Wages, hours, earnings and employment under unionism

Most studies on unions have concentrated on examining the union impact on wages. This thesis, in two essays, examines the union impact on wages, hours, earnings and employment, particularly focussing on the union impact on hours of work. The first essay summarizes previous theoretical union models which normally assume fixed hours of work and extends them so that hours as well as wages and employment can be determined by collective bargaining. Three kinds of union models are employed to examine union impacts on hours as well as union impacts on wages and employment: the monopoly union model (Oswald [1982]), the right to manage model (Nickell [1981]; Nickell and Andrews [1983]) and the efficient contracts model (McDonald and Solow [1980]). The predicted union impact on hours and employment is found to be ambiguous while the union impact on wages is found to be positive. The second essay is concerned with estimating union-nonunion wage, hours and earn ings differentials. Using the 1990 Labour Market Activity Survey, this essay finds that (1) union-nonunion hours differentials are ambiguous for males, but they are positive for females, (2) employers in the union sector extract more hours from more able workers and this contributes greatly to the positive union-nonunion hours differential and (3) union-nonunion hours differentials are smaller for males than for females and as a result, union-nonunion earnings differentials are larger for females than for males.Arts, Faculty ofVancouver School of EconomicsGraduat