Do Unions Help or Hinder Injured Workers? The Ontario Experience

Richard J. Butler, Marjorie Baldwin and William G. Johnson

Working Papers from East Carolina University, Department of Economics

Abstract: The contract re-negotiation process following a disabling workplace injury is partly determined by factors that are independent of health and can be influenced by the presence of a collective bargaining agreement. We postulate four paths through which unions can influence post-injury returns to work, namely: moral hazard, employment stability, job accommodations, and all others. Using a unique data set of workers= compensation claims from Ontario, we test the impact of unions on initial returns to work, employment stability after the first return, and provision of job accommodations. We find no evidence that unions increase moral hazard behavior among their members and only limited evidence in support of the job accommodations path of union influence. We do find evidence consistent with the employment stability hypothesis and a large residual impact of unions attributed to other factors.

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wop:eacaec:9717

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