An Empirical Assessment of the Multidimensionality of Union Participation

The purpose of this article is to explore empirically some similarities and differences among six forms of union participation: union commitment, participation in decision making, participation in union activities, attitudinal militancy, serving in elected offices and the propensity to strike. The study examines five models of union participation: the social background model, the work dissatisfaction model, the economic model, the structural model, and the socialization model. The research sample consisted of 603 employees from white collar occupations, members of local unions in Israel. The findings demonstrate that the forms of union participation are independent constructs. They also show that different theoretical explanations apply to different forms of participation. The conclusions indicate that a fundamental direction for future research should be to develop and test hypotheses that refer to specific forms of union participation.