Unions, training and wages: evidence for British men

In this paper we investigate the impact of trade unions on work-related training and wage formation for a sample of full-time men in Britain. We use data from the British Household Panel Survey for the period 1991-1996. Our main findings are that, relative to non-union workers, union-covered workers (i) are more likely to receive training, (ii) receive more days of training than their non-unionised counterparts, and (iii) experience a higher wage growth and a greater return to training. While findings (i) and (ii) have been found with other British data sets, the other results are new. They suggest a rethinking is warranted of the conventional view that union wage formation in Britain reduces the incentives to acquire work-related training