Trade union membership and dismissals

Laszlo Goerke and Markus Pannenberg

Labour Economics, 2011, vol. 18, issue 6, 810-821

Abstract: In Germany, there is no trade union membership wage premium and a membership fee of 1% of the gross wage. Therefore, prima facie, there are strong incentives to free-ride on the benefits of trade unionism. We establish empirical evidence for a private gain from trade union membership which has hitherto not been documented: in Western Germany, union members are less likely to lose their jobs than non-members. In particular, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel we are able to show that roughly 50% of the observed raw differential in individual dismissal rates can be explained by the estimated average partial effect of union membership.

Keywords: Dismissal; Free-riding; Trade union membership; Survey data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C H J (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (54)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Trade Union Membership and Dismissals (2010)
Working Paper: Trade Union Membership and Dismissals (2010)
Working Paper: Trade Union Membership and Dismissals (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:18:y:2011:i:6:p:810-821

DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2011.06.012

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