Effects of Union Organization on Strike Incidence in EU Companies

Abstract

The author reinvestigates the relationship between the organizational power of trade unions and strikes based on data from the European Company Survey 2009 (ECS-2009) and the Institutional Characteristics of Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social Pacts (ICTWSS) database, which include more than 5,000 firms across all 27 European Union (EU) member states. He shows that the incidence of strikes is higher in companies for which workplace union membership is high, the number of workplace unions is high, and unions dominate establishment-level works councils. These factors interact to affect strike incidence. In addition, the company-level effects of union organization on strike incidence vary across countries. These country differences can partially be explained by differences in national trade union systems, such as decentralization and membership density.