Union membership rate

The union membership rate or union density refers to the number of people who are members of trade unions in a country or population. This is lower than the collective agreement coverage rate, which refers to all people in work places where terms are collective agreed. Trade unions collectively bargain with employers for improved pay, conditions and voice at work by increasing the bargaining power that employees have together, over what individuals have in negotiations with employing entities. The number of people who are covered by collective agreements is higher than the number of union membership rate (or the "union density" rate), and in many cases substantially higher, because when trade unions make collective agreements they aim to cover everyone at work, even those who have not necessarily joined for membership.

Causes

The causes of higher or lower union membership are widely debated. Common causes are often identified as including the following:

whether a jurisdiction encourages sectoral collective bargaining (higher coverage) or enterprise bargaining (lower coverage)
whether collective agreements to create a closed shop or allow automatic enrollment in union membership are lawful
whether the government, for instance through a Ministry or Department of Labour, actively promotes collective agreement coverage with a power to impose terms if employers refuse to bargain with the workforce
whether a country enables collective agreements to be extended by government regulations to all workers when the coverage rate reaches a majority in a sector, or similar level
whether laws on collective bargaining and strikes are more or less favourable

By country

In the United States in 2015 there were 14.8m union members, and 16.4m people covered by collective bargaining or union representation. Union membership was 7.4% in private sector, but 39% in the public sector. In the five largest states, California has 15.9% union membership, Texas 4.5%, Florida 6.8%, New York 24.7% (the highest in the country), and Illinois had 15.2%.^[1]

Notes

↑ See Bureau of Labor Statistics, ‘Union Members – 2015’ (28 January 2016)

References

WT Dickens and JS Leonard, ‘Accounting for the Decline in Union Membership, 1950-1980’ (1985) 38(3) Industrial and Labor Relations Review 323
J Visser, ‘Why Fewer Workers Join Unions in Europe: A Social Custom Explanation of Membership Trends’ (2003) 40(3) BJIR 403
C Schnabel and J Wagner, ‘Determinants of trade union membership in West Germany: evidence from micro data, 1980-2000’ (2005) 3 Socio-Economic Review 1
C Schnabel, ‘Union membership and density: Some (not so) stylized facts and challenges’ (2013) 19(3) EJIR 255

External links

OECD Statistics on Trade Union Density, since 1960 for some countries

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