A regionally-applicable model for the study of the growth of organized labor: Fid-Bau Portal

A regionally-applicable model for the study of the growth of organized labor

Snowbarger, Marvin

Abstract The research in this paper contains the design and application of a model to study the regional growth of union membership. It provides techniques to analyze both aggregate regional union membership and the ratio of aggregate regional union membership to aggregate regional employment. Union membership and its ratio to employment are influenced by employment effects (essentially a product market influence) and non-employment effects (factor market influences: government legislation, social opinion, technology, and union organizational efforts). The Product Market Effect and Factor Market Effect are isolated and measurable within the context of the model. In addition to having the advantage of separating employment from all other influences, the model deals with individual industries in a regional setting. Hence, its application is facilitated because agencies in many states collect and publish data on industrial employment and the industrial composition of union membership. In order to demonstrate the model's applicability, it has been applied to Santa Clara County. Union membership in the County rose from 56,300 in 1955 to 104,800 in 1968. Simultaneously, the ratio of union membership to employment declined from.497 in 1955 to.294 in 1968. The regional rise in total union membership between 1955 and 1968 was a composite of regional employment expansion and reductions in some of the regional industry's ratios of union membership to employment. The decline of the ratio of total union membership to total employment in Santa Clara County can be attributed to employment expansion in weakly organized industries (i. e., those with low ratios of union membership to employment) and the declining ratios of union membership to employment within the regional industries.