Union competence and labor conflicts. An applied analysis for the Spanish case

AutorSantos M. Ruesga Benito - Laura Pérez Ortiz - Manuel Pérez Trujillo
CargoDepartamento de Estructura Económica y Economía del Desarrollo, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid - Departamento de Estructura Económica y Economía del Desarrollo, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid - Universidad Católica del Norte de Chile
Páginas95-125
EL TRIMESTRE ECONÓMICO, vol. LXXXVI (1), núm. 341, enero-marzo de 2019, pp. 95-125
95
* Artículo recibido el 5 de junio de 2017 y aceptado el 8 de agosto de 2018. Los autores agradecen
a Julimar da Silva Bichara, de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, por los comentarios aportados en
una primera versión de este trabajo. Los errores u omisiones remanentes son responsabilidad exclusiva
de los autores.
** Santos M. Ruesga Benito, Departamento de Estructura Económica y Economía del Desarrollo,
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (correo electrónico: ruesga@uam.es). Laura Pérez Ortiz, Departa-
mento de Estructura Económica y Economía del Desarrollo, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (correo
electrónico: laura.ortiz@uam.es). Manuel Pérez Trujillo, Universidad Católica del Norte de Chile (co-
rreo electrónico: manuel.perez@ucn.cl).
doi: 10.20430/ete.v86i341.354
Competencia sindical y disputas laborales.
Un análisis aplicado para el caso español*
Union competence and labor conicts.
An applied analysis for the Spanish case
Santos M. Ruesga Benito,
Laura Pérez Ortiz
y Manuel Pérez Trujillo**
AbstrAct
Background: The workforce representatives —generally organized into a union—
have the responsibility to embody the collective voice of workers, defending
their interests and proposals in the productive environment. The representation
of workers manifests their social power through collective action, and its main
tool against its counterpart, i.e. the business organization, is conict —mainly
strikes—. With conict, workers and especially their representatives show the
power they have in defending their interests. Several studies focus on analyzing
the relationship between forms of labor representation and conict, empirically
highlighting the existence of a relationship that is different from the one expected
theoretically. In this regard, evidence indicates that the concentration of labor
representation in a single labor organization or union, hypothetically related to
greater unity in the labor representation in the workplace and therefore greater
power to convene workers to collective action, is not associated with a higher level
of industrial conict. All studies indicate that this inverse relationship between
EL TRIMESTRE ECONÓMICO
96
bargaining power and conict is related to the effect of multi-unionism and the
incentives it creates for union competition.
Methodology: This applied study, after reviewing the theoretical framework and the
most relevant empirical literature, focuses on the Spanish case, shedding light on
the effect that competition between labor organizations —for increasing their
institutional power— has on the development of conict during the collective
bargaining. Seeking to contrast the three hypotheses established in this study,
dening the relationship between heterogeneity level in labor representation in
collective negotiation and work conict, and once the corresponding variables
are dened, we develop an econometric probit model, considered more appro-
priate for this analysis. The database of collective bargaining agreements from the
Spanish Ministry of Labor and Social Security provides the necessary empi rical
data for the contrast model.
Results: Our empirical evidences conrm the positive and signicant impact of
rivalry between unions on the development of conict in collective bargaining,
conict being a marketing strategy used for strengthening the leadership of each
union and maintaining their reputation (as a successful organization) with their
clients —employees—. This shows that there is a negative and signicant effect
of the concentration labor representation index, according to which there is a
lower probability of conict during the negotiation as heterogeneity decreases
in that representation. This result is complemented with the models that use the
two variables, which dene the type of leadership existing in labor representa-
tion. Thus, when leadership is stable, the probability of labor conict decreases
signicantly, and substantial evidence of the opposite is obtained as well when
the leadership is unstable.
Conclusions: All the above indicates that in a situation where a labor organization
dominates the representation of workers in collective bargaining, the likelihood
of conict decreases and, on the opposite sense, when the dispersion in the
representation of workers increases, the probability of conict also rises.
Keywords: collective bargaining; labor representation; trade unions competition.
jel codes: J520.
resumen
Antecedentes: los representantes de los trabajadores, organizados en sindicatos, son
los encargados de encarnar la voz colectiva de éstos para defender sus intereses
y propuestas en el entorno productivo. La representación de los trabajadores
se maniesta mediante la acción colectiva y su principal herramienta de presión

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