The Effects of Collective Bargaining Rights on Public Employee Compensation

Evidence from Teachers, Firefighters, and Police

Bibliographic Data

ID4573642
AuthorsBrigham R Frandsen (0000-0002-4283-413X, Brigham R. Frandsen is Assistant Professor of Economics at Brigham Young University., corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume69
Issue1
Pages84-112
Publication date2016-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueIndustrial and Labor Relations Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0019-7939 • E-ISSN: 2162-271X
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0019793915603068
OpenAlexW2281989296
LanguageEN
Citations received23
References cited25

Widespread public-sector unionism emerged only in the 1960s, as individual states opened the door to collective bargaining for state and municipal workers. In this study, the author exploits differences in timing of legislative reforms across states to construct estimates of the causal effects of public-sector collective bargaining rights on pay, benefits, and employment for teachers, firefighters, and police. Perhaps surprisingly, estimates that allow for state fixed effects and state-specific trends show little effect on teachers' pay, benefits, or employment, despite significantly increasing union presence among teachers. For firefighters, the results show a substantial positive effect on wages. For police, the wage effect was more modest but the workweek was significantly shortened

Collective bargaining · Compensation (psychology) · Construct (python library) · Economics · Economy · Labour economics · Legislature · Political science · Public sector · State (computer science) · Wage · Labor market dynamics and wage inequality · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology · Transport and Economic Policies

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