The non-pecuniary contributions of labor unions to their members

Do unions make non-pecuniary contributions to their members? Are these contributions regarded by the members to be of sufficient importance to justify, at times, the unions existence? This paper will consider the non-pecuniary contributions of labor unions to their members in an effort to ascertain their merit as an answer to the union leader’s dilemma. The writer would like to make it very clear that his thought is not to consider the possibility of a complete substitution of non-cost gains for those which do cost the employer. It is expected that wages will continue to be raised as the rise in average productivity makes this possible. The substitution considered is in those cases in which the best judgment union leaders might be over born by the membership’s demand for service from their union in pecuniary form - perhaps because, though erroneously, it was the only type of union service they had learned to recognize