Worker movements played a crucial role in making workplaces safer. Workplace safety is costly for firms but increases labour supply. A laissez-faire approach leaving safety of workplaces unknown is suboptimal. Safety standards set by better-informed trade unions are output and welfare...

We study how union certification affects the enforcement of workplace-safety laws. To generate credible causal estimates, a regression discontinuity design compares outcomes in establishments where unions barely won representation elections to outcomes in establishments where union barely lost...

Most empirical studies have estimated a positive union-nonunion "injury gap," suggesting that unionized workers are more likely to have a nonfatal occupational injury than their nonunion counterparts. Using individual-level panel data for the first time, I study several explanations for this...