by Jim Rose in labour economics, unions Tags: collective bargaining, union membership, union power, union wage premium

In the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, if you want to be covered by a union collective-bargaining agreement, join a union. Does not seem to matter if you are a union member in France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands and to a lesser extent Italy because you is covered by collective bargaining agreements in most jobs.

Source: OECD estimates and J. Visser, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (2011), ICTWSS Database on Institutions, Coordination, Trade Unions, Wage Setting and Social Pacts (version 3.0) in OECD (2013) Economic Policy Reforms 2013: Going for Growth.



In the Nordic countries, it runs the other way with most workers covered by collective bargaining agreement but also are union members.