Worker Satisfaction and Workplace Representation in Europe

This paper investigates the relationship between worker job satisfaction and workplace representation, to include works councils as well as local union agencies. The paper marks a clear shift away from the conventional focus on union membership per se because its preponderant sample of EU nations have industrial relations systems that diverge markedly from those of Anglophone nations that have formed the center of gravity of the worker satisfaction literature. The dataset comprises two waves of the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS), which is also new to this line of inquiry. Estimates using pooled cross-section data indicate that workers in establishments with workplace representation have less job satisfaction than their counterparts in plants without formal representation. These findings of conditional correlation are then upgraded by constructing a pseudo-panel with cohort fixed effects to take account of unobserved worker heterogeneity. First-difference estimates suggest that the negative relationship between worker representation and job satisfaction found in cross section persists. Finally, an endogenous treatment effects model is deployed to address the possible endogeneity of worker representation. The results are supportive of a causal negative relationship between job satisfaction and worker representation