New evidence on unions and plant closings : Britain in the 1990s

Document Type

Journal article

Source Publication

Southern Economic Journal

Publication Date

4-1-2003

Volume

69

Issue

4

First Page

822

Last Page

841

Abstract

In this paper, we exploit the longitudinal element of the 1990 and 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Surveys for Britain to investigate the effect of unionism on establishment closings. Contrary to both recent U.S. research and long-standing British work, we find a strong positive association between two measures of unionism-union recognition for collective bargaining purposes and union coverage-and plant closings. This association is robust to the inclusion of highly detailed industry controls but is driven by plants that are parts of multiestablishment entities. No such relationship obtains in the case of single-plant enterprises. In explaining our findings, we address their consistency with the widely perceived reduction in the "disadvantages of (British) unionism" in recent years.

DOI

10.2307/1061653

Print ISSN

00384038

E-ISSN

23258012

Publisher Statement

Copyright © 2003 Southern Economic Association

Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.

Full-text Version

Publisher’s Version

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Addison, J. T., Heywood, J. S., & Wei, X. (2003). New evidence on unions and plant closings: Britain in the 1990s. Southern Economic Journal, 69(4), 822-841. doi: 10.2307/1061653

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