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Unions as Insurance: Employer–Worker Risk Sharing and Workers' Outcomes during COVID-19

Nils Braakmann and Boris Hirsch (boris.hirsch@leuphana.de)
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Boris Hirsch: Leuphana University Lüneburg

No 15893, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We investigate to what extent workplace unionisation protects workers from external shocks as predicted by models of implicit contracts. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a plausibly exogenous shock hitting the whole economy, we compare workers who worked in unionised and non-unionised workplaces directly before the pandemic in a difference-in-differences framework. We find that unionised workers were substantially more like to remain working for their pre-COVID employer, at their pre-COVID workplace, in their pre-COVID job and to be in employment. This greater employment stability was not traded off against lower working hours or labour income.

Keywords: unions; risk-sharing; implicit contracts; insurance effects; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 I19 J51 J63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2023-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm and nep-lab
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Published - published in: Industrial Relations, 2024, 63 (2), 152-171

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Related works:
Working Paper: Unions as insurence: Employer–worker risk sharing and workers‘ outcomes during COVID-19 (2023) Downloads
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