Justice and Union Participation: An Extension and Test of Mobilization Theory

Heeding John Kelly's call to reorient the field of industrial relations towards the study of injustice, we employ mobilization, social exchange and organizational justice theories to specify and test a model of union participation. Using individual‐level survey data from public‐sector union members to test our model, we find that differences in worker perceptions of workplace injustice and union justice explain slightly more variation in members’ union participation than more traditional measures of job satisfaction and union instrumentality perceptions. The implications of our analysis for researchers and union practitioners are also discussed.