Spring Semester 2023-2024

Title: "Will I Ever Be Satisfied? Job Quality and Unionization"

Speaker: Assistant Professor Jason Sockin, Cornell University

Host:  Assistant Professor Kospentaris Ioannis, Department of Economics, Athens University of Economics and Business

Venue:  76, Patission Str., Antoniadou Wing, 3rd floor, Room A36

Abstact: We study the relationship between hard-to-observe aspects of job quality and unionization in the U.S. economy. Establishments where workers report a decline in job quality are more likely to experience a unionization effort, even within the same firm. This dissatisfaction with job quality does not reflect differences or widening gaps in pay, but rather differences and widening gaps in working conditions such as culture, management, and work-life balance. Given the hard-to-observe nature of job quality, union organizing would appear to reflect grassroots movements from within. Even after workers successfully vote to unionize, job quality does not appear to improve. Though the exit-voice hypothesis argues unionization reduces employee turnover, our analysis suggests that the causation may run the other way, as workers who seek to unionize exhibit longer tenure and more dissatisfaction even before filing for representation.