Accounting For The Decline in Union Membership / William T. Dickens, Jonathan S. Leonard.

By:

Dickens, William T

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Material type: Text

TextSeries: Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) ; no. w1275.Publication details: Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1984.Description: 1 online resource: illustrations (black and white)Subject(s):

J - Labor and Demographic Economics

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Abstract: Since the early 50s, the percent of the workforce organized by unions has declined considerably. In the most recent decade that rate of decline has accelerated sharply. In an attempt to discover what factors can account for the overall decline and the further deterioration during the 70s, we decompose the sources of growth and decline to determine the relative importance of changes in organizing activity, success in certification elections, decertifications, and net growth due to economic causes. We find that all factors except decertifications account for a substantial part of the change. In addition, interactions between the factors are very important. A significant finding is that while organizing activity and success rates have been declining over time, the net growth (or loss) of membership due to economic causes has remained stable controlling for the aggregate level of economic activity. We argue that this finding is inconsistent with the prevailing view that the decline in the percent of the workforce organized is primarily due to the decline of the heavily unionized core industries.

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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Working Paper	Biblioteca Digital	Colección NBER	nber w1275 (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Not For Loan

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February 1984.

Since the early 50s, the percent of the workforce organized by unions has declined considerably. In the most recent decade that rate of decline has accelerated sharply. In an attempt to discover what factors can account for the overall decline and the further deterioration during the 70s, we decompose the sources of growth and decline to determine the relative importance of changes in organizing activity, success in certification elections, decertifications, and net growth due to economic causes. We find that all factors except decertifications account for a substantial part of the change. In addition, interactions between the factors are very important. A significant finding is that while organizing activity and success rates have been declining over time, the net growth (or loss) of membership due to economic causes has remained stable controlling for the aggregate level of economic activity. We argue that this finding is inconsistent with the prevailing view that the decline in the percent of the workforce organized is primarily due to the decline of the heavily unionized core industries.