Union Free-riding in Britain and New Zealand

Abstract

The percentage of workers who choose not to join the union available to them at their workplace has been rising in Britain and New Zealand. Using comparable data for both countries this article shows factors such as perceptions of union instrumentality, the number of problems employees have at work, social custom, ideological convictions, and the costs of union joining all influence the propensity to free-ride. Employer-inspired policies substituting for unionization play no role. Having accounted for all these factors, free-riding remains more common in New Zealand than in Britain.