THE MEASUREMENT OF TRADE UNION BARGAINING POWER
| Date | 01 March 1977 |
| Author | D. Bowers,B. Burkitt,K. J. Armstrong |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1977.tb00075.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1977 |
British
Journal
of
fndusrrial
Relations
Vol.
XV
No.
1
THE MEASUREMENT
OF
TRADE UNION BARGAINING POWER
K.
J.
ARMSTRONG*,
D.
BOWERS?
AND
B.
BURKITl"::
I.
INTRODUCTION
IN recent years there has been considerable debate about the role of trade union
power in the process
of
wage determination, stimulated by the important part of-
ten assigned to wage increases in the generation
of
inflation. Various attempts
have been made to measure union bargaining strength and to assess its
association with wage changes. Trade unions participate in collective bargaining
in order
to
maintain and improve the living standards
of
their members; the ability
of a union to achieve this end rests upon its power. Power can be defined in econ-
omic terms as the ability of one party to
fix
or alter the conditions of exchange in
its favour,' but such an ability rests upon political and social, as well as economic,
factors and is not directly quantifiable. Chamberlain (195 1) argued that a trade
union's bargaining power was defined by the ratio
of
the expected costs of dis-
agreement with its terms for the employer to the expected costs of agreement
upon them.
This
ratio is a useful analytical tool but cannot be measured, because
it depends upon subjective estimates and undergoes constant changes if a
final
settlement is to be reached. Consequently a proxy variable for union strength is
required. The present article reassesses the relative merits of the proxies which
have been commonly used, and attempts to estimate the relationship between
them.
11.
THE PROXY
VARIABLES
ing criteria, is required:
A proxy variable for trade union bargaining power, which satisfies the follow-
(i) It should be determined independently
of
wage levels and changes.
(ii) It should
be
based upon objective data rather than subjective judgements.
(iii) It should be sensitive to variations in the degree of independent pressure ex-
erted by trade unions during wage negotiations.
(iv) It should be unambiguous and not be capable
of
interpretation in terms of
any other variable, such as the level of demand for labour or the degree of
employer resistance to union claims.
(v) Its use should be justified by a comprehensive theory of the process of
wage determination.
The search for such a proxy has concentrated on two variables, unionisation and
strike activity. Because bargaining power possesses many dimensions, no single
measure is likely to provide
a
comprehensive estimate
of
union strength, and the
use of either unionisation or strike statistics raises many problems.
(a)
Unionisation
In two influential articles Hines (1964, 1969) put forward the view that the rate
of
change of unionisation
(AT)
is an accurate proxy for the concept of militancy,*
*
Research Assistant, Department
of
Economics, University
of Bradford,
'f
Lecturer in Economics, University
of Bradford.
i:
Lecturer in Economics, University
of
Bradford.
91
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