The Bargaining Power of Health Care Unions and Union Wage Premiums for Registered Nurses

Christopher Coombs, Robert Newman (), Richard Cebula () and Mary White

Journal of Labor Research, 2015, vol. 36, issue 4, 442-461

Abstract: For the first time in its history, the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses in 2008 includes a question involving union status. This study utilizes data from this sample to estimate the union/non-union wage premium for registered nurses and among some of the occupational-, workplace-, and individual-specific characteristics. The study finds that standard union wage premium estimates for registered nurses are larger than what were revealed in other relatively recent studies. Upon inspection of various characteristics of registered nurses, the study finds a positive wage gap for union nurses as experience increases. With respect to characteristics of the workplace, there is statistical evidence in the sample that suggests a wage gap for registered nurses in the private- and public- sector, although more distinct in the private-sector. Finally, a positive wage gap is found for union nurses working in hospitals. The lattermost finding is particularly interesting given a specific change in labor law that occurred in the early 1990s that may have resulted in temporal differences in union wage effects within health care. The possibilities that unions “spillover” their bargaining power to help increase the wages of nonunion workers, or that perhaps employers are paying efficiency wages to remain “union-free” are also explored. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Keywords: Union relative wage; Union wage premium; Union wage gap; Registered nurses; Union bargaining power; Union “threat” effects; Union “spillover” effects; J31; J32; J38; J51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s12122-015-9214-z (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jlabre:v:36:y:2015:i:4:p:442-461

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/12122

DOI: 10.1007/s12122-015-9214-z

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Labor Research is currently edited by Ozkan Eren

More articles in Journal of Labor Research from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().