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UK Unions, Collective Action and the Cost Disease
Author(s) -
Willman Paul,
Bryson Alex,
Forth John
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
british journal of industrial relations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.665
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-8543
pISSN - 0007-1080
DOI - 10.1111/bjir.12471
Subject(s) - argument (complex analysis) , collective action , order (exchange) , action (physics) , subject (documents) , inflation (cosmology) , economics , business , law and economics , political science , law , finance , medicine , computer science , politics , physics , quantum mechanics , library science , theoretical physics
This article looks at the financial resources of trade unions in the UK. The core argument is that trade unions are subject to ‘cost disease’ pressures such that costs rise over the long term above the general level of inflation. They have this property because of the difficulty in solving first‐ and second‐order collective action problems. First‐order problems refer to the problems of initiating collective action and second‐order problems refer to the management of collective action organizations. Both UK aggregate and case‐study data — from one of the largest UK unions, Unite — are presented to illustrate the cost disease problem and to suggest options for its management. In conclusion, the wider implications of ‘cost disease’ pressures for unions are assessed.