Unions and the Nonwage

Our understanding of emerging labor market institutions would be incom-plete without an understanding of traditional institutions, including ap-parently diminishing forms such as the American labor union. Our focus in this paper—the effect of labor unions on a variety of nonwage aspects of work—is a small, yet important, aspect of the recent history of Ameri-can unionism. The importance of nonwage aspects of jobs to union goals dates back to the origins of the modern labor movement in the United States and other countries. For example, in late nineteenth-century Britain, according to Sidney and Beatrice Webb, “the prospect of securing support in sickness or unemployment [was] a greater inducement [for young men] to join the union... than the less obvious advantages to be gained by the trade com-bination ” (Webb and Webb 1897, 158). Similarly, in the United States, to take a prominent example, the American Federation of Labor’s resolution that “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labor from and after May 1st