Comparative Industrial Relations

Does trade union density matter? Assess the impact of changing trade union density levels on the influence and power of trade union in the five core countries

1. Introduction

From an economic perspective, the fundamental role of a trade union is to improve employees’ salary and working conditions (Addison et al., 2010). Additional role for a union can be found in the academic debate on the topic of surplus-enhancement, which suggests that by reducing conflict at the workplace, trade unions in fact enhance the efficiency of the production (Addison et al., 2010). Trade unions have developed over the time in their various forms all around the world. Trade union density has been typically used to examine the influence of the trade unions as it provides information about the bargaining power of these institutions. Over the last few decades however, the trade union membership and arguably their power has been steadily decreasing in the vast majority of developed countries. Bercusson and Estlund (2008) reported globalisation, structural changes, trend towards individualism, ICT technologies and demographic changes as the reasons behind the decline of trade unions. The presented paper aims to critically evaluate the impact of changing trade union density levels on the influence and power of trade union. The study adopts a comparative analysis approach and examines the studied phenomenon with reference to five key countries - the United Kingdom, Sweden, Germany, France and Hungary. The five countries represent examples of all major types of trade union systems in Europe, as categorised by Jensen et al., (1995), and hence provide valuable information for the examination of the role of trade union density in the European setting.

The decreasing trade union density has attracted a significant amount of attention from the academic debate, which has resulted in numerous comparative studies being conducted. The presented paper builds on the existing body of research and investigates the studied phenomenon. To begin with, methodological challenges associated with this type of a comparative analysis are highlighted in the following sub-section. The second section examines trade union systems in particular countries and thus provides the necessary background for the analysis encompassed in the following section. The third section critically examines the role of trade union density as well as additional issues in determining the power of trade unions. The discussion encompassed in the third section is used to answer the main research question in the fourth and the final section of the presented paper.

1.1 Methodological issues

Hall et al. (1995) pointed out two methodological issues impeding the research on trade unions. First, the definition of trade unions and union membership poses a challenge for the research community. Subtle differences in the definitions used by individual authors hinder the validity of the general conclusions. Secondly, data gathering represents additional methodological challenge. In essence, the data can be obtained from either household survey or administrative data (Visser, 2012). The problem lies in the fact that different countries follow different practices in terms of reporting data, which impedes the research efforts.