Electoral Democracy at Work

Philippe Askenazy and Thomas Breda ()

No 13226, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We show that an institutional change designed expressly to heighten competition for the provision of union services can have a substantial effect on unionization and employment relations. We study a French reform of 2008 that introduced mandatory elections for representation of workers at firm, industry and national levels, putting an end to the oligopoly held until then by five historically established unions. Exploiting random variation in the reform's date of application in different private sector workplaces, we find that the reform increased union membership by around 8 percentage points and employers' trust in unions by 45 percent of a standard deviation. The reform also increased workers' trust in unions and the frequency of labor conflicts in manufacturing. Taken together, the results suggest that regular free elections can be an effective way to foster participation in unions and workers' ability to voice concerns, while at the same time making unions more legitimate bargaining partners for employers.

Keywords: union representativeness; democracy; unionization; social capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J51 J52 J58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 85 pages
Date: 2020-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-lab and nep-pol
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Working Paper: Electoral Democracy at Work (2022)
Working Paper: Electoral Democracy at Work (2022)
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