Unions as insurance: Employer–worker risk sharing and workers' outcomes during COVID-19
Braakmann, Nils ; Hirsch, Boris
Institute of Labor Economics, Bonn
IZA - Bonn
2023
33 p.
trade unionization ; trade union membership ; epidemic disease ; employment security
Discussion Paper
15893
Trade unionism
https://docs.iza.org/dp15893.pdf
English
Bibliogr.
"We investigate to what extent workplace unionisation protects workers from external shocks as predicted by models of implicit contracts. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as a plausibly exogenous shock hitting the whole economy, we compare workers who worked in unionised and non-unionised workplaces directly before the pandemic in a difference-in-differences framework. We find that unionised workers were substantially more like to remain working for their pre-COVID employer, at their pre-COVID workplace, in their pre-COVID job and to be in employment. This greater employment stability was not traded off against lower working hours or labour income."
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