Across Europe, there are many differing opinions on whether workplace employee representation should be encouraged or discouraged. Yet there is very little evidence on the variations in workplace employee representation across Europe or the reasons for this. We use a workplace survey covering 27...

We present a simple framework for analyzing decline in union voice in the Anglo-American world and its replacement by non-union, often direct, forms of worker voice. We argue that it is a decline in the in-flow to unionisation among employers and workers, rather than an increase in the outflow...

Building on the right-to-manage model of collective bargaining, this paper tries to infer union power from the observed results in wage setting. It derives a time-varying indicator of union strength and confronts it with annual data for Germany. The results show that union power was relatively...

In Germany, employers used to pay union members and non-members in a plant the same union wage in order to prevent workers from joining unions. Using recent administrative data, we investigate which workers in firms covered by collective bargaining agreements still individually benefit from...

We define worker representation, identify the factors that determine demand for it among workers and employers, discuss difficulties in supplying worker representation, and reflect on the implications of worker representation for worker welfare and the behavior and performance of employers.

Using a large employer-employee dataset, we provide new evidence on the relationship between the gender pay gap and industrial relations from within German workplaces. Controlling for unobserved workplace heterogeneity, we find no evidence that introducing or abandoning collective agreements or...

This survey shows that union membership and density as well as bargaining coverage have fallen in most countries and that collective bargaining has become more decentralized over the last decades. However, there is a considerable amount of variation across countries and between different...

Trade unions have transformed from male-dominated organisations rooted in manufacturing to majority-female organisations serving predominantly white-collar workers, often in the public sector. Adopting a comparative case study approach using nationally representative linked employer-employee...

We present theoretical and empirical evidence challenging results from early studies that found unions were detrimental to workplace innovation. Under our theoretical model, which extends the Cournot duopoly innovation model, local union wage bargaining is more conducive to innovation -...