Union membership statistics in 24 countries

Monthly Labor Review

Volumn 129, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 38-49

  Visser, Jelle ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM   (Netherlands)

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EID: 32244443506     PISSN: 00981818     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. Clara Chang and Constance Sorrentino, "Union Membership Statistics in 12 Countries," Monthly Labor Review, December 1991, pp. 46-53.
2. George Sayers Bain and Robert Price, Profiles of Union Growth: A Statistical Portrait of Eight Countries. (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980).
3. For Western Europe, data on these indicators have been presented in Lars Calmfors, Alison Booth, Michael Burda, Daniele Checchi, Robin Naylor, and Jelle Visser, "The Role of Collective Bargaining in Europe," pp. 1-156 in T. Boeri, A. Brugiavini and L. Calmfors, eds.,The Role of the Unions in the Twenty-First Century (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001).
4. See Robert Flanagan, "Macroeconomic Performance and Collective Bargaining: an international perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 37, 1999, pp. 1150-75.
5. See, for instance, the collection of studies in Steve Crowley and David Ost, eds., Workers After Workers' States (Lanham, md, Rowman and Littlefield, 2001).
6. The classical source is Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action. Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, ma, Harvard University Press, 1965).
7. According to a national survey, reported and analyzed in Bert Klandermans and Jelle Visser, De vakbeweging na de welvaartsstaat (Assen, van Gorcum, 1995).
8. Bernhard Ebbinghaus and Jelle Visser, "When Institutions Matter: Union Growth and Decline in Western Europe, 1950-1995," European Sociological Review, Vol. 15, February 1999, pp. 1-24.
9. See also Bertil Holmlund and Per Lundborg, "Wage Bargaining, Union Membership, and the Organization of Unemployment Insurance," Labour Economics, Vol. 6, March 1999, pp. 397-415. Unemployment insurance funds administered by the unions are still common, though not exclusive, in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. This explains why in these countries the unemployed retain membership and union membership tends to go up in recessions, contrary to the "pro-cyclical" movement of union membership and density found in other countries.
10. See Bruce Western, Between Class and Market - Post-war Unionization in the Capitalist Democracy (Princeton, nj, Princeton University Press, 1997);
11. also, Daniele Checchi and Jelle Visser, "Pattern Persistence in European Trade Union Density - A Longitudinal Analysis 1950-1996," European Sociological Review, Vol. 21, January 2005), pp. 1-22.
12. As proposed by Chang and Sorrentino in their 1991 article, and by Jelle Visser, "Trends in Trade Union Membership," Employment Outlook 1991 (Paris, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), pp. 97-134.
13. There were no union questions in the 1982 cps.
14. In 2004, the series has been revised and no longer allocate people who did not report their union status on a pro-rata basis. Thus, figures for previous years are lower than was previously reported. Heidi Grainger and Heather Holt, "Trade Union Membership 2004," (London, Dept. of Trade and Industry, April 2005).
15. Kristine Nergaard, ftamsasjonsgraden målt gjennon; AKU 2. Kvartal 1995 (Oslo, fafo Institute for Applied Social Research, 1996);
16. and Kristine Nergaard, Organisasjonsgrad og tariffavtaledekning målt ved AKU 2. Kvartal 1998 (Oslo, fafo Institute for Applied Social Research, 1999).
17. Central Statistical Office (cso) of the Republic of Ireland, data from the Quarterly National Household Survey, Dublin, September 2005.
18. Derived from the "Enquêtes permamentes sur les conditions de vie de mγenages," a representative household survey conducted by the French official statistical office insee. See Thomas Amossé, "Mythes et réalités de la syndicalisation en France," publication of French Ministry of Labour, in dares: Premières synthèses et informations, no. 44.2, October 2004.
19. Philip O'Connell, Helen Russell, James Williams, and Sylvia Blackwell, The Changing Workplace: A Survey of Employees' Views and Experiences (Dublin, 2004). Report published by the National Centre for Partnership and Performance in cooperation with the Economic and Social Research Institute (esri).
20. Bert Klandermans and Jelle Visser, De vakbeweging na de welvaartsstaat (Assen, van Gorcum, 1995).
21. This data is unpublished and sorting out trade union membership in Irish- and British-based unions in the Republic has been a laborious task. See Ebbinghaus and Visser, The Societies of Europe ...., chapters 9 and 17. Fortunately, since 1990 the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has published separate membership statistics for its British- and Irish- based affiliates operating in the Republic and Northern Ireland, covering about 97 percent of total membership in the Republic.
22. Robyn May, Pat Walsh, Raymond Harbridge, and Glen Thickett, Unions and Union Membership in New Zealand. Annual Review for 2002, Working Paper (Wellington, New Zealand, Victoria University's Industrial Relations Centre), Albeit provided on a voluntary basis, this survey appears to have a very high compliance rate.
23. See the New Zealand Department of Labour Web site, on the Internet at www.ers.dol.gov.nz-union-registration.
24. The 2001-02 figures for the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, and Poland are based on the "Representativity Survey of Unions and Employers Associations" conducted by the Institut des Sciences du Travail of the Catholique University of Louvain (Belgium) on behalf of the European Commission. Older figures are from the global unionization survey by Jelle Visser on behalf of the ilo and published in the World Labour Report 1997-98: Industrial Relations, Democracy and Social Stability (Geneva, International Labour Organization, 1998). For the other countries, sources are listed and discussed in Bernhard Ebbinghaus and Jelle Visser, The Societies of Europe: Trade Unions in Western Europe Since 1945 (London, Macmillan, 2000), with cd-rom database.
25. Annual Report of the Certification Officer 2002-2003 for the United Kingdom, page 8.
26. From the special survey, reported by Lipset and Katchanovski, it appears that in the United States, against a background of union decline, union density among professionals has doubled from 9 to 19 percent in the four decades since the late 1950s with large advances among teachers, nurses, physicians, psychologists, social workers, librarians, and speech therapists. Seymour Martin Lipset and Ivan Katchanovski, "White-Collar and Professionals - their attitude and behavior towards unions II," (Research Paper, George Mason University, Washington, dc, 1999).
27. In the case of Germany, in addition to the membership statistics on the German Confederation of Trade Unions and the Civil Servant's Federation published in the Statistical Yearbook of the Federal Statistical Office, data on the smaller organizations (a Christian union confederation, a federation of manager unions, of medical, court, and military staff, and various occupational unions) have been obtained from the Institut der deutsche Wirtschaft (iw) in Düsseldorf. In the case of Switzerland, in addition to data included in the Statistical Yearbook, we rely on the extensive survey of organizations by Robert Fluder of the University of Zürich, reported in Bernhard Ebbinghaus and Jelle Visser, The Societies of Europe..., chapter 16. In the case of Belgium, a small federation of manager unions (with an estimated 2 percent of total membership) has been left out. In Austria, there seem to be no independent unions or at least no recognized ones.
28. In fact, it is often argued that rather than the (not always verifiable) membership claims, voting in these elections (usually with a high turnout) establishes the credibility and representation legitimacy of Spanish and French unions. This argument must of course be seen against the very low membership and density figures in both countries.
29. For an overview of independent unions in Italy, see Bernhard Ebbinghaus and Jelle Visser, The Societies of Europe ..., chapter 10.
30. Patrick Pasture and Jo Mampuys, In de ban van het getal: Ledenanalyse van het ACV 1900-1990 (Louvain, Acco); and chapter 4 in Bernhard Ebbinghaus and Jelle Visser, The Societies of Europe ...
31. and chapter 4 in Bernhard Ebbinghaus and Jelle Visser, The Societies of Europe ...
32. The latter applies to the Netherlands, but the Central Bureau of Statistics published aggregate data on union membership without such "secondary" affiliations of, for instance, spouses and women outside the labor force.
33. In each of these countries, an estimated 80 percent of the unemployed are unionized, although this percentage has declined somewhat in recent years in Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, following the availability and increased take-up of nonunion-related unemployment insurance.
34. In the case of Finland, use has been made of a special survey, carried out by the Ministry of Labor in 1989, 1994, and 2002, on the membership of students, pensioners, the self-employed, and the unemployed.
35. This is the case in, for example, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the United Kingdom.
36. Jelle Visser, "Trends in trade union membership"
37. and Jelle Visser, Sebastian Martin, and Peter Tergeist, "Trade Union Members and Union Density" (Paris, oecd, 2004), on the Internet at www.oecd.org.
38. In some countries - for instance, the Netherlands, Sweden, or Norway - this means that military staff, often with extremely high unionization rates, are to be taken off the membership count.
39. Using these data rather that the national figures may cause a small difference in the published figures by national sources, on account of different reference dates. For instance, the union density figures for the United States published by bls tend to be .1 or .2 of a percentage point higher than those presented in table 3. In the case of the United Kingdom, using the oecd averages causes a drop of more than 1 percentage point in the union density figures; I have therefore decided to use the August lfs figures used by the Department of Trade and Industry.
40. Of four oecd members (Greece, Mexico, Portugal, Turkey) we have only rough estimates of union membership, and we have decided not to include the two smaller ones (Iceland and Luxembourg) in this comparison. Estimates and data on these countries can be found in the oecd data set on the Internet at www.oecd.org.
41. The eu figures combine those of Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (estimates for Greece and Portugal, and data for Luxembourg included).
42. Unfortunately, the ids data for Finland are not currently available in any detailed form, and the statistics in table 2 we based on adjusted administrative data.
43. Bernhard Ebbibnghaus and Jelle Visser, "When Institutions Matter... "
44. Bruce Western, Between Class and Market ...
45. Statistics Canada, "Fact Sheet on Unions," Perspectives on Labour and Income, August 2004.
46. European Commission, Industrial Relations in Europe 2004. Directorate-General for Employment and Social Affairs (Luxembourg, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities).
47. Cited in European Commission, Industrial Relations in Europe 2004, chapter 1.
48. Daniele Checchi and Jelle Visser. "Pattern Persistence ..."
49. Bruce Western, Between Class and Market ...;
50. see also Sven Oskarsson, "Class Struggle in the Wake of Globalisation - Union Organization in an Era of Economic Integration," in L Magnussenand J. Ottosson, eds., Europe: One Labour Market? (Brussels, Peter Lang, 2003);
51. and Linda Scruggs and Peter Lange, "Where have all members gone? Globalization, Institutions and Union Density," Journal of Occupational Psychology Vol. 64, pp. 125-53.