Union Characteristics and Bargaining Outcomes

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of union militancy, size, centralization, and democracy on wages, fringe benefits, and other bargaining outcomes. Using data on bargaining outcomes at the bargaining unit level in conjunction with data on comparative union characteristics, the authors find strong evidence that union characteristics affect bargaining outcomes. Determining the exact nature of those effects is complicated by several problems—notably, the difficulty of distinguishing effects on outcomes from effects on goals, the possibility of reverse causality, and complex interactions between such organizational characteristics as democracy and centralization. The findings do suggest, however, that organizational complexity reduces union bargaining effectiveness, whereas democracy and centralization tend to change the shape of outcomes as opposed to their size.