Unionisation

Motivated by the recent wave of collective action, we explore the determinants of successful unionisation. A disgruntled employee who aims to unionise her workplace must first build an organisational team. In turn, the team convinces workers in the bargaining unit of the benefits of unionisation. Unionisation succeeds if and only if the team is sufficiently credible within the workplace. Credibility entails the team to be not too biased towards unionisation. Our theory sheds light on why grass root movements, rather than established unions, managed to organise their workplace. We further discuss how labour laws, political will, firms’ backlash and the economic environment have contributed to unionisation.

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