Why Do Workers Belong to a Trade Union?: A Social Psychological Study in the UK Electronics Industry

Determinants of Trade Union Membership

“…Thus, left-wing views are associated with a higher probability of union membership (see Table 2). In some but not all studies, feelings of dissatisfaction with various aspects of work and pay are also found to significantly increase the probability of unionisation (see Guest and Dewe, 1988;Berg and Groot, 1992). The image of the union also plays a role (cf.…”

“…10 9 In a different setting, Jones and McKenna (1994) show that in case a union is able to offer greater employment protection for its members, employed workers join the union if the marginal benefit of protection is at least as great as union dues, and their dynamic model permits a variety of relationships between employment and membership in the adjustment to steady state. 10 Examples of psychological and socio-political approaches to unionization can be found, inter alia, in Crouch (1982), Klandermans (1984Klandermans ( , 1986, Guest and Dewe (1988), Wallerstein (1989), Windolf and Haas (1989), Western (1997), Rij and Daalder (1997) and Visser (2002).…”

Job satisfaction and employee’s unionization decision: The mediating effect of perceived union instrumentality

“…We adapted our scale of job satisfaction from Guest and Dewe (1988). Based on the framework of Friedman et al (2006), job satisfaction could be studied from four dimensions, each of which was made up of four items -career prospect ("promotion opportunity", "company's recognition of employee performance", "company's concern for employee suggestions" and "job responsibilities"; α=0.923), working environment ("work flexibility", "skill development opportunity", "training opportunity" and "working condition"; α=0.844), working stress ("working hours", "difficulty of tasks", "task load" and "performance assessment system"; α=0.850) and compensation and benefits ("compensation", "bonus", "vacation" and "family time"; α=0.888).…”

“…Job satisfaction, subjective norms, labor union image and personal attitude were some of the common recurring themes in academic researches (c.f. Booth, 1985;Fiorito & Greer, 1982;Guest & Dewe, 1988;Iverson & Kuruvilla, 2007;Khaleque, 1993;Parkes & Razavi, 2004;Premack & Hunter, 1988;Schriesheim, 1978;Voos, 1983). Among them, job satisfaction and union instrumentality, which means the perceived effective use of union movements to obtain outcomes that are beneficial to both organizations and employees, were two of the most important antecedents to unionization.…”

Evidence from Micro Data

“…A short overview of psychological and socio-political theories of union membership and participation can also be found in Guest and Dewe (1988). Earlier contributions from sociologists and political scientists -stressing the importance of factors such as class consciousness, values, modes of production, the composition of the workforce, the political climate, the role of government incomes policies, and the centralisation and cohesiveness of the labour movement -include Streeck (1981) and Beyme (1981).…”