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  5. LERA Best Papers V: The When, Where, and Why of Unions
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LERA Best Papers V: The When, Where, and Why of Unions

Paper Session

Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023 10:15 AM - 12:15 PM (CST)

Hilton Riverside, Steering
Hosted By: Labor and Employment Relations Association
  • Chair: Tingting Zhang, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign

Management Opposition in Times of Crisis

Patrick Nüß
,
Kiel University

Abstract

Sending 5000 fictitious job applications, I estimate management opposition against unions in terms of hiring discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic. While there was widespread evidence for hiring discrimination against union members before the COVID-19 pandemic (Nüß, Mimeo), the magnitude of discrimination decreases during the pandemic. Management opposition has decreased in almost all sectors and companies. However, firms covered by a collective agreement and the health sector are among the few with evidence for intensified management opposition. This results are in line with the idea that management opposition in terms of hiring discrimination is strongly driven by unions bargaining power and union threat effects.

Union Responses to Vaccine Mandates in Canada

Alison Braley-Rattai
,
Brock University
Larry Savage
,
Brock University

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic thrust the issue of vaccine mandates into the spotlight. Nowhere have such mandates proven more controversial than in workplaces, where issues of health and safety have been pit against workers' privacy concerns. Workplace vaccine mandates have proven divisive given unions' central role in managing workplace disputes and representing the interests of workers, both individually and collectively. Mandates (or their lack) require unions to grapple in new ways with the privacy rights of individual members on the one hand, and the concern to ensure that workers can report to work with confidence that they will not be exposed (or expose others) to potentially fatal illness, on the other hand. Unions, however, have not been uniform in their response to workplace vaccine mandates. Some have embraced or even championed mandates, while others have strongly opposed them. This paper seeks greater clarity on the labor movement's response to workplace vaccination mandates. Specifically, we identify and analyze individual unions' responses to these mandates with the overriding aim that this research will inform future decision-making regarding occupational health and labor strategy.

Where Unions Fell: A Historical Geography of Union Formation in the U.S.

Zachary Schaller
,
Colorado State University
Sarah Thomaz
,
Independent

Abstract

An important component of labor relations is what is not seen; that is, the unionization that never occurs because of foregone participation. This paper presents data and descriptive analysis on the locations where union formation
declined in the US. Through careful cleaning of city and state information associated with National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) representation elections, we are able to better understand the geospatial element of the dramatic decline in elections since the 1960s. Since past studies have shown that such elections were a critical part of the overall drop in unionization, at least prior to 1985, these data provide rich insights into the causes and consequences of overall deunionization in the US. Early results suggest that elections have virtually disappeared from rural areas and are now heavily concentrated in urban centers, possibly contributing to sluggish rural development and regional brain drain.

Wage and Employment Effects of Right-to-Work Laws in the 2010s

Noah Wexler
,
University of Minnesota

Abstract

I use administrative data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages to estimate the effects of recent anti-union right-to-work (RTW) laws on labor markets (defined by state-by-industry cells) in affected states. Exploiting the plausibly exogenous timing of such laws in a difference-in-differences design, I find that RTW decreased earnings, with most reductions occurring in industries with high union coverage. For employment and establishment counts, I find no statistically significant effects. I show that wage reductions are closely correlated with RTW-induced declines the union threat and I rule out alternative explanations for findings such as economic changes in comparison group states and businesses using RTW as a proxy for other pro-management policies.

Discussant(s)
Noah Wexler
,
University of Minnesota
Aaron Sojourner
,
W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research
Shomik Ghosh
,
Boston University
Hoyoung Yoo
,
University of Wisconsin-Madison
JEL Classifications
  • J0 - General