Abstracts
Abstract
While decades of scholarship point to the broad consensus that unions compress the distribution of wages and incomes, recent empirical contributions suggest that unions’ within-country egalitarian effect is dwindling, as unions decline and membership composition changes. What is more, unions now operate in an increasingly difficult political economy transformed by, among other forces, globalization, financialization and fiscal austerity. At the same time, there is an increased demand for unions to play a broader role in a movement for distributive justice.
Transposing these debates to the Canadian provincial context, this article asks whether unions still matter for reducing inequality. Considering the role of industrial relations more broadly by taking into account strike activity and collective labour statutes, the article explores the relationship between union power and market income inequality over a period ranging from 1984 to 2012. This empirical contribution is framed in theories from comparative capitalism, economics, and sociology.
Descriptive longitudinal statistics support the well-documented union decline narrative. On average, union density and strike activity have declined in the provinces. As for the quality of collective labour rights, it is argued that the relative apparent stability of statutes conceals more substantive issues with Wagnerism as an organizing model. Linking unions to inequality, results from multivariate regressions using panel data suggest that union power still matters for limiting market income inequality. While estimates for strike action are not statistically significant, those for union density and the quality of collective labour statutes suggest that unions still exert an inequality-reducing effect. However, the rarity of significant estimates across models using different measures of inequality indicates that this effect is by no means comprehensive.
Keywords:
- union decline,
- strikes,
- industrial relations,
- inequality
Résumé
Bien qu’un large consensus existe dans la littérature sur le fait que les syndicats réduisent les inégalités de salaires et de revenus, certaines contributions empiriques récentes suggèrent que l’effet égalitaire infranational des syndicats se serait érodé, à mesure que les syndicats déclinent et que leur composition se modifie. Qui plus est, les syndicats opèrent maintenant dans une économie politique de plus en plus difficile, transformée notamment par la mondialisation, la financiarisation et l’austérité. Au même moment, il est de plus en plus demandé aux syndicats de jouer un rôle plus important dans un mouvement en faveur de la justice distributive.
Transposant ces débats dans le contexte provincial canadien, cet article souhaite vérifier si les syndicats jouent encore un rôle déterminant dans la réduction des inégalités. Considérant plus largement le rôle des relations de travail en tenant compte des niveaux de grève et des lois du travail, l’article explore la relation entre le pouvoir syndical et l’inégalité des revenus sur une période allant de 1984 à 2012. Cette contribution empirique s’appuye sur les théories du capitalisme comparatif en économie et en sociologie.
Les données longitudinales provinciales soutiennent le récit bien documenté du déclin syndical. En moyenne, la densité syndicale et l’activité de grève ont beaucoup diminué dans les provinces. En ce qui concerne la qualité des droits collectifs du travail, il est avancé que leur stabilité apparente dissimule des problèmes plus importants liés au modèle Wagner. En reliant les syndicats à l’inégalité, les résultats des régressions multivariées suggèrent que le pouvoir des syndicats est toujours déterminant pour limiter l’inégalité des revenus du marché. Alors que les estimations concernant les actions de grève ne sont pas statistiquement significatives, celles concernant la densité syndicale et la qualité du droit du travail collectif suggèrent que les syndicats exercent toujours un effet de réduction des inégalités. Cependant, la rareté des estimations significatives entre les modèles utilisant différentes mesures d’inégalités indique que cet effet est loin d’être exhaustif.
Mots-clés:
- syndicat,
- déclin,
- grève,
- relations de travail,
- inégalités salariales,
- revenus
Appendices
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