Evidence on the association between union presence and labour productivity in British manufacturing industry is surveyed. The weight of the evidence suggests that around 1980 highly unionized organizations had a lower level of labour productivity than corresponding less highly unionized organizations, but that during the first half of the 1980s unionized work‐places, firms and industries had superior productivity growth to their less unionized counterparts. Various criticisms made by Nolan and Marginson of earlier studies on unions and productivity are evaluated.
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David Metcalf (1990) studied this question.