{"title":"Unions as insurance: Workplace unionization and workers' outcomes during COVID-19","authors":"Nils Braakmann, Boris Hirsch","doi":"10.1111/irel.12344","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>We investigate to what extent workplace unionization protects workers from external shocks by preventing involuntary job separations. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a plausibly exogenous shock hitting the whole economy, we compare workers who worked in unionized and non-unionized workplaces directly before the pandemic in a difference-in-differences framework. We find that unionized workers were substantially more likely to remain working for their pre-COVID employer and to be in employment. This greater employment stability was not traded off against lower working hours or labor income.</p>","PeriodicalId":47700,"journal":{"name":"Industrial Relations","volume":"63 2","pages":"152-171"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/irel.12344","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Industrial Relations","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/irel.12344","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS & LABOR","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
We investigate to what extent workplace unionization protects workers from external shocks by preventing involuntary job separations. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a plausibly exogenous shock hitting the whole economy, we compare workers who worked in unionized and non-unionized workplaces directly before the pandemic in a difference-in-differences framework. We find that unionized workers were substantially more likely to remain working for their pre-COVID employer and to be in employment. This greater employment stability was not traded off against lower working hours or labor income.
期刊介绍:
Corporate restructuring and downsizing, the changing employment relationship in union and nonunion settings, high performance work systems, the demographics of the workplace, and the impact of globalization on national labor markets - these are just some of the major issues covered in Industrial Relations. The journal offers an invaluable international perspective on economic, sociological, psychological, political, historical, and legal developments in labor and employment. It is the only journal in its field with this multidisciplinary focus on the implications of change for business, government and workers.