Worker Participation in Unions in Argentina: Main Determining Factors and Trends
The crisis in union representation is one of the most relevant labour-related issues of the last thirty years. Studies about union representation usually consider unionization to be central to the evaluation of this crisis. However, this analysis can be deepened by incorporating other elements that explain workers’ union participation as a measure of representation levels. In this context, this paper has two objectives. First, to analyze the factors that influence worker participation in unions considering, besides membership, other elements that characterize labor participation. Second, but in connection with the first objective, it aims to establish how this participation is influenced by factors related to worker, firm, and socio-occupational characteristics. To identify different levels of employee involvement, we carry out a multiple correspondence analysis and a cluster analysis, both of which enable us to build three groups of employees along a continuum from the least to the most committed to the union. A multinomial logistic regression model is applied to establish the relative importance of different factors associated with worker, firm, and socio-occupational characteristics on the definition of these groups. The results show that firm-related factors do not affect worker participation in unions. In turn, the probability of moving to a non-participative situation is strongly related to worker characteristics, while the shift to a higher level of commitment is conditioned by socio-occupational characteristics, such as the presence of unions and seniority.