Collective and individual benefits of trade unions: a multi‐level analysis of 21 European countries

• Author: Bengt Furåker,Mattias Bengtsson
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12035
• Published date: 01 November 2013
• Date: 01 November 2013

Collective and individual benefits of

trade unions: a multi-level analysis of

21 European countries

Bengt Furåker and Mattias Bengtsson

ABSTRACT

In light of internationally declining union density, this article examines to what extent

employees derive advantage from trade unions. Data collected in 21 countries

through the European Social Survey 2010 are being used. Multilevel analyses show

that it is not so much individual membership but unions’ collective power that

matters. Perceived union influence and a union-friendly industrial relations regime

(mainly the organized corporatism in the Nordic countries) are positively linked to the

occurrence of regular workplace meetings and to the impact of these meetings on

organizational decisions. Employees also appear to benefit from unions’ collective

power in terms of appropriate pay and job security, although the regime pattern is

then less clear.

1 INTRODUCTION

Trade unions are oriented toward improving and defending employees’ employment

and working conditions. It is a reasonable assumption that workers will be more

successful in their fight for decent conditions if they have a collective organisation

behind them than if they put forward their demands individually. However, in recent

decades union density has declined in most European countries, although there are

significant cross-national differences. The benefits of membership seem to have

dropped or to be declining. Nevertheless, there are indications of an unmet demand

for union representation among European employees; about a decade ago most of

them believed in the necessity for trade unions, and a comparison with older data

suggests that this view had become more common (D’Art and Turner, 2008). Our

article aims at exploring whether employees derive advantage from trade unions or

whether they do just as well without them. The issues involved are linked to both

collective and individual dimensions of employment relationships. As to the collective

dimension, we will examine to what extent there are regular meetings between

employer and employee representatives and whether the discussions at these meetings

❒Bengt Furåker is Senior Professor at the Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of

Gothenburg. Mattias Bengtsson is Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology and Work Science,

University of Gothenburg. Correspondence should be addressed to Bengt Furåker, Department of Soci-

ology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg, Box 720, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden; email: bengt.

furaker@socav.gu.se

Industrial Relations Journal 44:5–6, 548–565

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2013 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

affect decision making in the organisation. Two individual aspects of employment

conditions will also be focused on: whether employees feel that they are paid appro-

priately and whether they think that their job is secure. Data from 21 countries in the

European Social Survey (ESS) 2010 (Centre for Comparative Social Surveys, 2010)

are used to shed new light on these topics.

The article begins with some words regarding the decline of union density and how

it is explained in the literature. Then there is a section on the general role and strength

of trade unions. Among other things we present a typology of industrial relations

regimes in Europe, which may be helpful to account for cross-national differences. A

more specific topic to be brought up is the representation and influence of unions and

works councils in the workplace. After this we turn to the two individual aspects of

employment, perceived appropriateness of pay and perceived job security, raising the

question of what trade unions mean in relation to them. The empirical analysis starts

with some basic information on the data set and the variables to be used. Subse-

quently we present the results, above all derived from multi-level logistic regressions.

In the concluding section our principal results are summarised and discussed.

2 UNION MEMBERSHIP IN DECLINE

Union density has declined considerably in most advanced Western nations during

the last decades. In a comparison of 18 countries over almost three decades up to 2009

(or the year with the latest figures available), Anders Kjellberg (2011: 48) shows that

it has decreased almost everywhere. There is, though, considerable cross-national

variation in unionisation rates. These rates are about 70 per cent in Sweden, Finland

and Denmark; more than 50 per cent in Belgium and Norway; roughly 30 per cent in

Italy, Ireland, Canada, Austria and the UK; 20 per cent or a little less in Australia,

Japan, the Netherlands and Germany; 12–16 per cent in Poland, Spain and the United

States; and 8 per cent in France.

A key mechanism behind high union density is the Ghent model of unemployment

insurance (Bryson et al., 2011; Ebbinghaus et al., 2011; Van Rie et al., 2011). The

system is generally characterised by being voluntary, subsidised by public authorities

and administered by unions or union-related funds. It is commonly claimed to be a

major factor behind the relatively high degree of unionisation in three Nordic

countries—Denmark, Finland and Sweden—and in Belgium, which has a partial

Ghent model even if its unemployment insurance is compulsory. Although various

reforms in recent years have weakened the link between the unions and the unem-

ployment insurance, the system still provides incentives for workers to become union

members.

Many other explanations have been suggested as to why unions have met with

increasing problems in recruiting and retaining members (Bryson et al., 2011;

Ebbinghaus et al., 2011; Goldfield, 1987; Kjellberg, 2011: 95–96; Standing, 1999:

199–203). One aspect is the shift from industries with higher union density rates to

industries with lower rates. There has been a decline not only in manufacturing but

also in public-sector employment and an expansion of private-sector service jobs,

often in rather small workplaces where unions are less common. Several researchers

have stressed the importance of union presence in the workplace for making

employees become members (Ebbinghaus et al., 2011; Schnabel and Wagner, 2007;

Waddington and Kerr, 2002).

549Collective and individual benefits of trade unions

© 2013 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd