The author develops an extension of the Ashenfelter-Johnson model of union wage bargaining to account for how diversification can improve a firm's ability to take strikes and therefore reduce wage settlements. To test the model, a wage equation is derived that is conditioned on the occurrence of a strike and is then estimated using union wage settlement data for 15 manufacturing firms covering contract settlements from 1954 to 1988. The estimation results support organized labor's contention that conglomerate firms enjoy a significant bargaining advantage over labor unions.
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