, and workplace protections.

Some of the conclusions are:

• Unions raise wages of unionized workers by roughly 20% and raise compensation, including both wages and benefits, by about 28%.
• Unions reduce wage inequality because they raise wages more for low- and middle-wage workers than for higher-wage workers, more for blue-collar than for white-collar workers, and more for workers who do not have a college degree.
• Strong unions set a pay standard that nonunion employers follow. For example, a high school graduate whose workplace is not unionized but whose industry is 25% unionized is paid 5% more than similar workers in less unionized industries.
• The impact of unions on total nonunion wages is almost as large as the impact on total union wages.
• The most sweeping advantage for unionized workers is in fringe benefits. Unionized workers are more likely than their nonunionized counterparts to receive paid leave, are approximately 18% to 28% more likely to have employer-provided health insurance, and are 23% to 54% more likely to be in employer-provided pension plans.
• Unionized workers receive more generous health benefits than nonunionized workers. They also pay 18% lower health care deductibles and a smaller share of the costs for family coverage. In retirement, unionized workers are 24% more likely to be covered by health insurance paid for by their employer.
• Unionized workers receive better pension plans. Not only are they more likely to have a guaranteed benefit in retirement, their employers contribute 28% more toward pensions.
• Unionized workers receive 26% more vacation time and 14% more total paid leave (vacations and holidays).

Unions play a pivotal role both in securing legislated labor protections and rights such as safety and health, overtime, and family/medical leave and in enforcing those rights on the job. Because unionized workers are more informed, they are more likely to benefit from social insurance programs such as unemployment insurance and workers compensation. Unions are thus an intermediary institution that provides a necessary complement to legislated benefits and protections.

The union wage premium

It should come as no surprise that unions raise wages, since this has always been one of the main goals of unions and a major reason that workers seek collective bargaining. How much unions raise wages, for whom, and the consequences of unionization for workers, firms, and the economy have been studied by economists and other researchers for over a century (for example, the work of Alfred Marshall). This section presents evidence from the 1990s that unions raise the wages of unionized workers by roughly 20% and raise total compensation by about 28%.

The research literature generally finds that unionized workers’ earnings exceed those of comparable nonunion workers by about 15%, a phenomenon known as the “union wage premium.”

H. Gregg Lewis found the union wage premium to be 10% to 20% in his two well-known assessments, the first in the early 1960s (Lewis 1963) and the second more than 20 years later (Lewis 1986). Freeman and Medoff (1984) in their classic analysis, What Do Unions Do? , arrived at a similar conclusion.

Table 1 provides several estimates of the union hourly wage premium based on household and employer data from the mid- to late 1990s. All of these estimates are based on statistical analyses that control for worker and employer characteristics such as occupation, education, race, industry, and size of firm. Therefore, these estimates show how much collective bargaining raises the wages of unionized workers compared to comparable nonunionized workers.

The data most frequently used for this analysis is the Current Population Survey (CPS) of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is most familiar as the household survey used to report the unemployment rate each month. The CPS reports the wages and demographic characteristics (age, gender, education, race, marital status) of workers, including whether workers are union members or covered by a collective bargaining contract, and employment information (e.g., industry, occupation). Using these data, Hirsch and Macpherson (2003) found a union wage premium of 17.8% in 1997. Using data from a different, but also commonly used, household survey—the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP)—Gundersen (2003) found a union premium of 24.5%. So, estimates from household surveys that allow for detailed controls of worker characteristics find a union wage premium ranging from 15% to 25% in the 1990s.

Another important source of workplace information, employer surveys, has advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, wages, occupation, and employer characteristics—including the identification of union status—are considered more accurate in employer-based data. The disadvantage is that data from employers do not include detailed information about the characteristics of the workers (e.g. education, gender, race/ethnicity). However, the detailed occupational information and the skill ratings of jobs (education requirements, complexity, supervisory responsibilities) used in these studies are most likely adequate controls for “human capital,” or worker characteristics, making the surveys reliable for estimating the union wage premium.

Pierce (1999a) used the new Bureau of Labor Statistics survey of employers, the National Compensation Survey, to study wage determination and found a union wage premium of 17.4% in 1997. Pierce’s study was based on observations of 145,054 nonagricultural jobs from 17,246 different establishments, excluding the federal government.

In another study, Pierce (1999b) used a different employer survey—the Employment Cost Index (ECI), a precursor to the National Compensation Survey—and found a union wage premium of 20.3%. This estimate is for all nonagricultural employers except the federal government, the same sector employed in Pierce’s NCS study (though for an earlier year—1994).

These two estimates of the union wage premium from employer surveys provide a range of 17% to 20%, consistent with the range identified by the household surveys. Thus, a variety of sources show a union wage premium of between 15% and 20%.

Since unions have a greater impact on benefits than wages (see Freeman 1981), estimates of the union premium for wages alone are less than estimates of the union premium for all compensation (wages and benefits combined). That is, estimates of just the wage premium understate the full impact of unions on workers’ pay. A 1999 study by Pierce estimates the union premium for wages at 20.3% and compensation at 27.5% in the private sector (see Table 1). Thus, the union impact on total compensation is about 35% greater than the impact on wages alone. (A later section reviews the union impact on specific fringe benefits such as paid leave, health insurance, and pensions.)

Many “measurement issues” have been raised about estimates of the union wage premium. Some researchers have argued that union wage premiums are significantly underestimated by some measurements. Hirsch (2003), in particular, raises an important question regardi ng the rising use of “imputations” in the CPS. Information is “allocated,” or “imputed,” to a respondent in the CPS when they either refuse to report their earnings or a proxy respondent is unable to report earnings. Hirsch reports that earnings were imputed for fewer than 15% of the CPS in the 1980s but 31% in 2001. The method of imputing earnings to workers for whom earnings aren’t reported does not take account of their union status, thus reducing the estimates of the union wage premium. The increase in imputations has, Hirsch says, created an increasing underestimate of the union wage premium. Table 1 shows Hirsch’s estimates for the union premium in the private sector using traditional methods (18.4%) and using a correction for imputation bias (23.2%). Hirsch’s results imply that imputations depress estimates of the union wage premium for 1997 by 20%, and that the union wage premium is actually one-fourth higher than conventional estimates show.

Union wage premiums and inequality

Historically, unions have raised the wages to a greater degree for “low-skilled” than for “high-skilled” workers. Consequently, unions lessen wage inequality. Hirsch and Schumacher (1998) consider the conclusion that unions boost wages more for low- and middle-wage workers, a “universal finding” of the extensive literature on unions, wages, and worker skills. As they state:

The standard explanation for this result is that unions standardize wages by decreasing differentials across and within job positions (Freeman 1980) so that low-skilled workers receive a larger premium relative to their alternative nonunion wage.

The larger union wage premium for those with low wages, in lower-paid occupations and with less education is shown in Table 2 . For instance, the union wage premium for blue-collar workers in 1997, 23.3%, was far larger than the 2.2% union wage premium for white-collar workers. Likewise, the 1997 union wage premium for high school graduates, 20.8%, was much higher than the 5.1% premium for college graduates. Gundersen (2003) estimated the union wage premium for those with a high school degree or less at 35.5%, significantly greater than the 24.5% premium for all workers.

Card’s (1991) research provides a comprehensive picture of the impact of unions on employees by estimating the union wage premiums by “wage fifth,” where the sample is split into five equal groups of workers from the lowest wage up to the highest wage workers. As Table 2 shows, the union wage premium was far greater among low-wage workers (27.9%) than among middle-wage (18.0%) or the highest-wage workers (10.5%).

Unions reduce wage inequalities because they raise wages more at the bottom and in the middle of the wage scale than at the top. Lower-wage, middle-wage, blue-collar, and high school educated workers are also more likely than high-wage, white-collar, and college-educated workers to be represented by unions (see Table 2). These two factors—the greater union representation and the larger union wage impact for low- and mid-wage workers—are key to unionization’s role as a major factor in reducing wage inequalities (see Freeman 1980, 1982; and Freeman and Medoff 1984).

That unionization lessens wage inequality is also evident in the numerous studies that attribute a sizable share of the growth of wage inequality since 1979 to the erosion of union coverage (Freeman 1991; Card 1991; Dinardo et al. 1996; Blackburn et al. 1991; Card et al. 2003; Blanchflower and Bryson 2002). Several studies have shown that deunionization is responsible for at least 20% of the large increase in wage inequality (Mishel et al. 2003). This is especially the case among men, where steep declines in unionization among blue-collar and non-college-educated men has led to a rise in education and occupational wage gaps. Farber’s (2002) estimate shows that deunionization can explain as much as 50% of the growth in the wage gap between workers with a college education and those with a high school education.

Unions and fringe benefits

In and earlier era, non-wage compensation was referred to as “fringe benefits.” However, items such as adequate health insurance, a secure retirement pension, and sufficient and flexible paid leave to manage work and family life are no longer considered “fringe” components of pay packages. Thus, the union impact on benefits is even more critical to the lives of workers now than in the past. This section presents evidence that unionized workers are given employer-provided health and pension benefits far more frequently than comparable nonunion workers. Moreover, unionized workers are provided better paid leave and better health and pension plans.

The previous section reviewed data that showed that unions have had a greater impact in raising benefits than in raising wages. This section examines the union effect on particular benefits, primarily paid leave, health insurance, and pensions. Unions improve benefits for nonunionized workers because workers are more likely to be provided particular benefits and because the specific benefits received are better.

Table 3 provides information from the employer survey (the ECI) about the impact of unions on the likelihood that a worker will receive benefits. The table shows that unionized workers are 3.2% more likely to have paid leave, a relatively small impact, explained by the fact that nearly all workers (86%) already receive this benefit. Unions have a much greater impact on the incidence of pensions and health insurance benefits, with union workers 22.5% and 18.3% more likely to receive, respectively, employer-provided pension and health benefits.

Table 3 also shows the union impact on the financial value of benefits, including a breakdown of how much the greater value is due to greater incidence (i.e., unionized firms are more likely to offer the benefit) or to a more generous benefit that is provided.

Union workers’ paid leave benefits are 11.4% higher in dollar terms, largely because of the higher value of the benefits provided (8.0% of the total 11.4% impact). Unions have a far larger impact on pensions and health insurance, raising the value of these benefits by 56% and 77.4%, respectively. For pensions, the higher value reflects both that unionized workers are more likely to receive this benefit in the first place and that the pension plan they receive is generally a “richer” one. For health benefits, the value added by unions mostly comes from the fact that union workers receive a far more generous health plan than nonunionized workers. This factor accounts for 52.7% of the total 77.4% greater value that organized workers receive.

Table 4 provides further information on the union premium for health insurance, pensions, and paid leave benefits, drawn from a different data source (a series of supplements to the CPS) than for Table 3.1 The first two columns compare the compensation characteristics in union and nonunion settings. The difference between the union and nonunion compensation packages are presented in two ways: unadjusted (the difference between the first two columns) and adjusted (differences in characteristics other than union status such as industry, occupation, and established size). The last column presents the union premium, the percentage difference between union and nonunion compensation, calculated using the adjusted difference.

These data confirm that a union premium exists in every element of the compensation package. While 83.5% of unionized workers have employer-provided health insurance, only 62% of nonunionized workers have such a benefit. Unionized workers are 28.2% more likely than comparable nonunion workers to be covered by employer-provided health insurance. Employers with unionized workforces also provide better health insurance—they pay an 11.1% larger share of single worker coverage and a 15.6% greater share of family coverage. Moreover, deductibles are $54, or 18%, less for unionized workers. Finally, unionized workers are 24.4% more likely to receive health insurance coverage in their retirement.

Similarly, 71.9% of unionized workers have pensions provided by their employers, while only 43.8% of nonunion workers do. Thus, unionized workers are 53.9% more likely to have pension coverage. Union employers spend 36.1% more on defined benefit plans but 17.7% less on defined contribution plans. As defined benefit plans are preferable—they provide a guaranteed benefit in retirement—these data indicate that union workers are more likely to have better pension plans.

Union workers also get more paid time off. This includes having 26.6% more vacation (or 0.63 weeks—three days) than nonunion workers. Another estimate, which includes vacations and holidays, indicates that union workers enjoy 14.3% more paid time off.

Union wages, nonunion wages, and total wages

There are several ways that unionization’s impact on wages goes beyond the workers covered by collective bargaining to affect nonunion wages and labor practices. For example, in industries and occupations where a strong core of workplaces are unionized, nonunion employers will frequently meet union standards or, at least, improve their compensation and labor practices beyond what they would have provided if there were no union presence. This dynamic is sometimes called the “union threat effect,” the degree to which nonunion workers get paid more because their employers are trying to forestall unionization.

There is a more general mechanism (without any specific “threat”) in which unions have affected nonunion pay and practices: unions have set norms and established practices that become more generalized throughout the economy, thereby improving pay and working conditions for the entire workforce. This has been especially true for the 75% of workers who are not college educated. Many “fringe” benefits, such as pensions and health insurance, were first provided in the union sector and then became more generalized—though, as we have seen, not universal. Union grievance procedures, which provide “due process” in the workplace, have been mimicked in many nonunion workplaces. Union wage-setting, which has gained exposure through media coverage, has frequently established standards of what workers generally, including many nonunion workers, expect from their employers. Until, the mid-1980s, in fact, many sectors of the economy followed the “pattern” set in collective bargaining agreements. As unions weakened, especially in the manufacturing sector, their ability to set broader patterns has diminished. However, unions remain a source of innovation in work practices (e.g., training, worker participation) and in benefits (e.g., child care, work-time flexibility, sick leave).

The impact of unions on wage dynamics and the overall wage structure is not easily measurable. The only dimension that has been subject to quantification is the “threat effect,” though measuring this phenomenon is a difficult task for several reasons. First, the union presence will likely be felt most in the markets where unions are seeking to organize—the nonunion employers affected are those in competition with unionized employers. These markets vary in nature. Some of these markets are national, such as many manufacturing industries, while others are local—janitors and hotel and supermarket workers. Some markets are defined by the product—what employers sell, such as autos, tires and so on—while other markets are occupational, such as music, carpentry, and acting. Therefore, studies that compare industries cannot accurately capture the economic landscape on which unions operate and do not adequately measure the “threat effect.”

A second difficulty in examining the impact of the “threat effect” on nonunion wages is identifying a measure, or proxy, for the union presence. In practice, economists have used union density, the percentage of an industry that is unionized, as their proxy. The assumption here is that employers in highly organized settings face a higher threat of union organization than a nonunion employer in a mostly unorganized industry. In broad strokes, this is a reasonable assumption. However, taken too literally and simply, union density can be misleading. First, it is not reasonable to consider that small changes in union density—say, from 37% to 35%, or vice-versa—will produce observable changes in nonunion wages. Any measurement of the “threat effect” that relies on small changes in union density will almost surely—and erroneously—yield little or no effect. Second, the relationship between union density and nonunion wages is not linear. Union density is not likely to produce any threat effect until some threshold level of unionization is reached, as much as 30% to 40%. That is, unionization of 20% in a particular industry may have no impact but 40% unionization may be sufficient to make employers aware of union organizing and union pay and practices. Empirically, this means a 20 percentage point change in unionization density from zero to 20 may have no effect, but a change from 20 to 40 will have an effect. Likewise, a union presence of 60% to 70% may provide as strong a threat, or ability to set standards, as unionization of 80% or more. Therefore, the relationship between union density and nonunion wages depends on the level of density: significant effects after a threshold level of density (e.g., 30% to 40%), a greater effect when density is higher, but no continued increase of impact at the highest densities.

The sensitivity of the results to the specification—a linear or nonlinear specification of union density—is seen in studies of the union threat effect. A linear specification assumes that small changes at any level have the same impact, while a nonlinear specification allows the union effect to differ at different levels of unionization—perhaps less at low levels and more at medium or high levels. In an important early study of the “threat effect,” Freeman and Medoff (1981) examined the relationship between union density and nonunion wages and compensation in manufacturing. They found that union density had no association with higher nonunion pay (the relationship was positive but not statistically significant). Mishel (1982) replicated those results (p. 138) but also employed a nonlinear, qualitative specification (Table 4) that found large threat effects: nonunion establishments in industries with union density from 40% to 60% and from 60% to 80% paid 6.5% and 7.3% more, respectively, than nonunion establishments with low union density (0% to 40%).

Farber (2002, 2003) has conducted the most recent analysis of union threat effects, the relationship between union density and nonunion wages across industries, in the private sector. Farber’s analysis, which uses a linear specification of union density (i.e., assumes small changes at any level have an impact), combines sectors where threat effects, if any, are geographic (hotel, construction, and janitorial work) and national (manufacturing). In one analysis, Farber finds a positive threat effect for the 1970s, 1980s, and mid-1990s. For example, the average nonunion worker in an industry with 25% union density had wages 7.5% higher because of unionization’s presence. Farber’s results show a lower, but still significant, threat effect in later years, though the effect on the average nonunion wage has diminished because of the erosion of union density. Farber also shows, not surprisingly, that the threat effect is greater for workers with no more than high school degree but minimal for those with a college degree.

Farber pursues much more stringent tests of the threat effect in models that use “industry fixed effects” in order to ensure that the effect of other industry characteristics are not wrongly being attributed to union density. Farber’s results in this further analysis show a threat effect among all workers in the 1970s and 1980s but not in the 1990s. Nevertheless, threat effects still prevailed across decades for those without high school degrees and for those with high school degrees, and in the 1980s for those with some college education. For example, nonunionized high school graduates (the largest category of workers in the United States) earned 2.0% to 5.5% higher wages in industries with 25% unionization than they did in completely nonunionized industries.

The union effect on total nonunion wages is nearly comparable to the effect of unions on total union wages. Table 5 illustrates the union impact on union, nonunion, and average wages among workers with a high school education. Farber’s stringent model from 1983 estimates that, for high school workers in a 25% unionized industry, the “threat effect” raises the average nonunion wage by 5.0%, thereby lifting the average wage by 3.8%. Assuming that unions have raised the wages of union workers by 20%, this raises the average high school wage by 5% (25% of 20%). The total effect of unions on the average high school wage in this example is an 8.8% wage increase, 3.8 percentage points of which are due to the higher wages earned by nonunion workers and 5.0 percentage points of which are due to the union wage premium enjoyed by nonunionized workers.

Two conclusions can be reached based on these studies. First, unions have a positive impact on the wages of nonunion workers in industries and markets where unions have a strong presence. Second, because the nonunion sector is large, the union effect on the overall aggregate wage comes almost as much from the impact of unions on nonunion workers as on union workers.

Unions and workplace protections

An extensive array of labor laws and regulations protects workers in the labor market and the workplace. From the National Labor Relations Act and Social Security Act of 1935 to the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 and the Family Medical Leave Act of 1993, labor unions have been instrumental in securing labor legislation and standards. However, beyond their role in initiating and advocating enactment of these laws and regulations, unions have also played an important role in enforcing workplace regulations. Unions have provided labor protections for their members in three important ways: 1) they have been a voice for workers in identifying where laws and regulations are needed, and have been influential in getting these laws enacted; 2) they have provided information to members about workers’ rights and available programs; and 3) they have encouraged their members to exercise workplace rights and participate in programs by reducing fear of employer retribution, helping members navigate the necessary procedures, and facilitating the handling of workers’ rights disputes (Weil 2003; Freeman and Medoff 1984; Freeman and Rogers 1999).

Unions have played a prominent role in the enactment of a broad range of labor laws and regulations covering areas as diverse as overtime pay, minimum wage, the treatment of immigrant workers, health and retirement coverage, civil rights, unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation, and leave for care of newborns and sick family members. Common to all of these rules is a desire to provide protections for workers either by regulating the behavior of employers or by giving workers access to certain benefits in times of need (Weil 2003; Davis 1986; Amberg 1998). Over the years, these rules have become mainstays of the American workplace experience, constituting expressions of cherished public values (Gottesman 1991; Freeman and Medoff 1984).

Less well recognized perhaps, is the important role that unions play in ensuring that labor protections are not just “paper promises” at the workplace. Government agencies charged with the enforcement of regulations cannot monitor every workplace nor automate the issuance of insurance claims resulting from unemployment or injury. In practice, the effectiveness of the implementation of labor protections depends on the worker’s decision to act. This is done either by reporting an abuse or filing a claim. Unions have been crucial in this aspect by giving workers the relevant information about their rights and the necessary procedures, but also by facilitating action by limiting employer reprisals, correcting disinformation, aggregating multiple claims, providing resources to make a claim, and negotiating solutions to disputes on behalf of workers (Freeman and Rogers 1999; Weil 2003; Hirsch, et al. 1997).

Evidence of the vital role of unions in implementing labor protections can be found in the research on various programs and benefits. Union membership significantly increases the likelihood that a worker will file a claim or report an abuse. Examples of this research can be found in such areas as unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, pensions, and the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime provision.

Unemployment insurance

Unemployment insurance (UI) is a joint federal and state program that was created in the Social Security Act of 1935 to provide some income replacement to workers who lose their job through no fault of their own. Budd and McCall (1997) offer a cost-benefit decision-making analysis to explain the costs facing the unemployed worker in filing a UI claim. In a system with complex eligibility rules and benefit calculations and a lack of uniformity among states regarding these rules, the difficulty, or “cost,” of obtaining information is formidable. In fact, the main reason that many unemployed workers never file a claim is because they thought they were not eligible (Wandner and Stettner 2000). The threat of an employer retaliating by not rehiring a laid-off worker might be another cost weighing on the decision to file a claim. Unions can help offset the costs of workers who are laid off.

Primarily, unions provide information to workers about benefit expectations, rules, and procedures, and dispel stigmas that might be attached to receiving a social benefit. Unions also can negotiate in their contracts layoff recall procedures based on seniority and protection against firing for other than a just cause, as well as help workers build files in the case of a disputed claim (Budd and McHall 1997). Additionally, the union-wage differential reduces the likelihood that unemployed workers will be ineligible for benefits because their pay is too low (Wenger 1999).

Budd and McHall (1997) have estimated that union representation increases the likelihood of an unemployed worker in a blue-collar occupation receiving UI benefits by approximately 23%. At the peak of UI coverage in 1975, one in every two unemployed workers received UI benefits. By the mid-1980s, the ratio of claims to unemployed workers (the recipiency rate) had fallen to almost 30%. Blank and Card (1991) found that the decline in unionization explained one-third of the decline in UI recipiency over this period. These findings underscore the difference unions make in ensuring that the unemployment insurance system works. Considering that UI acts as a stabilizer for the economy during times of recession, the role of unions in this program is pivotal (Wandner and Stettner 2000).

Worker’s compensation

Laws governing workers’ compensation are primarily made at the state level (with the exception of federal longshoremen), but they generally form an insurance system in cases where a worker is injured or becomes ill at the workplace. The employer is liable in the system, regardless of fault, and in return they are protected from lawsuits and further liability. Once again, lack of information about eligibility and the necessary procedures for filing a claim forms the greatest obstacle to receipt of benefits. Fear of employer-imposed penalties and employer disinformation are important other factors weighed by workers deciding whether to act.

As with unemployment insurance, unions provide information to workers through their representatives, and they often negotiate procedures to handle indemnity claims. Through grievance procedures and negotiated contracts, unions protect workers from employer retaliation and, furthermore, act to dispel the notion among workers that employer retaliation is commonplace (Hirsch et al. 1997).

Hirsch et al. (1997) found that, after controlling for a number of demographic and occupational factors, union members are 60% more likely to file an indemnity claim than nonunion workers. Employers and the private insurance companies that sell worker’s compensation insurance policies have mutual interests in denying claims to limit costs (Biddle 2001). According to Biddle, higher denial rates lead to lower claim rates. The robust finding of Hirsch et al. demonstrates that unions provide a needed counterbalance to this interest.

Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA)

The Occupation Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA) provided the foundation for the Occupation Safety and Health Administration, which enforces safety and health standards at places of work. The administration’s purpose is to limit work-related injury, illness, and death due to known unsafe working conditions. They currently have only 2,100 inspectors to monitor over seven million establishments. Enforcement of OSHA regulations presents an obvious challenge; OSHA implementation requires worker action to initiate complaints.

In two studies of OSHA and unions in the manufacturing and construction industries (1991a and 1991b), Weil found unions greatly improve OSHA enforcement. In the manufacturing industry, for example, the probability that OSHA inspections would be initiated by worker complaints was as much as 45% higher in unionized workplaces than in nonunion ones. Unionized establishments were also as much as 15% more likely to be the focus of programmed or targeted inspections in the manufacturing industry. In addition, Weil found that in unionized settings workers were much more likely to exercise their “walkaround” rights (accompanying an OSHA inspector to point out potential violations), inspections lasted longer, and penalties for noncompliance were greater. In the construction industry, Weil estimated that unions raise the probability of OSHA inspections by 10%.

In addition to the findings above, Weil notes that the union differential could be even larger if OSHA’s resources were not so limited. He claims, “Implementation of OSHA seems highly dependent upon the presence of a union at the workplace” (Weil 1991a). Following the trend of declining unionization, OSHA claims have dropped from their peak in 1985 of over 71,500 and are currently at close to 37,500 (Siskind 2002; OSHA 2003).

Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)

Passed in 1993, the FMLA grants workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave in a 12-month period to care for newborn or newly adopted children, or in case of a personal or family member’s health condition. The leave taker is guaranteed the same or equivalent position upon return. One of the most striking characteristics of the act is that less than an estimated 60% of employees covered by the FMLA are not even aware that it exists. There is also widespread misunderstanding on the part of the employer about whom the act covers and when it applies. There is evidence that this leads employers to reject legally entitled leaves (Budd and Brey 2000).

According to Budd and Brey (2000), union members were about 10% more likely to have heard of the FMLA and understand whether or not they were eligible. Union members were found to have significantly less anxiety about losing their job or suffering other employer-imposed penalties for taking leave. And although the authors did not find union membership significantly increases the likelihood that a worker would take leave, they did find that union members were far more likely to receive full pay for leave taken.

The biggest obstacle to workers exercising their rights under the FMLA—besides the fact that the leave is unpaid rather than paid—is information, since only a very slim majority has even heard of the act. With the exception of a $100 fine for failing to post a notice, employers have little incentive to inform employees of their rights. Unions are one of the few institutions to create awareness about FMLA’s existence and regulations.

Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)

This act, passed in 1938, had two main features: first, it established a federal minimum wage. Second, it established the 40-hour work week for hourly wage earners, with an overtime provision of time and a half the hourly wage for work done beyond 40 hours. Trejo (1991) examined the union effect on compliance of the latter part of the FLSA, finding that employer compliance with the overtime pay regulation rose sharply with the presence of a union. He hypothesizes that this result reflects the policing function of unions because unions often report violations to enforcement agencies.

Summary: union impact on workplace protections

The research evidence clearly shows that the labor protections enjoyed by the entire U.S. workforce can be attributed in large part to unions. The workplace laws and regulations, which unions helped to pass, constitute the majority of the labor and industrial relations policies of the United States. However, these laws in and of themselves are insufficient to change employer behavior and/or to regulate labor practices and policies. Research has shown convincingly that unions have played a significant role in enforcing these laws and ensuring that workers are protected and have access to benefits to which they are legally entitled. Unions make a substantial and measurable difference in the implementation of labor laws.

Legislated labor protections are sometimes considered alternatives to collective bargaining in the workplace, but the fact of the matter is that a top-down strategy of legislating protections may not be influential unless there is also an effective voice and intermediary for workers at the workplace—unions. In all of the research surveyed, no institutional factor appears as capable as unions of acting in workers’ interests (Weil 2003). Labor legislation and unionization are best thought of as complements, not substitutes.

This paper has presented evidence on some of the advantages that unionized workers enjoy as the result of union organization and collective bargaining: higher wages; more and better benefits; more effective utilization of social insurance programs; and more effective enforcement of legislated labor protections such as safety, health, and overtime regulations. Unions also set pay standards and practices that raise the wages of nonunionized workers in occupations and industries where there is a strong union presence. Collective bargaining fuels innovations in wages, benefits, and work practices that affect both unionized and nonunionized workers.

However, this review does not paint a full picture of the role of unions in workers lives, as unions enable due process in the workplace and facilitate a strong worker voice in the broader community and in politics. Many observers have stated, correctly, that a strong labor movement is essential to a thriving democracy.

Nor does this review address how unionism and collective bargaining affect individual firms and the economy more generally. Analyses of the union effect on firms and the economy have generally found unions to be a positive force, improving the performance of firms and contributing to economic growth (Freeman and Medoff 1984; Mishel and Voos 1992; Belman 1992; Belman and Block 2002; Stiglitz 2000; Freeman and Kleiner 1999; Hristus and Laroche 2003; with a dissenting view in Hirsch 1997). There is nothing in the extensive economic analysis of unions to suggest that there are economic costs that offset the positive union impact on the wages, benefits, and labor protections of unionized and nonunionized workers. Unions not only improve workers’ benefits, they also contribute to due process and provide a democratic voice for workers at the workplace and in the larger society.

— August 2003

1. The ECI data and the March CPS supplements show different benefit coverage rates with a union differential in coverage lower in the ECI than the CPS. This may reflect that the CPS reports individuals’ coverage while the ECI reports the coverage of occupational groups in establishments. The ECI overstates nonunion benefit coverage to the extent that uncovered nonunion workers are present in unionized occupation groups.

Amberg, Stephen. 1998. “The CIO Political Strategy in Historical Perspective: Creating the High-Road Economy in the Postwar Era.” In Kevin Boyle, ed., Organized Labor and American Politics, 1894-1994: The Labor-Liberal Alliance . Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, pp.159-194.

Barkume, Anthony J. 2002a. “Compensation supplements and use of incentive pay in U.S. job markets.” Working Paper No. 352. Office of Compensation and Working Conditions, Department of Labor.

Barkume, Anthony J. 2002b. “What compensation provides the firm and incentive instrument? Some recent evidence for U.S. private industry.” Unpublished paper.

Belman, Dale. 1992 “Unions, Quality of Labor Relations, and Firm Performance.” In Lawrence Mishel and Paula B. Voos, eds., Unions and Economic Competitiveness. Economic Policy Institute, New York, M.E. Sharpe, pp. 41-107.

Belman, Dale and Richard Block. 2002. “Collective Bargaining and Organizational Performance.” In Richard N. Block. ed., Collective Bargaining, Firm Competitiveness, and Employment in the United States . Kalamazoo, Mich.: W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

Biddle, Jeff. 2001. Do high claim-denial rates discourage claiming? Evidence from workers compensation insurance. Journal of Risk and Insurance . Vol. 68, No.4, pp. 631-58.

Blackburn, McKinley L., David E. Bloom, and Richard B. Freeman. 1991. “Changes in earnings differentials in the 1980s: concordance, convergence, causes, and consequences.” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 3901. Cambridge, Mass.: NBER.

Blanchflower, David G. and Alex Bryson. 2002. “Changes over time in union relative wage effects in the U.K. and the U.S. revisited.” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 9395. Cambridge, Mass.: NBER. < http://www.nber.org/papers/w9395 >

Blank, Rebecca M. and David E. Card. 1991. Recent trends in insured and uninsured unemployment: Is there an explanation? Quarterly Journal of Economics . November 1991, pp. 1157-89.

Buchmueller, Thomas C., DiNardo, John, Valletta Robert G. 2001. “ Union effects on health insurance provision and coverage in the United States.” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 8238. Cambridge, Mass.: NBER.

Budd, John W. and Brian P. McCall. 1997. “Unions and unemployment insurance benefits receipt: Evidence from the CPS.” Working Paper. Industrial Relations Center: University of Minnesota.

Budd, John W. and Angela M. Brey. 2001. “Unions and family leave: Early experience under the Family and Medical Leave Act.” Working Paper. Industrial Relations Center: University of Minnesota.

Card, David. 1991. “The effect of unions on distribution of wages: Re-distribution or relabelling? Princeton University, Department of Economics, Working Paper No. 287. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University.

Card, David. 1996. The effect of unions on the structure of wages: A longitudinal analysis. Econometrica. Vol. 64, pp. 957-99.

Card, David. 2001. The effect of unions on wage inequality in the U.S. labor market . Industrial and Labor Relations Review. Vol. 54, pp. 354-67.

Card, David, Thomas Lemieux, and W. Craig Riddell. 2003. “Unionization and wage inequality: A comparative study of the U.S., the U.K. and Canada.” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 9473. Cambridge, Mass.: NBER. < http://www.nber.org/papers/w9473 >

Davis, Mike. 1986. Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics and Economy in the History of the U.S. Working Class . London: Verso.

DiNardo, John, Nicole M. Fortin, and Thomas Lemieux. Labor market institutions and the distribution of wages, 1973-1992: A semi-parametric approach.” Econometrica. Vol. 64, September 1996, pp. 1001-1044.

Doucauliagos, Hristos and Patrice Laroche. 2003. “What Do Unions Do To Productivity? A Meta-Analysis.” Unpublished.

Farber, Henry S. 2002. “Are unions still a threat? Wages and the decline of unions, 1973-2001.” Princeton University, Working Paper. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University.

Farber, Henry S. 2003. “Nonunion wage rates and the threat of unionization.” Industrial Relations Section, Princeton University, Working Paper No. 472. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University.

Foster, Ann C. 2000. Union-nonunion wage differences, 1997. Compensation and Working Conditions . Spring, pp. 43-46.

Foster, Ann C. 2003. Differences in union and nonunion earnings in blue-collar and service occupations. Compensation and Working Conditions Online . Posted June 25. < http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/cm20030623ar01p1.htm >

Freeman, Richard B. 1980. Unionism and the dispersion within establishments . Industrial and Labor Relations Review. Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 3-23.

Freeman, Richard B. 1981. The effect of unionism on fringe benefits. Industrial and Labor Relations Review. Vol. 34, No. 4, pp. 489-509.

Freeman, Richard B. 1982. Union wage practices and wage dispersion within establishments. Industrial and Labor Relations Review. Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 3-21.

Freeman, Richard B. 1991. “How much has de-unionization contributed to the rise in male earnings inequality?” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 3826. Cambridge, Mass.: NBER.

Freeman, Richard B. and James L. Medoff. 1981. The impact of the percentage organized on union and nonunion wages. The Review of Economics and Statistics . Vol. 63, No. 4 (Nov.), pp. 561-72.

Freeman, Richard and James Medoff. 1984. What Do Unions Do? New York: Basic Books.

Freeman, Richard B. and Kleiner, Morris M. July 1999. Do unions make enterprises insolvent? Industrial and Labor Relations Review. Vol. 52, pp. 27-50.

Freeman, Richard and Joel Rogers. 1999. What Workers Want . Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press.

Gottesman, Michael H. 2000. “Whither Goest Labor Law: Law and Economics in the Workplace.” In Samuel Estreicher and Stewart J. Schwab, eds., Foundations of Labor and Employment Law . New York: Foundation Press, pp. 128-130.

Gundersen, Bethney. 2003. “Unions and the well-being of low-skill workers.” George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University. Ph.D. dissertation.

Hirsch, Barry T. 1997. “Unionization and Economic Performance: Evidence on Productivity, Profits, Investments, and Growth.” In F. Mihlar, ed., Unions and Right-to-Work Laws . Vancouver B.C.: The Frazer Institute, pp. 35-70.

Hirsch, Barry T. 2003. Reconsidering union wage effects: Surveying new evidence on an old topic. Journal of Labor Research. Forthcoming.

Hirsch, Barry T., J. Michael DuMond, and David A. Macpherson. 1997. Worker’s compensation recipiency in union and nonunion workplaces. Industrial and Labor Relations Review . Vol. 50, No. 2 (January), pp. 213-36.

Hirsch, Barry T. and Edward J. Schumacher. 1998. Unions, wage, and skills. Journal of Human Resources . Vol. 33, No. 1 (Winter), pp. 201-219.

Hirsch, Barry T. and Edward J. Schumacher. 2000. “Private sector union density and the wage premium: Past, present, and future.” Department of Economics, East Carolina University, Working Paper No. 0015.

Hirsch, Barry T. and Edward J. Schumacher. 2002. Unions, wage, and skills. Journal of Labor Economics . 2002 forthcoming.

Hirsch, Barry T. and David A. Macpherson. 2003. Union Membership and Earnings Data Book: Compilations from the Current Population Survey. Bureau of National Affairs.

Hansen, Fay. 1998. Union membership and the union wage differential. Compensation and Benefits Review . Vol. 30, No. 3 (May/June), pp. 16-21.

Kuttner, Robert. 2003. Welcome to the amazing jobless recovery. Business Week Online . Economic Viewpoint: July 28.

Lewis, H. Gregg. 1963. Unionism and Relative Wages in the United States . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lewis, H. Gregg. 1986. Union Relative Wage Effects: A Survey Chicago . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Mishel, Lawrence R. 1982. “The structural determinants of union bargaining power.” University of Wisconsin, Madison. Ph.D. dissertation.

Mishel, Lawrence and Paula B. Voos, eds. 1992. Unions and Economic Competitiveness. Economic Policy Institute. New York: M.E. Sharpe.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). 2003. “OSHA Facts.” OSHA, Department of Labor. < http://www.osha.gov/as/opa/oshafacts.html >

Pierce, Brooks. 1999a. Using the National Compensation Survey to predict wage rates. Compensation and Working Conditions . Winter.

Pierce, Brooks. 1999b. “Compensation inequality.” Office of Compensation and Working Conditions, Department of Labor, Working Paper No. 323.

Siskind, Frederic B. 2002. “20th Century OSHA Enforcement Data: A Review and Exploration of Major Trends.” Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Department of Labor. < http://www.dol.gov/asp/media/reports/osha-data/toc.htm >

Trejo, Stephen J. 1991. The effects of overtime pay regulation on worker compensation. American Economic Review . Vol. 81, No. 4 (September), pp. 719-40.

Wandner, Stephen A. and Andrew Stettner. 2000. Why are many jobless workers not applying for benefits? Monthly Labor Review . June, pp. 21-32.

Weil, David. 1991. Enforcing OSHA: The role of labor unions. Industrial Relations . Vol. 30, No. 1 (Winter), pp. 20-36.

Weil, David. 2001. Assessing OSHA performance: New evidence from the construction industry. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management . Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 651-74.

Weil, David. 2003. “Individual rights and collective agents: The role of old and new workplace institutions in the regulation of labor markets. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 9565. Cambridge, Mass.: NBER. < http://www.nber.org/papers/w9565 >

Wenger, Jeff. 2001. Divided We Fall: Deserving Workers Slip Through America’s Patchwork Unemployment Insurance System. Briefing Paper, Economic Policy Institute. Washington, D.C.: Economic Policy Institute.

See related work on Collective bargaining and right to organize | Unions and Labor Standards

See more work by Matthew Walters and Lawrence Mishel

Sign up to stay informed

New research, insightful graphics, and event invites in your inbox every week.

See related work on Collective bargaining and right to organize and Unions and Labor Standards

Track EPI on Twitter

Jurisdictions

A list of all countries, regions and trading blocs covered by Legal 500 rankings and research list of all countries and trading blocs covered by Legal 500

Green Guide

Exploring the legal sector’s engagement with a green transition

Future Lawyers

The student’s guide to the UK legal profession

Deutschland DE

Auflistung und Ranking von ca. 400 Anwaltskanzleien verschiedener Praxisbereiche in Deutschland

Plus de 300 cabinets d’avocats opérant en France

Global directory of profiled law firms

Barristers’ Sets

Directory of profiled sets

Law Firm Networks

International law firm network index

Service Providers

Suppliers offering support services to legal professionals

Firms in the Spotlight

Featured law firms in specific practice areas and jurisdictions

Firms to Watch

Firms To Watch recognises emerging practices, specialist boutiques and ground-breaking firms that may not otherwise be ranked in Legal 500.

Meet the Team

Meet the team provides extra insight into a specific team’s capabilities and expertise above and beyond what is included within Legal 500 rankings.

Hall of Fame

Law firm partners with long-term experience at the top of the profession

Interview with…

Explore firms’ practices, capabilities, values and cultures through expert interviews with partners

Enterprise GC

An elite, exclusive residential conference bringing together market-leading general counsels

GC Magazine

Leading content for general counsel

GC Powerlist

Recognising VIP general counsel for their innovation, impact and market-leading standing within major global economies

In-House Lawyer

The magazine of choice of the in-house counsel of the UK and EMEA

Comparative Guides

Knowledge centre.

Examining legal perspectives on specific topics across different countries

News & Developments

Latest news and thought leadership from law firms around the world

Special Reports

In-depth reports on legal trends and insights from global law experts.

Legal Business

The market-leading monthly magazine for legal professionals at elite law firms globally

Upcoming Events

Legal 500’s extensive, market-leading programme of summits, awards, powerlist receptions, roundtables delivering cutting-edge discussion and debate globally

Previous Events

Highlights, thought leadership and insights from past legal events and webinars

Corporate Conversations

Insightful discussions with industry leaders on pivotal legal topics

Legal 500 TV

Find out more about the team behind the world’s most successful and highly respected legal market research organisation

Answers to Legal 500’s most frequently asked questions

Submissions

Comprehensive guidance on how to showcase your firm’s capabilities to the world’s most highly respected legal market research team

Bespoke practice area or jurisdictional reporting

Marketing Resources

Display your Legal 500 Ranking on your website

Contact Legal 500 for more information on submissions, commercial and marketing opportunities or more details of our portfolio of research products

Newsletters

Sign up for more information on our portfolio of research products

Rankings open close

Firms open close, lawyers open close, in-house open close, knowledge centre open close, events open close, about us open close, the importance of trade unions and their role in social protection at times of crisis.

July 20, 2022 > Brazil > Labour and employment

Mannrich e Vasconcelos Advogados | View firm profile

Introduction.

The historical role played by trade unions is undeniable, particularly in the context of collective bargaining and the resolution of collective labour disputes. In fact, not only the union movements, but also (and especially) collective bargaining, have led to the acquisition of numerous rights and a more appropriate adjustment of government rules to the technical, cultural, and social specificities of each economic activity or locality.

In times of crisis, such as the one we are currently living through because of the coronavirus pandemic, unions are even more relevant. If well conducted, union actions can mitigate the adverse effects of the crisis on working conditions and on the maintenance of jobs.

This evidences the need to strengthen social movements that, as will be further analysed herein, have experienced their own crisis of representativeness in recent decades. Therefore, the Brazilian trade union system must necessarily be reformed, especially to finally implement the genuine freedom of association, as advocated by the ILO and other international players. This is what we discuss in this text.

The Historical Role of Trade Unions in Gaining and Consolidating Social Rights

Trade unions have always played a significant historical role in the acquisition of social rights, especially labour rights. From 1917 to 1920, Brazilian unions promoted several strikes for better working conditions. Such trade union movements resulted in the acquisition of several labour rights (e.g., the prohibition on children under the age of 12 being able to work) during the 1920s and 1930s.

At the beginning of the 20 th century, Brazil underwent an intense urbanisation process, resulting in the industrialisation movement. As Caio Prado Júnior points out, industrialisation occurred mainly due to investments made by coffee farmers (Prado Junior 2008, p. 264). Capitalist accumulation was still an essentially restricted individual practice in Brazil. Only individuals who had managed to raise enough funds to establish themselves on their own and independently invested capital in the industry made huge profits with their crops, particularly coffee. For example, after 1907, when coffee allowed a large margin of income thanks to the valuation policy, but its planting was limited, in addition to the fear of recurrence of the crisis, many of those profits were applied to manufacturing. Actually, from 1910 on, industrialisation developed very rapidly.

At the end of the 19 th century, the city of São Paulo rapidly grew into a manufacturing centre, especially because it was located near the main coffee-growing areas. However, the rapid industrialisation process was not accompanied by a corresponding increase in workers’ rights. Working conditions were precarious, and the presence of children in industrial complexes was amazingly common.

Therefore, social movements were intense during this period. Souto Maior points out that, from 1917 to 1920, just in São Paulo, 108 labour strikes occurred (Souto Maior 2017, p. 130). Undoubtedly, the 1917 General Strike, which lasted for several days, stands out. Boris Fausto lists the main demands of the 1917 strike: wage increases; prohibition of employing minors under 14 years of age; the abolition of night work for women and workers under the age of 18; a limit of an eight-hour workday, with a 50% mandatory pay increase for overtime; an end to work on Saturday afternoons; job tenure; respect for the right of association (Fausto 2003, p. 300).

Labour movements of the time were organised around the unions, largely as a consequence of the high immigration flow, mainly of Italian workers, who had brought such ideals with them. Souto Maior highlights how essential trade unions were to the workers’ movements, pointing out that revolutionary unionism was an effort to build a working identity, as well as a tool for defending the unity of the working class and the fight for better living and working conditions (Souto Maior 2017, p. 134).

Due to popular and trade union appeals, labour legislation underwent profound changes in the subsequent period. The Federal Constitution of 1934, promulgated by President Getúlio Vargas, raised social rights, especially labour rights, to constitutional level.

During this period (1920-1934), some executive orders establishing workers’ rights stand out. Executive Order No. 3,724, of January 15, 1919, regulated occupational accidents (art. 1), imposing on employers a duty to indemnify the injured worker or his family, except in cases of force majeure or exclusive fault of the employee (art. 2). Executive Order No. 4,982 of December 24, 1925, established the right to a remunerated annual rest period of fifteen (15) uninterrupted days (art. 1). In 1927, Executive Order No. 17,943-A of October 12 prohibited minors under 12 years of age from working (art. 101). Executive Order No. 21,364, of March 4, 1932, set limits on working hours in the industry – eight hours per day and 48 hours per week (art. 1). For employees at banks and banking institutions, Executive Order No. 23,322 of November 3, 1933, established six hours as maximum daily working hours, with a weekly total of 36 hours (art. 1).

As it turns out, the outstanding labour rights had a legal framework. In 1934, however, the number of rights increased and they became constitutionally secured. The following stand out: a) prohibition of different pay for the same job, based on age, gender, nationality or marital status (art. 121, Paragraph 1, “a”, of the CF/34); b) minimum wage (art. 121, Paragraph 1, “b”, CF/34); c) prohibition of employing minors under 14 years of age (art. 121, Paragraph 1, “d”, CF/34); d) weekly rest, preferably on Sundays (art. 121, Paragraph1, “e” of CF/34); e) daily working hours limited to eight (art. 121, Paragraph1º, “c”, CF/34); f) indemnity  to the employee dismissed without cause (art. 121, Paragraph1, “g”, CF/34).

Unlike what is often thought, social rights were not freely and spontaneously granted by the government. These rights were achieved by the workers’ struggles and demands. Indeed, social rights are different from government charitable activities. Norberto Bobbio points out that one of the main characteristics of human rights, in which social rights are included, is their historicity (Bobbio 2004, p. 31). Human rights are historical rights: they gradually emerge from struggles and consequent changes in living conditions. Moreover, the conquest of rights related to work in Brazil could not be dissociated from historicity.

Thanks to the trade union movements, orchestrated by the unions and guided by revolutionary unionism, the government began to intervene in labour relations to guarantee minimum rights.

Amauri Mascaro Nascimento reports that unionism emerged as a workers’ reaction, based on solidarity and the defence of their interests on the one hand, and, on the other, as a revolt against the capitalist mode of production (Nascimento 2005, p. 41).

For a long time, coalitions were considered crimes in several countries. Until the first half of the 19 th century, laws in France, England and the United States provided for imprisonment. Due to the rise of liberal thinking, governments around the world began to repeal laws that criminalised coalitions (Nascimento 2005, p. 46).

From then on, all over the world, trade unionism began to be structured following two main concepts: the liberal type, in which “law took care of organising the system, regulating the means, not the ends,” ensuring freedom of union and collective bargaining and sealing anti-union practices; and the Soviet-Leninist type, which rejected free-trade unionism and maintained trade unions controlled by the government (Nascimento 2005, p. 51-53).

The corporate trade union system led to the organisation of social classes through government regulatory actions and, according to Nascimento (2005, p. 54), invalidated the spontaneity of unionism. Its main techniques were: limitations on union plurality (union unity); official union framework imposed by the state; union recognition letter granted by the state in a discretionary way; and compulsory union dues, among others.

In both the liberal and the corporatist union systems, the strength of the union movements stems from their leaders’ bargaining power, which is manifested in scenarios of claims and strikes, as well as in collective bargaining.

Trade unions contribute to the achievement and consolidation of social rights not only because they force public authorities to secure rights, but also because they secure specific guarantees and protections to their leaders through collective labour agreements. This second path has gained even greater relevance in times of economic or social crisis, like the current scenario of the new coronavirus pandemic.

Erik Olin Wright acknowledges the existence of two major sources of bargaining power that can be used by workers to enforce their interests regarding their employers: associational power and structural power (Wright 2000, p. 962).

Associational power derives from the collective organisation of workers through unions. Although not as effective as structural power, Wright believes that this is the main form of power given to workers in general because it is up to them, and only them, to build a strong organisation, so that any worker, in theory, can enjoy associational power.

On the other hand, workers may enjoy structural power only because of their position in the economic system, and this is subdivided into “power within the labour market” and “power within the workplace.”

Power within the labour market results directly from restricted labour markets, whether due to scarce skills and high demand from employers, low levels of general unemployment, or workers’ ability to exit the market and survive from sources of income other than their salaries.

Power within the workplace comes from the strategic location of a certain group of workers in a key industrial segment. This power is conferred on workers involved in well-integrated production processes, in which a stoppage at an essential point is capable of causing disruption at a much larger scale than at just that point. This is the case when entire production lines are hampered by unrest in only one of its segments, or when corporations that rely on just-in-time supply are completely paralysed by a strike by workers in the rail industry.

When workers began to use their bargaining power in defence of their interests in a systematised way, capital began to respond with three main measures, which follow a recurring pattern: spatial, technological or product/financial nature (Silver 2005, pp. 53-81).

The spatial solution is to shift the production to new locations where the workforce is relatively cheaper and more easily controllable. The technological solution consists of process innovation by introducing significant changes in production organisation, especially through automation, reducing dependence on human labour. Finally, the product solution is characterised by the displacement of capital to new segments and product lines less subject to competitiveness in more radical situations. Industry capital might migrate to financial speculation (financial solution).

The above-mentioned dynamics may have been responsible for weakening union movements around the world in recent decades. This crisis in trade union representation seems to have even more pronounced contours in developing countries, such as Brazil. This is what will be discussed below.

Crisis in Trade Union Representation

Even before the labour law reform of 2017 (Law No. 13,467/17) – which made it optional to pay union dues and, therefore, abruptly reduced the main source of funding of trade unions – it is possible to see evidence of a crisis of unionism.

A study conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE 2002, p. 29) shows that the rate of unionisation of the economically active population remained constant from 1992 to 2001, at 23%. However, the number of workers’ unions has grown much more rapidly than that of unionised workers. As a result, the average size of labour unions, measured by the relationship between the number of members and trade unions, decreased between 1992 and 2001. By way of example, unions representing urban employees and liberal professionals shrank, respectively, by 23% and 19% (IBGE 2002, p. 30).

The downward trend of union activities, even before the 2017 reform, raises questions about the causes thereof. Among the culprits are employers, governments and the unions themselves. Fiorito, Jarley and Delaney explain:

Among the “suspects” are union themselves. Various observers have cited undemocratic practices, insufficient rationalization, unwillingness to innovate, overly narrow goals, insufficient or poorly focused organizing effort, and reliance on a ‘service model’ of unions that fails to activate rank-and-file workers. […] Although many of the criticisms are complementary, some are potentially in conflict: too little versus too much centralization, for example, or a need for greater rationalizations – operating in a more ‘business-like’ manner – versus a need for more democracy (Fiorito, Jarley & Delaney 1995, p. 614).

Peter Fairbrother and Charlotte Yates clarify that the trend of contraction of union participation is global and stems from structural factors, especially significant changes in the labour market, such as greater flexibilisation of labour standards and the migration of industrial activities to the services segment (Fairbrother & Yates 2003, p. 1).

But the most used argument to explain the alleged crisis of union movements is that, at the end of the 20 th century, the hyper-mobility of productive capital established a peculiar labour market, in which workers around the world are compelled to compete with each other.

By moving – or simply threatening to move – production to other regions or countries, large corporations have created strong competitive pressure among the growing mass of disorganised workers, which has weakened workers’ bargaining power, starting what Beverly Silver (2005, p. 21) calls the “race to the bottom” in terms of wages and working conditions on a global scale. The hyper-mobility of capital has indeed weakened the sovereignty of states. And when governments become unable to effectively control capital flows, their ability to protect the wellbeing of their citizens and some other workers’ rights, including welfare state and substantive democracy, will also diminish (Silver 2005, pp. 21-22).

Bargaining power has weakened because governments that choose to maintain expensive social pacts are subject to mass abandonment of capital, as corporations worldwide prospect the highest possible return on their investments. From this point of view, the greatest consequence of the race to the bottom would be the pressure suffered by governments to reduce social welfare costs and provide the highest possible profitability in their territories, in order to attract (or maintain) investments (Martin & Schumann 1998, pp. 17-22).

Another argument supporting the existence of a crisis in union movements is based on the characteristics of the current productive market. During the 20 th century, industrial activity was the highlight of the international market, but at the end of the 20 th century and the beginning of the 21 st century, the service segment became an important share of this market – which has become even more prominent with several new technologies.

According to the World Trade Organization (WTO 2012), in 2011 international trade in goods and services handled US$18.2 trillion and US$4.1 trillion, respectively. Of all business transactions in that year, 18.6% referred to services.

There is reasonable doubt around whether workers in this segment will have enough bargaining power to lead the trade union movements in the 21 st century, as workers in the automotive industry did in the last century. This is because the services modality is generally intended for individual customers, and therefore workers are geographically dispersed. Thus, the workers in this segment have very little structural bargaining power in the workplace, which was precisely one of the main reasons for the great automobile union force in the 20 th century.

When the structural bargaining power of workers is small, their victories will depend on strong associative power. It is possible for workers to be organised in strong trade unions, as is the case in some of these segments. Thus, despite little bargaining power in the workplace, associative bargaining power can strengthen structural market bargaining power, thus reinforcing the importance of the association of the view that the right to strike is an important tool in the search for balance between capital and labour relations.

In addition to the hyper-mobility of capital and the specific characteristics of the contemporary productive market, another relevant factor for the alleged crisis of the union movements is the growing individuality present in a “post-moralist society”.

According to Gilles Lipovetsky, current individualism does not stem from greater selfishness of contemporary individuals, but rather from a greater social acceptance of the individualistic character of their preferences: “the novelty is precisely this: thinking only about themselves is no longer regarded as something immoral” (Lipovetsky 2005, p. 107).

While in the eyes of the moral ideal individuals do not enjoy rights, because they are only in charge of performing duties, the post-moralist culture overvalues the legitimacy of subjective rights and undermines the spirit of sacrifice, the ideal of giving precedence to others. The new individualist era atrophied in consciences the high regard that the altruistic ideal used to enjoy, redeemed self-centrism and legitimised the right to live only for oneself (Lipovetsky 2005, p. 107).

Often, the charitable-supportive spirit (minimalist and intermittent) becomes present only when there is some kind of identification between the individual, who gives himself, and the person or group receiving charity. Richard Rorty argues that the solidarity feeling finds its maximum intensity when those with whom we sympathise are recognised as “one of us” (Rorty 2007, pp. 314-315).

The expression “one of us” is adopted by Rorty to represent something more specific than merely belonging to the human race. According to him, people sympathise with each other not simply because they are all human beings, but in the presence of another element that subjectively gives them the feeling of closeness and belonging: nationality, age group, life history, family conditions or any other characteristics whereby a person identifies with another. And that is exactly why the union environment is conducive to restoring the spirit of solidarity, since several points of affinity are established among the unionised.

Michael Yates points out that the major union achievements in the 1930s in the United States were largely due to the basic principle that “an injury to one is an injury to all” (Yates 2009, p. 52). With the growing individualism present in society, this principle has lost strength and meaning.

Thus, trade unions must resume their spirit of a true “union movement”, based on group identity. The expression “trade union movement” is used by Julius Getman (2010) in his work “Restoring the power of unions: it takes a movement” to designate something more than simple union activity.

Trade union movements presuppose activity empowered by the activism of unionised workers, producing a force that transcends money, affiliates and economic power:

“Organized labor needs to rekindle the spirit of the activist member-powered movement that has guided its past successes. Organized labor today is a progressive interest group, but it is not a workers’ movement. A “movement” entails something more than money, members, and economic power – all those factors are significant thought. A movement requires activating and using the energies of workers. It means fostering solidarity across unions and occupations. It requires leaders who are willing to trust and who are committed to sharing power with the union’s rank and file. The spirit of movement also requires a concern for issues beyond the economic wellbeing of the members, such as environmental justice, racial equality, and the rights of immigrants” (Getman 2003, p. 1).

Thus, even if we recognise the existence of a series of factors that signal a crisis in union movements in these first decades of the 21 st century, none of these elements is absolute or irreversible. It is in this sense that, in the 1990s, Fiorito, Jarley and Delaney stated: “Even if union decline is primarily due to external forces, there is little questioning that unions’ responses have been largely ineffective” (Fiorito, Jarley & Delaney 1995, p. 614).

A study conducted by Peter Fairbrother and Charlotte Yates (2003, p. 2) showed that in the early 2000s, many national trade unions and labour movements in several countries were already undergoing a process of reevaluating their strategies in response to the crisis of trade unionism.

This strategic reassessment ushered in a period of rapid change for many unions in order to rebuild union movements and restore their strength to employers and governments. The main actions adopted were mergers between trade unions, attempts to organise non-union workers and, in some cases, tests of new forms of partnership between unions and companies (Fiorito Jarley & Delaney 1995, p. 614).

Rescuing union movements is imperative, especially in economic and/or social crisis scenarios, such as the one we are facing due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Freedom of Association and other Challenges: An Urgent Review of the Current Union Model in Brazil

3.1 freedom of association: the basis of trade unions.

In order to enable the rescue of union movements, as mentioned above, it is imperative to urgently review the Brazilian trade union model. The most elementary aspect of reform is implementing freedom of association, which can be considered the cornerstone of trade union organisation in the world.

Freedom of association is one of the pillars of trade union law. Through this fundamental guarantee, workers organise themselves for greater efficiency at collective bargaining (second pillar), the main assignment of unions in Brazil. They use strikes (third pillar) when necessary and as a last resort to “force the employer” to get to the bargaining table. But, as can be seen, it all revolves around a fundamental principle: freedom of association.

In other words, if the main function of unions is collective bargaining and the latter is their main raison d’être , freedom of association appears as the basis of collective self-protection and, therefore, their first generation fundamental law.

Freedom of association implies autonomy enjoyed by groups to organise themselves freely, according to their own interests, respecting the laws governing the country.

The debate involving freedom of association and collective bargaining itself is not only linked to the fundamental rights aspect and the guarantees thereof vis-à-vis the state, as will be seen later, but especially because of the importance that unions have in collective labour relations, in a scenario of permanent advancement and transformations of the labour laws to ensure the improvement of workers’ conditions.

This has been demonstrated since the first unions emerged during the Industrial Revolution and has continued to this day. In this long trajectory, unions have proven their ability to overcome enormous obstacles and vicissitudes in such combative and conflicting relationship between capital and labour and in the permanent need for adaptation, especially nowadays, when there is an actual reconstruction of labour laws in progress.

Hence the importance of this topic in the field of international law, particularly from the tireless effort of the ILO (International Labour Organization) to provide a safe ground to serve as a basis for the actions of national governments, especially in view of the governability of collective labour disputes. In this sense, there is an important set of international rules as far as the ILO is concerned: Conventions 87 and 98, always referred to and celebrated, because they refer to certain sensitive aspects such as freedom of association and collective bargaining.

If international law, especially in the context of international labour conventions, is fertile in terms of flexibility and possible adaptability, favouring the adoption of its treaties by the most different countries, it is not in regard to certain doctrines, such as freedom of work, non-discrimination and, particularly, freedom of association. This principle is adamant, not subject to arrangements to accommodate anyone’s interests. Its implementation is fundamental, not only in the scope of collective labour relations, but because of what it represents for strengthening and consolidating democracy in general and substantiating all fundamental rights in particular.

Oscar Ermida Uriarte points out three assumptions for implementing an appropriate union system: interdependence between trade union rights and other human rights; promotion of trade unionism and recognition of total freedom of association (Uriarte 2000, p. 116).

(i) interdependence between trade union rights and other human rights.

For the aforementioned author, the first presupposition for implementing freedom of association has to do with the effectiveness of human rights. This is because the development of freedom of association or its actual implementation depends on the pre-existence of other human rights and vice versa: freedom of association depends on the full exercise of human rights.

In other words, freedom of association is not self-sufficient – its existence depends on other civil and political freedoms – the latter constituting the basis of the former and at the same time thereby being conditioned. In this sense, the very effectiveness of individual rights depends on a system of effective freedom of association. Such freedom is so relevant that it is presented as an “indispensable element to real democracy” (Uriarte 2000, p. 117).

Ermida Uriarte also notes that democratic consolidation is not limited to political pluralism, as the effective implementation of the rule of law is linked to free actions by both trade unions and employers’ associations. This is because trade union law is not only enforced by the recognition of freedom of association, it is also linked to “the freedoms of man as a whole” (Uriarte 2000, p. 118).

(ii) promotion of trade unionism.

According to Article 11 of Convention 87, member states that ratify it are obliged to take the necessary measures to ensure that workers and employers can freely exercise the right of unionisation. In other words, it is up to the member state to promote the organisation of the union [1] , as well as to sanction laws supporting union activity.

(iii) recognition of total freedom of association.

There must be unrestricted freedom for the creation of trade unions, their organisation and membership. It also implies adequate protection for exercising freedom of association.

3.2 Freedom of Association in the Context of Public Freedoms

For Montesquieu, freedom is the good that allows individuals to enjoy the other individuals, which also applies to freedom of association.

Freedom of association was recognised in France only in 1884. Before that, there was no sense in discussing the topic because trade unions as we know them today simply did not exist (in this respect, cf. Israel 2005, p. 583). .

According to Jean-Jacques Israel, the expression “public freedoms” has been traditionally preferred to “human rights” in France since the 19 th century, although the notion of human rights is older, as can be seen in the Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights of 1789 (Israel 2005, p. 6).

In Marcel Waline’s teaching, public freedom corresponds to any and all faculties recognised and guaranteed to citizens by the constitution, or at least by law (Waline 1963, p. 651). Therefore, public freedoms indicate the set of civil and political rights to which citizens are entitled, and in the space of which the state can only practice abstention, as occurs with the right to property and the right to freedom of movement, among others.

According to Georg Jellinek, it is up to the state to recognise human rights to emphasise the positivist character thereof, to the detriment of a naturalistic view. Consequently, in addition to recognising the positivist character of these rights, they will take form in an unequal relationship between the individual and the state (Jellinek apud Ramos 2018, p. 55).

Within this perspective, one of the situations in which the individual comes before the state, in addition to the status of submission or subordination, is in the subjective status, which Jelinek calls negative status libertatis . According to André Ramos de Carvalho, here we are faced with a set of limits that are imposed on the government, forcing it to respect individuals’ own rights in their private lives (Ramos 2018, p. 56).

According to this standing, the government is supposed to perform negative action, i.e., to abstain from acting. It is in this scenario that throughout history the limitations that individuals have imposed on monarchs and power holders since the Magna Carta of 1215 have been observed [2] .

The theory of generations or dimensions of human rights was built in this perspective, but this study is only interested in those of the first generation, which imply negative actions by governments, with regard to the rights of freedom, integrated by so-called civil and political rights. They are related to the liberal revolutions, as André Ramos de Carvalho explains (Ramos 2018, p. 58).

Therefore, freedom of association, because it integrates the set of public freedoms, in addition to representing an important achievement for citizens in the face of the oppression of the state, is an expression of collective self-protection.

In this scenario of public freedoms, freedom of association gains greater contours when examining classical texts, such as in the writings by John Stuart Mill. The author was one of the most celebrated representatives of the English liberal movement of his time, which he expressed in the book On Liberty (Mill 1859).

Celso Lafer, in the presentation of Mill’s book, translated into Portuguese, addresses the distinction between modern freedom and ancient freedom. The latter, characterised by the participation of citizens in collective decisions, was based on the Athenian democratic model; the former is characterised by the power that individuals have to act within the framework provided by law, within the “sphere of non-impediment” scope that is aimed at imposing limits on power, and restricting the interference of people or even the government in the private sphere of individuals. According to Celso Lafer, Stuart Mill “deals basically with modern freedom, i.e. (…) the nature and limits of power that society can lawfully exercise over the individual” (Mill 1991 (orig. 1859), pp. 18-19).

According to Stuart Mill, even democratic processes with balance of powers are not free from oppression brought about by the “social tyranny of the majority”, so it is essential to ensure spaces that will facilitate the expression of several forms of freedom, including freedom of association.

Stuart Mill does not address what is referred to as freedom from want, but only civil or social freedom, when examining what he calls the “nature and limits of power that society legitimately exercises over the individual”. For the author, at the time, freedom was understood as “protection against the tyranny of political rulers”, so that the community would draw the limits of power that would be tolerated by the ruler. But when the interest and will of the rulers were identified with those of the people, it would make no sense for the nation to protect itself against its own will (ibid, pp. 45-47).

However, the notion that “people need not limit their power over themselves” was possible when a popular government was nothing but a dream. In view of that, it is possible that some people might want to oppress part of their own, and there is need for caution against any type of abuse of power (ibid, p. 48).

Elizabeth Balbachevsky explains that in the lifetime of Stuart Mill (1806 to 1873) “the hearty question that challenged the imagination of English political elites was the ‘peaceful’ incorporation of the mass of workers depleted by industrialization, who knocked on the doors of the political system”. In such a context, one must take into account the thoughts of Stuart Mill, whose work intends to be “a compromise between liberal thought and the democratic ideals of the 19th century”: political participation is not a privilege of minorities. According to Elizabeth Balbachevsky, Stuart Mill is a pioneer with regard to two very dear concepts in political science: “defense of pluralism and social diversity against interference of the State and of public opinion (the latter, the tyranny of ‘prevailing opinion’, is the worst, because it is more systematic and recurrent); and the perspective of open, multipolar systems, in which the administration of dissent predominates over the imposition of broad consensuses” (Balbachevsky 1985, pp. 193-198).

As it turns out, although many view classical authors such as John Stuart Mill with skepticism, their reading remains obligatory, as it is still valid and inspiring.

3.3 The Distant Freedom of Association: A Revision of the Brazilian Model

Even in the 21 st century, Brazil has not yet implemented freedom of association, resulting in serious damage to genuine collective bargaining, which ends up compromising the consolidation of democracy. But what can explain this omission?

In a seminal text, Amauri Mascaro Nascimento examines this issue in depth. He begins his argument by recognising undeniable efforts to implement modern trade union legislation, which ended up not happening. But in the face of new attacks, the matter deserves to be revisited (Nascimento 2007, p. 647).

Is it possible to identify and evaluate the causes of the failure to implement freedom of association? Nascimento asks: what are the problems that have made union reform impossible? Is the nature of such problems legal, political or both? But, after all, are the unions interested in such reform?

For Amauri Mascaro Nascimento, the first reason is cultural: the weight of this set of ideas about the union system is very heavy; it corresponds to inherited beliefs that our will does not seem to want to abandon. The preservation of this heritage by the unions is linked to something they do not want to give up.

For the author, there is also another level: the regulatory framework. There are records of laws from 1903 and 1907, which today have only historical value. Despite the repercussions of anarcho-syndicalism, the movement was muffled without leaving supporters. Our true history goes back to the “Estado Novo” [3] , which laid the roots on which our unionism flourished. There is our “union genetic heritage”, which has lasted to this day, and the cradle of Brazilian unionism, on which unions have been shaped and become accustomed to surviving in the shadow of the government and without any kind of competitiveness.

The rupture with this corporate model, which should have already occurred in the 1946 Constitution, as occurred in European countries from which we partially copied such a model, was put on the agenda by the ABC [4] movement, in a strong confrontation with the military government in force in Brazil at the time.

The most significant union leaders of that time, among which Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stands out, demanded prompt reform, dissatisfied with the continuity of the outdated union model. This movement gained strength when the National Labour Forum was installed (already under the administration of President Lula), with emphasis on important leaders, such as José Francisco Siqueira Neto. Osvaldo Martines Bargas was its coordinator and the Minister of Labour and Employment at the time, Ricardo Berzoini, its president. According to the movement, the proposed amendment to the constitution would “enable a broad union reform, within the principles of freedom and union autonomy.”

The government at the time acknowledged the structural outdatedness of union laws and was committed to making changes. It intended to create free and autonomous unions in the face of the state, and thus promote collective bargaining with a view to resolving disputes and strengthening democracy. In order to implement broad freedom of association and union autonomy, it was necessary to overcome certain constitutional obstacles, especially Article 8 of the 1988 Brazilian Federal Constitution.

Therefore, in addition to the draft constitutional amendment, the National Labour Forum – a tripartite and equally-balanced body – was in charge of drafting the bill that would finally implement union reform. This bill was based on the so-called Final Report on Trade Union Reform, forwarded to the President of the Republic, in 2004.

Although ambitious, the bill was not even sent to the National Congress, for several reasons, despite expectations that fuelled the hope that finally everything would be changed, as the political scenario was extremely favourable: the president of the Republic was the same union leader who had dared to rise up against the old regime in the ABC Paulista.

The failure of the National Labour Forum was not just the result of the complexity of the topics being proposed, which generated resistance and mistrust. It was more than that: it was Brazilians’ old habit of resisting any kind of change that came into play. Moreover, the bill was nothing but an adjustment of old ties (which were criticised so much, but which Brazilian society was not prepared to address, and so continued with merely apparent changes). As Octavio Bueno Magano said, it was necessary to demolish this old building to facilitate the reconstruction of a new building, on flattened and clean land.

In short, as soon as it was published, the report of the National Forum “was condemned by the union bases,” [5] not only for the excess of powers conferred on the central unions, but by the unbalanced strengthening of union summits. Amauri Mascaro Nascimento concludes that the obstacle for the trade union movement to approve that bill was to import the “irradiation system of representativeness” (Nascimento 2007, p. 651).

Despite innovations, two points included in the Draft Union Relations Law that generated consternation can be highlighted: the matter of representativeness (art. 10); and the scope of action of the unions (which would be allowed up to the limit of the municipality – art. 14). It is clearly perceived that maintaining government intervention was considered important, according to the old expression: “everything within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State”.

Concerning the proposal for representativeness, as suggested by the aforementioned draft law, in order to better understand the intended setback, it is interesting to mention the case of Italy, where representativeness has become measured in the scenario of companies, not union summits, as in the proposal by the National Forum. In Italy, according to Article 19 of Law 300 of May 20, 1970, trade union representation can take place in any production unit, and 15 employees suffice (art. 35). In view thereof, Mattia Persianni concludes that the law sealed the aspiration of unions to be present in the factories (Persianni 2011, p. 51). For Amauri Mascaro Nascimento, this model of representation in Italy “results from the ability of the bases to impose themselves on the employer” (Nascimento 2007, p. 649).

As for the scope of union representation in Brazil, there is widespread fear, even today, of losing control of the unions if doors are opened for the organisation of business unions, which is a contradiction, if the desire to achieve freedom of association is sincere. But it is well known that this was the formula found to make the leadership of traditional unions unviable while at the same time strengthening the central unions. In short, everyone wants to change, as long as everything remains as it has always been.

Final Comments

This analysis highlighted the important historical role played by unions in achieving better working conditions. Social movements, especially strikes and collective labour negotiations, have made it possible for several rights to be obtained and government standards to be adapted from the general to the particularities of each economic activity or locality.

This important role is even more relevant during times of crisis. Truly effective and representative trade union movements have the power to mitigate the damaging effects that social and economic crises cause, contributing not only to the improvement of working conditions, but also to the maintenance of jobs.

The coronavirus pandemic is an excellent example of how collective rules regulating telework and work carried out from home have become usual in Brazil, securing the necessary legal basis.

The relevance of trade unions in times of crisis shows how important it is to strengthen social movements that, as discussed above, have been facing their own crisis of representativeness for years. To this end, it is imperative to reform the Brazilian trade union system in order to break with constitutional limitations and democratise the organisation of trade unions.

Undoubtedly, the main premise of this reform is implementing freedom of association, as recommended by the ILO, among other international players. However, the main challenge is not legal, but cultural.

Bibliography

Balbachevsky, Elizabeth, “Stuart Mill: liberdade e representação”, In Os clássicos da política , organised by Wefort, Francisco C.  (São Paulo: Ática, 1985)

Bobbio, Norberto, A era dos Direitos (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Elsevier, 2004)

Comparato, Fábio Konder, A afirmação histórica dos direitos humanos (São Paulo: Saraiva, 2013)

Ermida Uriarte, Oscar, La Flexibilidad (Montevideo: Fundación de Cultura Universitaria, 2000)

Fairbrother, Peter & Yates, Charlotte A. B. Unions in crisis, unions in renewal? In Trade unions in renewal – a comparative study , coordinated by Fairbrother, Peter & Yates, Charlotte A. B.) (New York: Continuum, 2003)

Fausto, Boris, História do Brasil (São Paulo: Editora da Universidade de São Paulo, 2003)

Fiorito, Jack, Jarley, Paul & Delaney, John Thomas, “National union effectiveness in organizing: measures and influences,” In Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 48, No. 4, July (1995)

Getman, Julius, Restoring the power of unions: it takes a movement (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010)

IBGE, Sindicatos: indicadores sociais 2001 (Rio de Janeiro: IBGE, 2002)

Israel, Jean-Jacquies, Direito das Liberdades Fundamentais (São Paulo: Manole, 2005)

Lafer, Celso, “Apresentação à obra”, In Mill, John Stuart, Sobre a Liberdade , (Ed. Petrópolis, Ed. Vozes, 1991)

Lipovetsky, Gilles, A sociedade pós-moralista: o crepúsculo do dever e a ética indolor dos novos tempos democráticos (São Paulo: Manole, 2005)

Maior, Jorge Luiz Souto, História do Direito do Trabalho no Brasil: Curso de Direito do Trabalho, Volume I: Parte II (São Paulo: LTr, 2017)

Martin, Hans-Peter & Schumann, Harald, A armadilha da globalização: o assalto à democracia e ao bem-estar social (São Paulo: Globo, 1998)

Mill, John Stuart, Sobre a Liberdade (Ed. Petrópolis, Ed. Vozes, 1991)

Nascimento, Amauri Mascaro, Compêndio de Direito Sindical (São Paulo: LTr, 2005)

Nascimento, Amauri Mascaro, “Problemas que dificultam a reforma sindical”, In Revista LTr , vol 71, no. 6, junho (2007)

Persianni, Mattia, Diritto Sindacale (Pádua: CEDAM, 2011)

Prado Junior, Caio, História Econômica do Brasil (São Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 2008)

Ramos, André de Carvalho, Curso de Direitos Humanos (São Paulo: Saraiva, 2018)

Rorty, Richard, Contingência, ironia e solidariedade (São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2007)

Silver, Beverly, Forças do trabalho: movimentos de trabalhadores e globalização desde 1870 (São Paulo: Boitempo, 2005)

Waline, Marcel, Droit Administratif (Paris: Sirey, 1963)

World Trade Organization, World Trade Report 2012, online http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/anrep_e/world_trade_ report12_e.pdf

Wright, Erik Olin, “Working-class power, capitalist-class interests, and class compromise”, In American Journal of Sociology , v. 105, n. 4, January (2000)

Yates, Michael D, Why unions matter (New York: monthly review press, 2009)

[1]   The Constitution of Uruguay has followed this line since 1934, as Oscar Ermida Uriarte points out.

[2] Signed by King John, better known as John Landless, before ecclesiastical authorities and barons. On this topic, for all, check COMPARATO, 2013.

[3] Estado Novo , or the Third Brazilian Republic, was the Brazilian political regime established by Getúlio Vargas on November 10, 1937, which was in force until January 31, 1946, and which was characterised by the centralisation of power, nationalism, anti-communism and authoritarianism.

[4] The “ABC Paulista” is an industrial region located in Greater São Paulo, Brazil. The expression refers to three smaller cities south of São Paulo city: Santo André, São Bernardo do Campo, and São Caetano do Sul. The ABC region is widely known in Brazil and abroad because of the great number of international companies, particularly car manufacturers, in its area. National media and organisations consider ABC a powerful industrial pole and birthplace of the labour union movement that fought against dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s. In this region the Workers’ Party (“Partido dos Trabalhadores” – PT) was created the activities and popularity of which made the unionist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or just Lula, known nationally. He became president of Brazil in 2002.

[5] It is curious to observe this reaction signalled by Prof. Nascimento: how did the unions react to a project in which they all participated?

Authors – Nelson Mannrich and Alessandra Barichello Boskovic

More from Mannrich e Vasconcelos Advogados

Trade Unions’ Importance in Workplaces Research Paper

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Literature review, methodology, data collection, discussion and conclusion, reference list.

Trade unions are relevant in the workforce for they champion the interests of the members, thus enhancing the working conditions. Many employees do not understand the relevance of unions at workplaces and so such employees should be educated on the same. Understanding the role of union members as well as that of union representatives allows union members to appreciate the importance of a union in the workplace. Besides workshops, unions engage their members in addressing challenges like employee disputes, racism, and gender discrimination that arise within an organisation, which gives them a chance to have firsthand experience on the critical role of a union in any institution. Trade unions use their collective bargaining to promote equality at workplaces. They compress wages to reduce the disparity between union and non-union workers. Reduction in the number of trade unions is leading to the current increase in wage differential between workers working in the same departments.

Despite the allegations that trade unions are gradually facing extinction in most countries, it is imperative to acknowledge that such unions play a significant role in representing workers. Education on the relevance of trade unions dates back to the 19 th century. The United States and the United Kingdom have witnessed organised forms of labour or worker education for a long time. Nevertheless, in the past, the majority of trainers, students, and researchers hardly recognised these forms of union-based education (Greene & Kirton, 2002). However, with time, people have come to understand the importance of educating union members on the relevance of unions at workplaces.

Today, literature on union education is not new to many scholars as well as employees (Greene & Kirton, 2002). Unions employ different methods to educate their members on the relevance of unions at workplaces, which include tool courses, issue courses, and labour courses. Unions use their collective bargaining to curb wage inequality at workplaces. They compress wages to eradicate wage disparity between union and non-union members (Mosher, 2006). This paper will focus on how to educate union members on the importance of unions in workplaces and the methods that trade unions use to curb cases of inequality at workplaces.

Educating union members on the importance of trade unions

One of the ways of educating union members on the relevance of unions in the workforce is through labour education. According to Hyman (2001), labour education offers a good way through which organisation may educate union members of the relevance of trade unions in organisations. By labour education, Hayman refers to the education that trade unions extend to their members. The extent to which unions offer this education either directly or through agencies varies from one state to another and from one union to another. The main objective of education is to train and prepare union members to assume active responsibilities in the union. In the process, they understand their role in making sure that these responsibilities are observed, hence they appreciate the importance of a union.

Another objective of labour education is informing the members about the union’s policies, existing and upcoming labour laws, and developments in a union environment. Hyman (2001) posits, “A majority of the union members learn about the union while on the job (often referred to as incidental learning)” (p.19). Members acquire skills when addressing employees’ grievances, during negotiations, or when solving disputes within the organisation, which acts as another method of educating union members on the relevance of the union. It equips them with firsthand experience in dealing with employee disputes. Incidental learning is one of the best modes of educating union members on the relevance of the union in workplaces. While working on various challenges that affect the employees and the organisation, members learn how their role contributes to the growth and sustenance of the organisation. They facilitate in averting any possible stalemate within the organisation by solving disputes between organisations and workers.

Even though few union members go through labour education every year, the education ends up serving a huge number of members. Participants share the knowledge they acquire with other members. Most courses in the labour education are either tool or issue courses. The tool courses equip the union members with skills on shop stewardship, dispute handling, as well as how to observe safety and health within an organisation (Munro & Rainbird, 2003). On the other hand, issue courses address matters to do with racism, sexual harassment, and management policies. Moreover, a third group of courses deals with labour studies, which address issues like politics, economics, and labour history.

The success of an organisation lies on the ability of union members to address workers’ complaints, organise different activities within the organisation, and lead other employees in execution of the daily activities within the organisation. Work by Clawson and Clawson (1999) found that upon taking union members through tool courses, the members understand that without trade union, an organisation cannot make significant growth. Union members assume barely all the crucial roles that facilitate in organisational growth. A study by Fantsia and Voss (2004) confirmed that the majority of union members that go through labour education agree that through unions they are guaranteed of their job security. During the training, unions educate members on dispute resolution mechanisms coupled with equipping them with bargaining power. Trade unions always insist on collective bargaining, which allows union members to develop the perception that through unions, they have the power to compel their employers to enhance the working conditions, hence enhancing job satisfaction.

Issue courses highlight matters that affect the relationship between employees and employers and employees and their colleagues within an organisation. The courses address issues like racism, technological changes, sexual harassment, and apprenticeship development policy among others. According to Clawson and Clawson (1999), these issues affect employee performance. Educating union members about these challenges and their role in making sure that the challenges do not affect organisational performance allows them to appreciate the presence of trade unions in organisations. The majority of the union members think that unions exist to bargain for their employment conditions and salaries only. They are not aware that unions also facilitate in nurturing good relationship amongst workers coupled with promoting equality at workplaces. Educating workers on their duties helps them to acquire a broader perspective of the trade union, thus working towards achieving all its mandates.

In places like North America and Australia, trade unions organise for training and vocational education. The main reason why they organise for training is that it is critical to the restructuring of work. Besides, it has a significant impact on lives of the workforce. Munro and Rainbird (2003) posit that workplace education is currently entrenched in a number of initiatives and slogans that focus on the need to establish a knowledge-based working environment. In the past, many employees believed that the inability to attain a knowledge-based working environment lied in the workplace or the organisation. Nevertheless, scholars like Hyman (2001) have proved that workers are the main problem. With this knowledge, trade unions enlighten their members on the importance of amassing wide skills in different operations of an organisation. This move underlines the critical role that trade unions play in equipping their members with skills, thus guaranteeing them job security in time of organisational changes.

Addressing inequalities

For many years, Canadian workers have enjoyed a superior collective bargaining relative to the American workers (Acemoglu, 2002). Besides, Canada has had good wage distribution across the different organizations relative to the United States (Osberg & Smeeding, 2006). The two observations have been due to the differences in unionization between the two countries. According to various studies carried out in the United States, unionization contributes in narrowing down the margin between wages. Consequently, the high level of unionization in Canada is responsible for the equal distribution of wages across the organizations.

There are allegations that unions use their influence to champion for increment of wages of their members at the expense of the non-union members. In the process, they lead to wage inequality between union and non-union members. Nonetheless, this is not usually the case. Unions use their wage policy to advocate for wage distribution for all employees regardless of whether they are members or not members of the unions. They establish standards to follow when setting salaries and wages within the organization. This facilitates to curb cases of wage or salary inequality within an organization, which might lead to employee disputes.

Even though majority of the non-union members accuse trade unions of using their “insider influence” to propagate inequality within the organizations, empirical studies prove that unions use their collective bargaining to cut down on wage inequality (Osberg & Smeeding, 2006). Countries with strong collective bargaining enjoy high level of wage compression. Trade unions use their collective bargaining to fight for wage compression for both union and non-union members. This refutes the claim that there exists clear disparity in wages of the union and non-union members. Unions make sure that they compress the wages to reflect uniformity and bridge the gap between the employees working in the same departments.

A recent study by Richard Freeman argues that trade unions, through their collective bargaining facilitate to enhance income distribution (Freeman, 2007). However, there are claims that unions propagate inequality at workplaces by championing for increment of wages of their members and calling for wage reduction of the non-union members. According to Bjorklund and Freeman (2008), union members promote inequality between workers in the same level at workplaces by increasing wages of the union members and cutting down on wages of the non-union members. Bjorklund and Freeman (2008) posit, “If the workers are not identical, but those organised in unions are more highly skilled, then unions contribute further to inequality by pushing up the skill premium relative to what it would be” (p. 23).

A classic study on the impacts of unionism refutes these allegations. The study shows that the impacts of unions are hypothetically ambiguous. In cases where unions were accused of increasing the wages of their members compared to that of the non-members, it was found that the unions took this step to curb the existing inequality. In unionized organizations, the distribution of income within the organizations was lower relative to that in the non-union organizations. In addition, the unions’ coordinated wage policies led to lower distribution across the organizations. Further, skill premium between white collar and blue-collar employees was lower in unionized organizations. According to Freeman (2007), “because the union wage premium benefited blue-collar workers more than others, the monopoly effect operated in the opposite direction from the one hypothesized: it reduced inequality rather than increase it” (p. 32). Today, a decrease in the number of trade unions is leading to increase in income inequality in different countries. The figure below represents the level of income inequality in United States and Canada.

The vast literature that accounts for labour education and effects of educated union member on the level of inequality at workplaces prompted the compilation of this paper to ascertain if employees are actually aware of this information. The paper sought to determine if labour education carried out by trade unions helps the members to understand the relevance of unions in workplaces. Besides, with the majority of the available literature asserting that trade unions contribute to equality at workplaces, the research aimed at understanding if union members have ideas on the methods used by trade unions to curb cases of inequality at workplaces. The pollster sought for permission from the workers union to carry out the research. Due to time constraint, the pollster decided to select 75 participants randomly from a pool of 120 employees. Fifteen of the participants were non-union members. Participants were briefed on the importance of the research as well as the ethical standards and assured of their security for the information that they give.

In a bid to gather information from the selected participants, the researcher organised for a face-to-face interview with the participants. The researcher, in collaboration with the organisation set the interview date. In an attempt to make sure that the exercise did not affect the organisational operations, the interviews took place within the organisation where each participant took thirty minutes and went back to his or her workplaces to relieve the others. The interview comprised of ten questions that aimed at collecting qualitative data from the participants (see appendix A for the survey questions). All the questions were open-ended to allow the participants to elaborate their responses. Additionally, the researcher opted to conduct a face-to-face interview to facilitate in making clarifications on areas that the participants did not understand. The participants were required to respond to how they understood the relevance of trade unions and the dangers of having educated trade union members in the organisation.

47 out of the total union members agreed that trade unions were significant in workplaces. They posited that they have learnt functions like addressing discrimination, employee disputes, and employment conditions as some of the duties that make the unions relevant. 10 of the non-union members claimed that unions were significant. They claimed that the union facilitates in the enhancement of employment conditions. The rest did not support or oppose the relevance of unions at workplaces. The members that confirmed that unions are relevant said that they learnt it through workshops that the union organises annually. Moreover, they claimed that they participate in addressing disputes within the organisation as well as handling other duties of the union. All the union members agreed that the union facilitate to promote co-existence within the organisation while non-union members cited cases of disharmony between union and non-union members.

All the non-union members claimed that the union helps to arbitrate on cases of disharmony within the organisation. They claimed that at times, conflict between union and non-union members arise due to conflict of interests. On the other hand, all the participants agreed that trade unions have facilitated to curb wage inequality that once dominated the institution and the various departments. 36 of the union members asserted that the union uses a collective bargaining to enhance wage distribution between union and non-union members within the organization. They claimed that currently, there is no wage differential between staff working in the same department as it was before the formation of the union.

In addition, 12 of the non-union members agreed that trade union has significantly facilitated in the reduction of wage differential between the union and the non-union members. Besides, they praised the union for compelling the organization to offer benefits like health insurance, holiday, and sick leave to both union and non-union members.

The tables below represent the outcome of the results.

Table of members that confirmed union to be relevant

Table of members that claimed union curbs inequality

A graph showing the tabulated results

Trade unions are relevant at workplaces. As most of the participants agreed, trade unions educate their members on the importance of joining the union through varied methods. One of the methods is through holding training workshops where members learn the duties and benefits of trade unions. Union members that participate in dispute resolution and handle sexual harassment cases get firsthand experience of the relevance of unions at workplaces. The experience allows the union members to envisage a situation where there is no union to arbitrate on disputes and figure out how the matter would turn out to be severe thus costing a majority of the staff their jobs. The majority of scholars laud unions for reducing the level of inequality at workplaces by claiming that trade unions fight for the interests of all staff regardless of whether they are members of the trade union or not. Currently, the level of inequality at workplaces continues to increase with a decrease in the number of trade unions. Scholars identify this aspect as one of the evidences that trade unions promote equality at workplaces.

It is important to note that in spite of the allegations that trade unions champion for the increases in salary and wages of their members only, the reality is that they use their collective bargaining to reduce the wage differential between staff working in the same departments regardless of whether the staff are union members. Besides, they fight for the rights of all staff in the organization without considering if they support or oppose the union.

Acemoglu, D. (2002). Technical Change, Inequality, and the Labour Market. Journal of Economic Literature, 40 , 67-72.

Bjorklund, A., & Freeman, R. (2008). Searching for Optimal Inequality Incentives . Cambridge, UK: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Clawson, D., & Clawson, M. (1999). What has happened to the US Labour Movement? Union Decline and Renewal. Annual Review of Sociology, 25 , 95-119.

Drum, K. (2013). Unions and income inequality: two charts . Web.

Fantsia, R., & Voss, K. M. (2004). Hard work : remaking the American labour movement . California, CA: University of California Press.

Freeman, R. (2007). Labour Market Institutions Around the World . New York: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Greene, A., & Kirton, G. (2002). Advancing Gender Equality: The Role of Women-Only Trade Union Education. Gender, Work and Organisation, 9 (1), 39-59.

Hyman, R. (2001). Understanding European Trade Unionism: Between Market, Class and Society . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Mosher, J. (2006). U.S. Wage Inequality, Technological Change, and Decline in Union Power. Politic & Society, 35 (2), 225-264.

Munro, A., & Rainbird, H. (2003). The new unionism and the new bargaining agenda: UNISON-employer partnerships on workplace learning in Britain. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 38 (2), 223-240.

Osberg, L., & Smeeding, T. (2006). “Fair Inequality”? Attitudes toward pay differentials: the United States in comparative perspective. American Sociological Review, 71 , 450-473.

• Labor Unions in the United States
• Trade Unions in US
• White vs Blue Label Cigars: Knights of Labor
• Workplace Diversity Consciousness: Barriers and Programs
• E-Recruitment Implementation in Saudi Arabia
• The Work-And-Life Balance in the U.S. Companies
• Discrimination of Women and Minorities in Firms
• Women and Flexibility in the Workplace
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2020, May 20). Trade Unions' Importance in Workplaces. https://ivypanda.com/essays/trade-unions-importance-in-workplaces/

"Trade Unions' Importance in Workplaces." IvyPanda , 20 May 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/trade-unions-importance-in-workplaces/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'Trade Unions' Importance in Workplaces'. 20 May.

IvyPanda . 2020. "Trade Unions' Importance in Workplaces." May 20, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/trade-unions-importance-in-workplaces/.

1. IvyPanda . "Trade Unions' Importance in Workplaces." May 20, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/trade-unions-importance-in-workplaces/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Trade Unions' Importance in Workplaces." May 20, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/trade-unions-importance-in-workplaces/.

Understanding the Hypostatic Union in Christian Theology

This essay is about the hypostatic union, a core Christian theological concept that describes the union of Jesus Christ’s divine and human natures in one person. It explains how Jesus is both fully God and fully man simultaneously, with each nature retaining its distinct attributes without blending or diminishing the other. The essay traces the formal definition of this doctrine to the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD and discusses its significance for understanding Jesus’ role in salvation, emphasizing His unique ability to bridge the gap between God and humanity. It also highlights the practical implications for Christian living and the profound mystery that invites deeper faith and trust in God’s wisdom.

How it works

A key and important idea in Christian theology, the hypostatic union addresses the complex and interesting character of Jesus Christ. It stands for the idea that Jesus is both God and entirely human at the same time, a concept that has long fascinated and perplexed theologians.

The hypostatic union, to put it simply, is the idea that there are two different natures—divine and human—in the one person of Jesus Christ. This is neither a union where one nature dominates the other, nor is it a blend where the two natures combine to create something new.

Rather, both natures cohabit while flawlessly preserving their individual characteristics. In the person of Jesus, this unusual union occurred without compromising or changing either nature.

The canonical definition of the hypostatic union was given at the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451. This was a critical juncture in the history of the Christian Church, intended to dispel a number of false beliefs and falsehoods about the nature of Christ. The council decided that Jesus is “truly God and truly man, composed of a rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the divinity, and consubstantial with us according to the humanity; like us in all things except for sin.” This definition today forms the basis of conventional Christian doctrine.

What makes the hypostatic union so impactful is its implications for our understanding of Jesus and His work of salvation. By being fully God, Jesus has the power and authority to defeat sin and death. By being fully human, He can truly represent us and offer Himself as a perfect sacrifice on our behalf. This dual nature is crucial because it means Jesus bridges the gap between humanity and God, making Him the perfect mediator.

The hypostatic union also means that God deeply understands the human experience. Jesus was born, lived, suffered, and died as a human. He experienced joy, sorrow, pain, and everything in between. This shared experience assures us that God is not distant or detached but intimately involved in the human condition. It highlights the extent of God’s love for humanity, showing that He was willing to endure human life to bring about our salvation.

For Christians, the hypostatic union is more than a theological concept; it’s a source of comfort and inspiration. It encourages believers to live in a way that reflects their union with Christ. Just as Jesus’ human nature was united with His divine nature, Christians are called to unite their lives with Christ, allowing His presence to transform them. This relationship is at the heart of Christian discipleship and spiritual growth.

Moreover, the hypostatic union challenges us to recognize both the transcendence and immanence of God. It reminds us that God is both beyond our full understanding and yet intimately present in our lives. This dual aspect of God’s nature provides a profound sense of awe and a deep sense of personal connection.

While the concept of the hypostatic union is complex and can be difficult to fully grasp, it invites believers into a deeper faith and trust in God’s wisdom. It’s a mystery that encourages humility and reverence, acknowledging that there are aspects of God’s nature and His plan that are beyond our comprehension.

The hypostatic union, which affirms the unity of Jesus’ divine and human natures, is essentially a cornerstone doctrine of the Christian faith. It molds our conception of Jesus, His life and work, and our relationship with Him. Despite being a great mystery, it serves as a moving illustration of God’s love and the amazing gift of His presence in our lives.

Cite this page

Understanding the Hypostatic Union in Christian Theology. (2024, Jun 01). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/understanding-the-hypostatic-union-in-christian-theology/

"Understanding the Hypostatic Union in Christian Theology." PapersOwl.com , 1 Jun 2024, https://papersowl.com/examples/understanding-the-hypostatic-union-in-christian-theology/

PapersOwl.com. (2024). Understanding the Hypostatic Union in Christian Theology . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/understanding-the-hypostatic-union-in-christian-theology/ [Accessed: 3 Jun. 2024]

"Understanding the Hypostatic Union in Christian Theology." PapersOwl.com, Jun 01, 2024. Accessed June 3, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/understanding-the-hypostatic-union-in-christian-theology/

"Understanding the Hypostatic Union in Christian Theology," PapersOwl.com , 01-Jun-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/understanding-the-hypostatic-union-in-christian-theology/. [Accessed: 3-Jun-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2024). Understanding the Hypostatic Union in Christian Theology . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/understanding-the-hypostatic-union-in-christian-theology/ [Accessed: 3-Jun-2024]

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Hire a writer to get a unique paper crafted to your needs.

Our writers will help you fix any mistakes and get an A+!

Please check your inbox.

You can order an original essay written according to your instructions.

Trusted by over 1 million students worldwide

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

Beaches closed after swimmer suffers ‘significant’ injury from shark bite in Del Mar

A group of ocean swimmers were about 100 yards offshore near the main lifeguard tower when the man was bitten on his torso, left arm and hand around 9 a.m.

• Show more sharing options
• Copy Link URL Copied!

A 46-year-old swimmer suffered “significant” injuries Sunday morning when he was bitten by a shark off Del Mar — and officials told people to stay out of the water in the area for the next two days as a precaution.

The attack was reported around 9 a.m., about 100 yards offshore from the main lifeguard tower at 17th Street, officials said.

The man was bitten as he was swimming with about a dozen ocean swimmers who meet regularly at the site, said Chief Lifeguard and Community Services Director Jonathan Edelbrock.

No one reported seeing the shark before the man was injured. “Everybody was stunned,” Edelbrock said.

As the group went out for the swim, the sky was overcast and the water was murky, with low visibility. The group was heading back to the shore when the shark bite occurred.

The victim suffered bites to his torso, left arm and hand. He was transported to a hospital to be treated.

After swimmers helped the man to shore, lifeguards provided medical aid, applying a tourniquet to staunch the bleeding in his “right upper extremity,” Edelbrock said.

“There was a lot of bleeding, so they determined it was likely an arterial wound in the left hand and wrist area,” Edelbrock said. “He had significant injuries to his torso for sure.”

Edelbrock said he thought the man’s rib cage blocked the shark’s bite from hitting “just soft tissue, which would be a much bigger problem.”

The shark was almost certainly a great white, judging by the extent of the injuries and the tooth spacing shown by the bite mark, said Chris Lowe, director of California State University Long Beach’s Shark Lab, which studies shark movement and behavior in southern California.

The swimmer described feeling a bump, then a bite — and then the shark was “coming back toward him,” the lifeguard chief said, and “that’s when his hand and arm got involved.”

It’s unclear why the shark bit the man, Lowe said. Given the murky water, the shark could have accidentally bitten the man while feeding on fish. The shark also could have been startled and bitten the man as a defensive reflex.

The water from Del Mar down to Torrey Pines is considered one of Southern California’s hubs for juvenile great white sharks, which have grown in population in recent years amid conservation efforts, Lowe said.

But even though the sharks have been in close proximity with people over the past six years, such hubs don’t see higher rates of shark bites than areas with few great whites, Lowe said.

Shark bites remain extremely rare, Lowe and Edelbrock said. The last time Del Mar saw a shark bite was more than a year and a half ago, even though tens of thousands of people may visit the beach on a given day.

“You have a better chance of winning a Powerball,” Lowe said.

Scientists with the Shark Lab will measure the bite diameter and take water samples to try and match DNA from the swimmer’s wet suit with DNA in the water, to see if the shark is still in the area, Lowe said.

Officials said lifeguards planned to post signs warning surfers and swimmers to stay out of the water. The closures will stretch from Sixth Street to North Beach and will be in effect until Tuesday morning, Edelbrock said.

Lifeguards also were notifying neighboring jurisdictions.

Despite the no-swimming order, the beach was bustling with hundreds of people Sunday afternoon, with children wading in the water.

Some beachgoers said they were surprised to hear of the shark incident but were not concerned about safety as long as they stayed close to shore. Several said they were disappointed they were being told to stay out of the water.

Kalea Barger, 10, was picking up her Junior Lifeguard uniform on Sunday with her dad when she heard about the shark bite.

“I was like, dang, we don’t really get any out here,” Kalea said.

The last shark bite reported in Del Mar occurred on Nov. 4, 2022, roughly in the same area as Sunday’s attack. In that case, a 50-year-old woman out swimming with a friend was bitten on her upper thigh. She was hospitalized and treated for punctures and lacerations.

In an interview in the hospital a few days after the attack, Lyn Jutronich told ABC 10 News she felt a “really hard hit” between her legs as the shark pushed her up and out of the water. After clamping on her right leg, Jutronich said it then shook her once “kind of like a dog” before releasing her.

Staff photographer K.C. Alfred contributed to this report.

6:50 p.m. June 2, 2024: This story was updated with additional details.

2:50 p.m. June 2, 2024: This story has been updated with additional details.

The latest news, as soon as it breaks.

Get our email alerts straight to your inbox.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune.