Union membership, collective bargaining coverage and the trade union mark-up for Britain

THE EFFECTS OF TRADE UNIONS ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF EARNINGS: A SAMPLE SELECTIVITY APPROACH†

“…'°The performance of the union recognition variable in the union and non union earnings equations estimated for manual workers implies that there is little to be gained by non union workers from working in establishments which have union recognition. This is in line with Green's (1988) findings, but should be contrasted with those reported by Blackaby, Murphy and Sloane (1991) who find that splitting the data according to union membership and union recognition increases the mark-up between unionists and non unionists by as much as 9 percent. As explained earlier, however, we were unable to pursue this line, which would have in any case made timewise comparisons of the wage differential inappropriate.…”

“…5ldeally we would have preferred to have split the sample further along the lines of union membership and union recognition as in Blackaby, Murphy and Sloane (1991). In SCELI 59.9 percent of manual male employees are union members and of these 95.8 percent are represented by unions at their place of work.…”

Quantile Regression Estimates of the Union Wage Effect for Great Britain

“…14 Between union status equations, these differences related to work experience, education and size of establishment in particular. Such results would tie in generally with those found by the likes of Blackaby et al (1991) in the UK and with the general evidence cited in Hirsch and Addison (1986) for the USA that earnings profiles are flatter in experience and education in the union sector. However, the strength of evidence discussed here would lead to the belief that such differences are not confined to the middle of the earnings distribution as the previously cited evidence would imply.…”

Union wage premiums in Great Britain: Coverage or membership?

“…Moreover, as pointed out byBooth (1985), it would require that the union posesses some monopoly power on the provision of the private benefits.2 Other studies using data different from this paper areGreen (1988),Blanchflower (1991),Blackaby et al (1991),Andrews et al (1998),Blackaby et al (1999) in which union status is assumed to be an exogenous variable.…”