Seriph, I'm not sure where you found that article, but the journalist seems to have put a nice anti-union slant on it. The original press release by JRF reads slightly differently.
Researchers at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) and the Policy Studies Institute assessed the unions’ role in pay and employment using data from a 1998 nationally-representative survey of managers and staff in nearly 2,200 workplaces with more than ten employees. They found that:
- Unions appeared to affect the process of pay determination more than the outcome. Pay increases in the private sector during 1997/8 were no greater where trade unions were involved, once other relevant factors were taken into account.
- The underlying pay levels in companies with multi-union representation, or where pay-setting arrangements covered more than 70 per cent of the workforce, were typically 9 per cent higher than for similar employees in non-union workplaces. However, these were also the workplaces where recently negotiated pay increases had tended to be lower.
- As in the 1980s, unions did not generally increase the likelihood of workplace closure in the 1990s. But unionised plants in manufacturing were, on average, 15 per cent more likely to close between 1990 and 1998 than non-union workplaces. This tendency was particularly apparent where unions represented manual workers only, and where unions were excluded from negotiations about recruitment and staffing levels.
Neil Millward, Senior Research Fellow at NIESR and co-author of the report, said: "The evidence on annual pay settlements and on underlying pay levels suggests that the ability of unions to enhance wages and salaries is in long-term decline.
However, it does also seem that the negative effects of unions on job losses are generally avoidable where management allow them a role in determining employment matters as well as pay."
So the increased closure rate is very far indeed from applicable in all cases, in all industries. It is interesting that it is the presence of the union that is blamed in the article Seriph quotes. Can I suggest a different slant? In many manufacturing plants where there is enlightened, imaginative, go-ahead management with good staff relations, there is less likelihood that people will feel the need for a union. In another plant, with poor management and bad employee relations, the staff want to join a union. Poor management, however, causes the plant to close. Is this a possible scenario? This would appear to be borne out by the quote that I have emboldened from Neil Millward. Not always easy to identify cause and effect!