The Effects of Unions on Organisational Change and Employment

This paper investigates the association between unionism, organizational change, and employment using British data over 1980-84. Union plants were more likely to have experienced organizational change. This is likely to be due to both the once-for-all removal of restrictive practices and union "voice" effects. The oft-cited negative relationship between unionism and employment growth may well arise from the differential extent to which restrictive practices were removed in union plants during 1980-84. More importantly, the authors present evidence suggesting that unions were associated with faster employment growth during the late 1970s.