Bargaining Levels and Relative Earnings in Northern Ireland in 1987
| Published date | 01 November 1990 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1990.tb01003.x |
| Date | 01 November 1990 |
| Author | Richard I. D. Harris |
British Journal
of
Industrial Relations
28:3
November
1990
0007-1080
$3.00
Bargaining Levels
and
Relative
Earnings in Northern Ireland in
1987
Richard
1.
D.
Harris
*
Final version accepted
1
May
1990
ABSTRACT
Individual level data
is
wed to consider the effeca
of
the union mark-up
on
earnings in Northern Ireland and in particular to
find
out
if
a
differential
exists
between
bargaining groups
as
well
as
across covered and not covered
workers. The results show that company (and to
a
lesser extent,
UK
industry-wide) agreements have
a
much lower mark-up than might be
deduced by simply analysing mean wage levels across groups. This suggests
that most of the differential is actually the result
of
a
productivity ad-
vantage attached to (these) covered workers and not because
of
union
power
per se.
1.
INTRODUCTION
This note
uses
micro-based data on individuals (based on a voluntary return
to the
New Earnings Survey)'
to consider the effectsof the union mark-up on
earnings in Northern Ireland
.'
Since there are several levels of collective
bargaining (e.g. industry, company, plant), the primary interest here is to
estimate the wage mark-up for different groups of workers
to
find out if a
differential exists
between
bargaining groups
as
well as across covered and
not-covered workers. Earlier work using the
New Earnings Survey (NES)
(e.g. Gregory and Thomson
1981)
has been confined to making a simple
comparison of mean wage levels across bargaining groups, without any
attempt to control for other factors that determine earnings
levels
and which
may be correlated with bargaining structure. When individual worker, and
plant and company, characteristics are held fixed, the apparent wage
differential in favour of a particular bargaining group may potentially be
much smaller.
This
note begins with a discussion of the bargaining structure in Northern
University
of
Waikato,
New
Zealand.
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