Using Longitudinal Data on Establishments to Analyze the Effects of Union Organizing Campaigns in the United States

Most studies of the impact of unions use individual rather than establishment level data. In this paper, we combine information on union organizing activity from the U.S. National Labor Relations Board Representation Case files with information on a wide range of economic variables form the U.S. Bureau of the Census' Longitudinal Research Datafile (LRD). These economic variables include production worker wages, employment and hours, nonwage labor costs, shipments, and materials costs. Our results indicate that successful unionization of production workers leads to significant declines in employment and output in manufacturing plants. Surprinsingly, these "scale" effects are not associated with any increase in relative wages.