Unionism and the job attachment of Canadian workers

Unions have the ability to affect exit behavior through a distinctive collective voice which provides a mechanism for expressing preferences and resolving grievances. It has been demonstrated that workers with a voice institution for the resolution of problems should resort to the exit option less frequently and maintain longer attachments with their companies. A study was conducted based on the 1986-1987 Labour Market Activity Survey (LMAS) longitudinal data from Statistics Canada. Evidence is presented of the effect of unionism on job tenure and job separation rates derived from regressions which control for the effects of wages, pension rights, firm size and other factors. The results show that unionism is associated with significantly lower probabilities of job separation and significantly longer spells of tenure.