Why Do Workers Join Unions?
Yitchak Haberfeld Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 1995, vol. 48, issue 4, pages 656-670 Abstract: The author argues that because almost all Israeli wage earners were covered by collective agreements in the early 1980s, neither the “collective voice” hypothesis nor the earnings premium hypothesis-the two prevailing explanations of workers’ decision to join unions-was then applicable to Israel. Using 1982 survey data on Israeli workers, he examines four alternative explanations of unionization in Israel: non-work benefits; political ideology; social values, especially workers’ attitude toward unions as a means for solidarity; and work and demographic attributes, such as employing unit size, gender, ethnicity, education, and age. He finds that Israeli workers’ decision to join the Israeli Federation of Labor-the Histadrut-can be explained in part by non-work benefits of the Histadrut (health insurance and legal aid, for example) and by the workers’ social values. (Abstract courtesy
