Unions and the sword of justice: unions and pay systems, pay inequality, pay discrimination and low pay

David Metcalf, Kirstine Hansen and Andy Charlwood

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Dispersion in pay is lower among union members than among non-unionists. This reflects two factors. First, union members and jobs are more homogeneous than their non-union counterparts. Second, union wage policies within and across firms lower pay dispersion. Unions'' minimum wage targets also truncate the lower tail of the union distribution. There are two major consequences of these egalitarian union wage policies. First, the return to human capital is lower in firms which recognise unions than in the unorganised sector. Second, unions compress the wage structure by gender, race and occupation.

Keywords: Unions; pay distribution; discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J01 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2000-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:20195

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