This study examines the impact of unions on wages and employment using data from Uruguay in a period where unions were banned (1973-1984), then legalized with tripartite bargaining (1984-1991) followed by industry-wide or firm-specific bargaining (1992-1997). The relationship between wages and...

This study examines the effect of unions on job security in the public and private sectors. Despite much lower unemployment rates for public than private sector workers, once one controls for differences in worker and job characteristics, the odds of being unemployed are identical for nonunion...

This paper examines the effect of unions on efficiency by estimating cost function systems over three different sets of construction projects. The results show that union contractors have greater economies of scale. This gives them a cost advantage in large commercial office buildings, but in...

This paper estimates the effect of union work rules in the building trades on employment and costs by comparing factor demand elasticities for union and nonunion contractors and subcontractors over micro data from two different types of construction. The results show that the elasticities of...

This paper examines the effect of unions on both the magnitude and distribution of pension benefits. Our empirical results show that beneficiaries in collectively bargained plans receive larger benefits when they retire, receive larger increases in their benefits after they retire, and retire at...

This paper examines the effect of unions on productivity within a sample of publicly and privately owned hospitals and nursing homes to determine whether public ownership influences union behavior. The results show that the productivity of union contractors is much greater in private than in...

This paper examines the difference in productivity between union and nonunion contractors in the construction industry over a sample of 83 commercial office buildings and another sample of 68 elementary and secondary schools. The popular belief that the building trades unions reduce productivity...

The direct role of employers in union organizing has long been a neglected part of the union organizing literature. In this study we examine the determinants and consequences of employer behavior when faced with an organizing drive. Our principal substantive findings are: - that there is a...

This study investigates the impact of union organization on the wages and labor practices of establishments newly organized in the 1980s using a research design in which establishments are 'paired' with their closest nonunion competitor. There are two major findings. First. unionism had only a...

This paper documents and examines the forces behind the decline of unionization in the construction industry. The proportion of construction workers belonging to unions has dropped from slightly less than one-half in 1966 to less than one-third in 1984. The employment share of union contractors...