Employing union workers helps the economy, study says

Over the years we have provided information from numerous studies showing that union membership has distinct advantages for workers. You know about most of these advantages already: higher wages, better benefits, stronger job security, a more secure retirement, safer and better work conditions, etc. But did you also know that union membership increases productivity? Did you know that it helps the economy? It really does, and there are more than a few studies that show this.

In a University of California-Berkeley study Professor Harley Shaiken found that unions are unquestionably associated with higher productivity, lower employee turnover, improved workplace communication, and a better-trained workforce.

But that's not all. There is also a substantial amount of academic literature that shows other benefits of unions to both employers and the nation's economy. These benefits include competitiveness, quality of service or product, company solvency and economic development. In fact, after studying the impact of U.S. unions on productivity authors Christos Doucouliagos and Patrice Laroche wrote, "The available evidence points to a positive and statistically significant association between unions and productivity in the U.S. manufacturing and education sectors, of around 10 and 7 percent, respectively."

Some scholars have found an even larger positive relationship between unions and productivity. As an example, authors Charles Brown and James L. Medoff state, "unionized establishments are about 22 percent more productive than those that are not." You can find more comments like these in their work entitled, "Trade unions in the Production Process."

There is also plenty of evidence that unions strengthen the quality of products and services. Professors Michael Ash and Jean Ann Seago performed a study that revealed that heart attack recovery rates are higher in hospitals where nurses are unionized than in non-union hospitals.

That's no statistical coincidence. We can say that because numerous studies have found that unionized establishments are more likely to offer formal training. There are a number of reasons for this, including lower turnover among union workers and union contracts, much like our own, that have provisions that call for employers to provide training programs.

As we all know, opponents of unions often say that labor has an adverse impact on business. They say that unions drive employers into bankruptcy or force companies to relocate. But that is pure nonsense, according to several academic studies. As an example, Professors Richard Freeman and Morris Kleiner have found that "unionism has a statistically insignificant effect (meaning no effect) on firm solvency, and do not, on average, drive firms or business lines out of business or produce high displacement rates for unionized workers."

Unions also improve workplace health and safety, and do so in a way where employers should not suffer economic consequences. According to Workplace Hazards, unions and Coping Styles, a study by John E. Baugher and J. Timmons Roberts, "employers should be concerned about workplace health and safety as a matter of enlightened self-interest."

Baugher and Roberts also found that "Only one factor effectively moves workers to actively cope with hazards: membership in an independent labor union." The authors also state that their findings reveal that union growth could reduce job stress by giving workers the voice to cope effectively with job hazards. Unions also play a positive role in economic development. One Wisconsin regional training partnership provides an excellent example. The program is an association of 125 employers and unions dedicated to family-supporting jobs in a competitive business environment.

Employer-members of the program have stabilized manufacturing employment in the Milwaukee metro area and have were able to create about 6,000 additional industrial jobs to it over a five-year period. Among member firms, productivity is way up, far exceeding productivity growth in corresponding companies that are not involved in the program.

It doesn't take a university professor to show the advantages of union membership as far as wages, benefits and work conditions are concerned. The positive difference unions make in these areas has long been known. But it is encouraging to see members of the academic community taking a closer look at the tired old accusations that unions are bad for business. Their studies have revealed that union members actually increase productivity, improve workplace health and safety, reduce job turnover, increase profits and improve the quality of the products they make and the services they provide. But then a lot of us already knew that, didn't we?