What Do Unions Do to Temporary Employment?

39 Pages Posted: 17 Nov 2009

See all articles by Andrea Salvatori

Andrea Salvatori

University of Essex - Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Abstract

In the EU, one in seven employees work on temporary contracts associated with lower pay and less training. Using workplace-level data from 21 countries, I show that, in contrast with previous evidence for the US, unionized workplaces are more likely to use temporary employment across Europe. To address the endogeneity of unions, I then use a British dataset and exploit variation over time and across occupations to control for workplace unobserved heterogeneity. This confirms that unions contribute to creating contract duality in the labour market and thus do not limit the ability of firms to adjust employment through flexible contracts.

Keywords: temporary employment, unions, panel data

JEL Classification: J41, J51

Suggested Citation

Salvatori, Andrea, What Do Unions Do to Temporary Employment?. IZA Discussion Paper No. 4554, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1506306 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1506306

Andrea Salvatori (Contact Author)

University of Essex - Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) ( email )

Wivenhoe Park
Colchester CO4 3SQ
United Kingdom

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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