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Trade Union Membership and the Free Rider Problem: the Role of Harassment Activities
Author(s) -
Chiarini Bruno
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
labour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.403
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 1467-9914
pISSN - 1121-7081
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9914.1992.tb00243.x
Subject(s) - harassment , free rider problem , coercion (linguistics) , rank (graph theory) , trade union , join (topology) , process (computing) , set (abstract data type) , law and economics , business , industrial relations , economics , labour economics , political science , microeconomics , law , computer science , linguistics , philosophy , programming language , mathematics , public good , combinatorics , operating system
. Although there exists an extensive literature which uses econometric techniques to examine the process of unionisation in the industrial countries, a well established theory about the individual propensity to join the union has still to be developed. We feel that the workers' personal relationships in the working places impinge on their decision to unionise. To this end, we have set out a coercion model of trade union membership without compulsory membership, based on the rank and file union members' harassment activities. Union members use these unfriendly activities to eliminate the free‐rider ploblem, encouraging unionisation and reducing the cost of joining a union.