The Law and Union Membership in US State and Local Government

Abstract

State and local government workers in the United States are covered by a wide variety of collective bargaining laws, thus providing a rare opportunity to analyse the effects of the law on union membership. Analysis of a large micro-data sample shows that several aspects of bargaining laws, particularly provisions relating to exclusive jurisdiction and union security, have a pronounced effect on the probability that a worker will be a union member. An individual covered by the right to strike is less likely to be a union member than an individual covered by a compulsory arbitration law. Estimates indicate that deregulation of an industrial relations system that provides incentivesfor unionism similar to those that exist in Australian policy would produce a dramatic decline in membership.