2014 Cambridge Conference Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780974211428
Analysing job attitudes between unionized and non-unionized
employees
Abstract
Recently, unions in Australia have launched a disproportionate number of industrial conflicts,
which gives impetus for organizational leaders to understand the attitudinal differences in
unionized employees to enable more effective management and to prevent industrial conflict.
In light of this, our article examines job attitude differences between unionized and nonunionized employees using data obtained from a survey of over 5000 Australian workers.
Findings show that unionized employees have more negative attitudes in the areas of
Employee involvement, Health and safety, Indispensability, Time flexibility, Workload
flexibility, Managerial trust, and Fair treatment, while non-union employees have more
negative attitudes in the areas of Job security, Pay exploitation, and Managerial sentiment
towards unions.
This knowledge offers organizational leaders predictive value on the
behaviour of unionized employees, which can be used in prevention or resolution of
industrial conflict.
Keywords: Job attitude, unions, industrial conflict, management
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Introduction
Effective management of unionized employees is crucial because of their substantial ability
to influence the organization through collective bargaining power. In Australia, unions have
recently launched a disproportionate number of industrial conflicts, with 241,500 working
days lost to industrial disputes in 2011, almost doubling from 126,600 working days lost in
2010 (ABS, 2012a).
This gives impetus for organizational leaders to understand the
attitudinal differences in unionized employees to enable more effective management and to
prevent industrial conflict. Job attitudes are known to be one of the oldest, most popular, and
most influential areas of inquiry in all of organizational psychology (Judge and KammeyerMueller, 2012). The understanding of employee job attitudes and satisfaction have been
identified as knowledge gaps for human resource practitioners (Rynes, Colbert, and Brown,
2002; Saari and Judge, 2004). The majority of research on employee attitudes and unions
surround employee attitudes towards unionization and involvement (e.g. Hills, 1985;
Dawkins and Frass, 2005; Griffin and Brown, 2011). However, to our knowledge, no
previous study has examined the attitudinal differences between unionized and non-unionized
employees. In light of these issues, this article examines job attitude differences between
unionized and non-unionized employees as enunciated in the following research questions:
1. Do unionized employees feel more (or less) secure in their jobs than non-union
employees?
2. Do unionized employees feel that there is more (or less) consultation and cooperation
in the workplace than non-union employees?
3. Do unionized employees feel more (or less) safe from injury or sickness at work than
non-union employees?
4. Do unionized employees feel more (or less) indispensable than non-union employees?
5. Do unionized employees feel that they have more (or less) time flexibility than nonunion employees?
6. Do unionized employees feel that they have more (or less) workload flexibility than
non-union employees?
7. Do unionized employees trust managers more (or less) than non-union employees?
8. Do unionized employees perceive more (or less) fairness in their workplace than nonunion employees?
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9. Do unionized employees feel more (or less) exploited in pay than non-union
employees?
10. Do unionized employees feel more (or less) managerial opposition towards unions
than non-union employees?
The above research questions will be answered through analysis of data obtained from a
survey of over 5000 Australian workers. The next sections will contextualize this study by
reviewing literature in the areas of job attitude and unions, address the methodology, and
discuss the findings.
Literature Review
Job attitudes
Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller (2012, p. 344) define job attitudes as “evaluation of one’s job
that expresses one’s feelings toward, beliefs about, and attachment to one’s job”. Pratkanis
and Turner (1994) point out that job attitudes guide a wide array of cognitive processes and,
under specifiable conditions, work-related behaviours important to the employee and the
organization. Studies suggest that job attitudes can be used to predict employee behaviour
(Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012; Olson and Zanna, 1993; Pratkanis and Turner, 1994)
and improve organizational performance (e.g. Harter et al., 2002; Lyne, 1989; Netemeyer et
al. 2010; Schneider et al. 2003). For example, the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen, 1991)
was developed to predict behavioral intention based on attitudes and subjective norms. Job
attitudes are closely related to job satisfaction. For example, Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller
(2012) point out that job satisfaction is a specific facet of job attitudes, and Spector (1997)
relates job satisfaction to a constellation of attitudes about various aspects of a job.
Employee attitudes and job satisfaction can be caused by dispositional, cultural, and work
situation influences (Saari and Judge, 2004). Dispositional causes of employee attitude are
inherent to the person and persist over time and job changes. Staw and Ross (1985) found
that a person’s job satisfaction remained stable over time, even when he or she changed jobs.
Similarly, Staw, Bell, and Clausen (1986) found that childhood temperament was found to be
statistically related to adult job satisfaction up to 40 years later.
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Unions
In The Communist Manifesto, first published in 1848, Engels and Marx (2004) observed how
capitalists constantly tend to reduce wages to its minimum while extending work to its
maximum, while the working class constantly presses in the opposite direction, leading them
to club together to keep the wage rate up in the form of trade unions. Since then, unions have
persisted in protecting the welfare of employees.
Hills (1985) identified four job
characteristics as important influences on attitudes toward unions; lack of autonomy, lack of
job security, pay adequacy, and the degree of danger associated with work. Blader (2007)
postulated the truism of ‘people vote their pocketbook’ in noting that employees who were
not content with various aspects of compensation were more likely to vote in favour of
unionization. This is supported by Premack and Hunter’s (1998) meta-analysis of studies on
voting in union certification elections, which found a link between resource evaluations (e.g.
wage levels) and votes.
Blader (2007) also points out that perceptions of group-based
distributive injustice are critical for motivating people to act collectively (e.g. Ellemers et al.,
1993; Grant and Brown, 1995; Kelly and Kelly, 1994; Wright, 1997), and collective action is
more probable when it is seen as instrumental in eradicating those injustices (Klandermans,
1997). While economic concerns dominate past research on union formation (Blader, 2007),
non-economic factors also play a substantial role. These include personal characteristics such
as attitudes and ideologies regarding unionization (Kochan, 1980; Deshpande and Fiorito,
1989; Summers et al. 1986; Zalesny, 1985). Perceptions that organisational procedures are
fair lead to positive engagement in the work organisation (Tyler and Blader, 2003), while
perceptions of unfair procedures prompt disengagement (Blader et al., 2001). Accordingly,
procedural justice is a key determinant in employees’ engagement and relationship with their
organisation (Blader and Tyler, 2005; Cropanzano et al., 2001; Tyler and Blader, 2003) and
can shape employee positions regarding unionization, with employees increasing support for
union formation if the perceive procedural injustice (Blader, 2007).
Unions have long supported the welfare of the working class against capitalist exploitation
and have been a dominant influence in many workplaces. For example, unions narrow
inequality gaps, support women, and encourage the training and development of workers
(Leigh, 2005).
However, unions in most developed countries have been facing major
difficulties in maintaining membership levels and political influence (Carter and Cooper,
2002) due to environmental changes such as industrial reorganization, globalization,
technological change, and economic downturn (Catano, 2010). Goslinga and Sverke (2003)
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noted that unions need to adaptable to change in order to survive. Union membership in
Australia has been in decline over the past three decades. While in 1979 just over half (51
per cent) of the Australian workforce were union members, by 2012 less than a fifth (18 per
cent) of workers were unionized, with steeper declines recorded for men (ABS, 2012b).
Australian unions began to centralize from the late 1980s when the labour movement was
restructured to form twenty industry based “super unions” (Costa, 1997). It however failed to
stop the decline of union membership, largely caused by changes to the laws governing
unions by conservative governments, more product market competition causing management
to adopt anti-union tactics to lower costs, rising inequality because of pay compression, and
structural change in the labour market with the decline of manufacturing (Leigh, 2005). Bray
and Macneil (2011) point out the association between lower union membership with a decline
in collectivism and a rise in individualism.
Upon taking office in 1996, Australia’s conservative Coalition government embarked on
restricting the influence of unions, mainly by enabling individual contracts known as
Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) (Carter and Cooper, 2002).
Accordingly,
companies used such legislation in the attempt to de-unionize their workplaces (Peetz, 2002).
This impacted Australia’s union density, which fell almost seven percentage points from
1999 to 2007 (from 24.9 per cent to 18.2 per cent) while the reading in other similar (wealthy
and democratic) countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and
Canada remained relatively stable (OECD, 2013). The AWAs were subsequently banned in
2009 under the Fair Work Act, which was implemented under the Labor government elected
in late 2007. More recently, Australian unions were cast in bad light by the press due to a
disproportionate number of industrial conflicts and scandals. In 2011, Qantas decided to
ground all its flights, costing about A$70 million and affecting 80,000 passengers, in
response to an industrial dispute over pay and conditions, including moving jobs to Asia.
The grounding lasted over a weekend until dispute was dispute was terminated by Fair Work
Australia (ABC News, 2011). In 2012, The Australian Council of Trade Unions suspended
the Health Services Union for corruption and the misuse of members’ funds (ACTU, 2012a).
In the same year, a former Australian Workers Union official gave evidence to reignite an
embezzlement scandal from the 1990s (Lewis, 2012).
Working days lost to industrial
disputes almost doubled in 2011 to 241,500, compared with 126,600 the year before (ABS,
2012a). It was reported that the worsening industrial climate comes amid a review of Labor's
Fair Work Act and softening domestic economic activity (Packham, 2012). The Australian
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Industry Group industrial relations manager, Stephen Smith, said that most of the disputes are
occurring around “restrictions that the unions are trying to place on things like on-hire
employment, casuals, use of contractors, outsourcing - all the things that a company need to
remain competitive”. In contrast, unions were only able to bargain on matters that directly
affected wages and conditions under the Howard government’s Work Choices laws
(Packham, 2012), which saw significant decollectivization (Bray and Macneil, 2011). Bailey
and Peetz (2013) provide a concise review of recent industrial disputes and collective
bargaining, and point out that despite the recent surge of the much publicized negativity
surrounding unions, the real issues unions dealt with were more fundamental, such as
working hours, insecurity, supply chain intervention, gender-based undervaluation, collective
rights, and public sector employment.
Methodology
The data used for this study is part of the 2009 ‘Australia at Work’ survey. Conducted by the
Australian Workplace Research Centre at the University of Sydney, this is part of a
longitudinal study that tracked the experiences of the Australian labour force. The research
was funded by the Australian Research Council and Unions NSW, and was advised by a
board comprising five labour market and industrial relations academics from around
Australia. The 2009 survey generated the findings of a total of 6,801 respondents via
telephone interviews of up to 20 minutes with participation being anonymous and voluntary.
The sample is weighted using population estimates from the ABS (Australian Bureau of
Statistics) Labour Force Survey, according to age, sex, location, labour force status, and
union membership. Data from selected survey questions are utilized to test the variables of
Job security, Consultation and cooperation, Health and safety, Indispensability, Time
flexibility, Workload flexibility, Managerial trust, Fairness, Pay exploitation, and Managerial
opposition towards unions according to the research questions (Table 1). Variables were
measured by a single item asking respondents to rate a statement on a five-point Likert scale
from Strongly Agree (1 point), Agree (2 points), Neither Agree or Disagree (3 points),
Disagree (4 points), to Strongly Disagree (5 points). Respondent categories with the highest
mean rank indicates least agreement to the Likert item.
The adequacy of single-item
measures is supported by Drolet and Morrison (2001) and Rossiter (2002).
Inferential
analysis using the nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis H test was carried out to compare the mean
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differences. Analysis of variance confirms statistical significances at the p<0.05 level. The
analysis of variance tests the association between two categorical variables for the likelihood
that the distribution is due to chance. Statistical significance at the p<0.05 level was recorded
in all tables, which determines that there is interaction between the variables tested. This
establishes that the results are statistically conclusive and unlikely to have occurred by
chance.
<TABLE 1 HERE>
Findings and Discussion
The data (Table 2) shows that respondents who were unionized employees reported a higher
mean rank (meaning least agreement to the item question) than non-unionized employees to;
the chance of being retrenched, managers consulting employees, not getting injured or sick at
work, being difficult to replace, control of time flexibility, control of workload, managerial
trust, being treated fairly, and managerial opposition of unions. Respondents who were nonunionized employees reported a higher mean rank (meaning least agreement to the item
question) than unionized employees only to pay exploitation.
Translated in terms of
dichotomous valence (i.e. positive/negative) for simplicity, these findings suggest that
unionized employees have more negative attitudes in the areas of Employee involvement,
Health and safety, Indispensability, Time flexibility, Workload flexibility, Managerial trust,
and Fair treatment, while non-union employees have more negative attitudes in the areas of
Job security, Pay exploitation, and Managerial sentiment towards unions (Table 3). The
findings generally suggest that unionized employees have more negative job attitudes and
lower job satisfaction than non-union employees. The following section will discuss the
findings in answering the research questions.
1. Unionized employees feel more secure in their jobs than non-union employees.
The International Labour Organization reported that the world’s economy is becoming
‘informalized’, with workers more and more finding themselves outside standard
employment relationships. They also report that the notion of strong employment security is
increasingly a mirage, and that workers are generally conscious of their job insecurity (ILO,
n.d.). Indeed, the past few decades have seen a substantial growth of insecure work in
Australia, with only 60 per cent of Australians in full or part-time ongoing employment
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(ACTU, 2013). In addition, privatisation, corporatisation, and public private partnerships
have generally transformed public service jobs and seen job losses and sectoral jobs transfer,
with major jobs losses taking place in Australia in 2012 and 2013 (Peake, 2013). The finding
that unionized employees feel more secure in their jobs can be explained by the fact that
unions endeavour to protect the job security of their members, giving them a higher sense of
job security, while non-unionized employees are on their own.
2. Unionized employees feel that there is less consultation and cooperation in the workplace
than non-union employees.
There are significant benefits associated with consultation and cooperation in the workplace
by regularly seeking opinions and views from employees. These include more productivity,
more informed decision making, more successful implementation of ideas, attraction and
retention of staff, minimisation of disputes, and minimisation of employee claims against
employers (Fair Work, 2013).
The finding that union members feel that there is less
consultation and cooperation could be explained by the possibility that managers are less
willing to involve unionized employees in decision making in order to maintain the balance
of power, given the substantial influence unions can exert on the organization. In this regard,
the Institute of Public Affairs reported that the principle relationship between unions and
managers (in the manufacturing sector) is fear and intimidation (IPA, 2005).
3. Unionized employees feel less safe from injury or sickness at work than non-union
employees.
The International Labour Organization reported that every year, approximately 2 million
people die from accidents and diseases linked to their work, in addition to approximately 270
million occupational accidents and 160 million occupation diseases (ILO, 2003). The finding
that unionized employees were found to feel less safe from getting sick or injured at work
could be explained by the possibility that unionized employees are informed by their unions
of the health and safety dangers at the workplace. For example, the Australian Council of
Trade Unions campaigns for workers to know what health and safety hazards they are
exposed to at work (ACTU, 2012b), and it was reported that workers in a unionized
workplace are 70 per cent more likely to be aware of OHS hazards and issues (Safeatwork,
2013).
4. Unionized employees feel less indispensable than non-union employees.
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Employees are increasingly facing the risk of dispensability with the advancement of
technology, first with the industrial revolution and recently with information technology,
especially in the area of retail where self-service checkouts and RFID technology enable
businesses to operate with less staff. As the threat of dispensability increases, employees can
turn to union membership which protects their job security. Hence, the finding that unionized
employees feel less indispensable could be because in the first place, employees who felt less
indispensable joined unions to protect their jobs. This finding is syllogistic with that of
research question (1) above, where it was found that unionized employees feel more secure in
their jobs.
5. Unionized employees feel that they have less time flexibility than non-union employees.
Flexible work has been of increasing importance as the number of dual-income families with
dependants and sole-parent families rise (ABS, 2013). Flexible work offers benefits for both
employers and employees.
Benefits for employers include employee productivity,
motivation, commitment, and retention, cost savings, and enhanced workforce planning,
while benefits for employees include improved work/life balance, better time management
and less stress, and more efficient travel options (Industrial Relations, 2013). The Australian
Council of Trade Unions recently strengthened their push to help employees access flexible
work hours, in light of many families with both parents balancing roles in work and care
(Hurst, 2013). The finding that unionized employees feel that they have less time flexibility
could be because in the first place, employees who felt more restricted in time flexibility
joined unions to gain support for more flexible working arrangements.
6. Unionized employees feel that they have less workload flexibility than non-union
employees.
The issues concerning workload flexibility are similar to the foregoing section about flexible
work. The finding that unionized employees feel that they have less workload flexibility
could be because in the first place, employees who felt more restricted in workload flexibility
joined unions to gain support for more flexible working arrangements. This finding, with that
of research question (5) above, shows that unionized employees generally feel that they have
less work flexibility.
7. Unionized employees trust managers less than non-union employees.
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Employee trust in mangers is widely recognized as an important factor influencing
organizational performance (e.g. Gould-Williams, 2003; Tzafrir, et al. 2004; Thomas et al.,
2009; Yang and Mossholder, 2010). Despite its importance, over the last two decades
organizations have been reported to be experiencing a decline in employee trust toward
managers (e.g. Davis and Landa, 1999, Massey and Pyper, 2005; Pate et al., 2007,
Schoorman et al., 2007). Employee personal characteristics, such as attitudes and ideologies
play a substantial role in union formation and participation (Kochan, 1980; Deshpande and
Fiorito, 1989; Summers et al. 1986; Zalesny, 1985). Employees are often motivated to act
collectively based on perceptions of distributive and procedural injustice, with support for
unions increasing where employees perceive either distributive or procedural injustice
(Blader, 2007). As such, ideological positions, experience of distributive or procedural
injustice, and union influence may be reasons why unionized employees were found to have
lower levels of managerial trust.
8. Unionized employees perceive less fairness in their workplace than non-union
employees.
Employee perception of fairness in their workplace is important as it leads to positive
engagement (Tyler and Blader, 2003), while perceptions of unfair procedures prompt
disengagement (Blader et al., 2001). Given that the concepts of trust and fairness are closely
related, unionized employees’ ideological positions, experience of distributive or procedural
injustice, and union influence, as discussed in research question (7) above, can explain why
unionized employees perceive less fairness in the workplace. In addition, workers faced with
negative outcomes, power differentials (Greenberg, 2001), and uncertainty at work (Van den
Bos and Lind, 2002), characteristic of employees that seek union protection, tend to place
more emphasis on fairness.
9. Unionized employees feel more exploited in pay than non-union employees.
In The Communist Manifesto, first published in 1848, Engels and Marx (2004) observed how
the working class are exploited for maximum work with minimum pay, and how the working
class responds with unionization. Hence, the finding that unionized employees feel more
exploited in pay could be because in the first place, employees who felt exploited joined
unions for support and protection, in addition to influence from union propaganda.
Conversely, it can be explained that non-unionized employees did not join unions because
they did not feel exploited to begin with.
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10. Unionized employees feel less managerial opposition towards unions than non-union
employees.
Union membership in Australia has been in decline over the past three decades (ABS,
2012b), causes of which include changes to the laws governing unions by conservative
governments and more product market competition causing management to adopt anti-union
tactics to lower costs (Leigh, 2005). Companies seized the opportunity to attempt deunionizing their workplaces when Australia’s conservative Coalition government took office
in 1996 (Peetz, 2002). However, this changed when the Labor government was elected in
late 2007 to see the union-restricting Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) banned in
2009 under the Fair Work Act. This development would be a factor in allaying union
workers’ apprehensions regarding managerial opposition against unions, which can explain
the findings that unionized employees feel that there is less managerial opposition towards
unions.
Another explanation for the findings could be that non-unionized employees
avoided joining unions because they felt that there would be managerial opposition.
<TABLE 2 HERE>
<TABLE 3 HERE>
Conclusion
Understanding attitudinal differences in unionized employees for more effective management
and industrial conflict prevention was addressed as the impetus of this study, in light of an
increasing number of industrial conflicts in Australia. Such knowledge of job attitudes can
be used to predict employee behaviour (Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012; Olson and
Zanna, 1993; Pratkanis and Turner, 1994) and improve organizational performance (e.g.
Harter et al., 2002; Lyne, 1989; Netemeyer et al. 2010; Schneider et al. 2003). The study
identified that unionized employees generally have more negative job attitudes than nonunionized employees. Unionized employees were found to have more negative attitudes in
the areas of Employee involvement, Health and safety, Indispensability, Time flexibility,
Workload flexibility, Managerial trust, and Fair treatment, while non-union employees have
more negative attitudes in the areas of Job security, Pay exploitation, and Managerial
sentiment towards unions. By inference, it can be said that employees with more negative
attitudes are more predisposed to joining unions in order to seek support and protection.
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Additionally, employees who joined unions are more likely to have been negatively
influenced by the availability and circulation of union propaganda.
The job attitudes
identified in this paper offer organizational leaders predictive value on the behaviour of
unionized employees, which can be used in prevention or resolution of industrial conflict.
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Tables
Table 1. Variables tested and survey questions
No. Variable
tested
Research question
Survey question
1
Job security
Do unionized employees feel more
(or less) secure in their jobs than
non-union employees?
“There’s a good chance I will lose my
job or be retrenched within the next 12
months”
2
Consultation
and
Cooperation
Do unionized employees feel that
there is more (or less) consultation
and cooperation in the workplace
than non-union employees?
“Managers at my workplace consult
employees about issues affecting staff”
3
Health and
safety
Do unionized employees feel more
(or less) safe from injury or
sickness at work than non-union
employees?
“I am confident that Im not going to get
injured or sick as a result of my work”
4
Indispensability Do unionized employees feel more
(or less) indispensable than nonunion employees?
“If I left this job it would be difficult
for my employer to replace me”
5
Time flexibility
Do unionized employees feel that
they have more (or less) time
flexibility than non-union
employees?
“I have control over when I work my
hours”
6
Workload
flexibility
Do unionized employees feel that
they have more (or less) workload
flexibility than non-union
employees?
“I have control over the number of
hours I work”
7
Managerial
trust
Do unionized employees trust
managers more (or less) than nonunion employees?
“Managers at my workplace can be
trusted to tell things the way they are”
8
Fairness
Do unionized employees perceive
more (or less) fairness in their
workplace than non-union
employees?
“I feel that employees are treated fairly
at my workplace”
9
Pay fairness
Do unionized employees feel more
(or less) exploited in pay than nonunion employees?
“More and more is expected of me for
the same amount of pay”
10
Managerial
sentiment
towards unions
Do unionized employees feel more
(or less) managerial opposition
towards unions than non-union
employees?
“As far as I can tell, managers at my
workplace oppose unions”
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Table 2. Respondents classified by Attitudes and Union Membership
Likert Item (Attitudes)
Union Member
Currently a member
Theres a good chance I will No longer a member
lose my job or be retrenched
Never a member
within the next 12 months
Total
Managers at my workplace
consult employees about
issues affecting staff
I am confident that Im not
going to get injured or sick
as a result of my work
If I left this job it would be
difficult for my employer to
replace me
I have control over WHEN I
work my hours
I have control over the
number of hours I work
Mean Rank
1589
2705.89
1390
2409.46
2105
2507.01
5084
Kruskal-Wallis H statistic
37.552
Degrees of freedom = 2
p
<0.0001
χ2 approximation
Currently a member
1584
2779.92
No longer a member
1386
2490.82
Never a member
2105
2387.03
Total
5075
Kruskal-Wallis H statistic
81.288
Degrees of freedom = 2
p
<0.0001
χ2 approximation
Currently a member
1593
2882.98
No longer a member
1400
2511.66
Never a member
2115
2335.44
Total
5108
Kruskal-Wallis H statistic
144.340
Degrees of freedom = 2
p
<0.0001
χ2 approximation
Currently a member
1590
2760.55
No longer a member
1399
2498.85
Never a member
2113
2429.05
Total
5102
Kruskal-Wallis H statistic
53.542
Degrees of freedom = 2
p
<0.0001
χ2 approximation
Currently a member
1590
2926.25
No longer a member
1403
2466.16
Never a member
2122
2342.80
Total
5115
Kruskal-Wallis H statistic
166.205
Degrees of freedom = 2
p
<0.0001
χ2 approximation
Currently a member
1592
2720.21
No longer a member
1403
2576.85
Never a member
2122
2426.26
Total
5117
Kruskal-Wallis H statistic
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N
41.010
Degrees of freedom = 2
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<0.0001
χ2 approximation
Currently a member
1587
2911.54
No longer a member
1397
2520.95
Never a member
2111
2292.60
Total
5095
p
Managers at my workplace
can be trusted to tell things
the way they are
I feel that employees are
treated fairly at my
workplace
ISBN : 9780974211428
Kruskal-Wallis H statistic
189.333
Degrees of freedom = 2
p
<0.0001
χ2 approximation
Currently a member
1591
2820.73
No longer a member
1401
2539.24
Never a member
2123
2373.49
Total
5115
Kruskal-Wallis H statistic
107.677
Degrees of freedom = 2
p
<0.0001
χ2 approximation
Currently a member
1594
2182.93
More and more is expected No longer a member
of me for the same amount of
Never a member
pay
Total
1399
2597.88
2118
2809.11
As far as I can tell,
managers at my workplace
oppose unions
5111
Kruskal-Wallis H statistic
181.378
Degrees of freedom = 2
p
<0.0001
χ2 approximation
Currently a member
1527
2396.01
No longer a member
1199
2213.59
Never a member
1710
2063.43
Total
4436
Kruskal-Wallis H statistic
61.223
Degrees of freedom = 2
p
<0.0001
χ2 approximation
At the p<0.05 level, the small p value (<0.0001) in all variables tested indicates highly significant differences in
the respondents’ responses. Respondent categories with the highest mean rank (in bold) indicates least
agreement to the Likert item.
Table 3. Attitude differences between unionized and non-unionized employees
Research
Question
1
2
3
4
5
Employee
perception of…
Job security
Employee
involvement
Health and safety
Indispensability
Time flexibility
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Unionized employees
Non-unionized employees
Positive
Negative
Negative
Positive
Negative
Negative
Negative
Positive
Positive
Positive
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6
7
8
9
10
Workload
flexibility
Managerial trust
Fair Treatment
Pay fairness
Managerial
sentiment towards
unions
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ISBN : 9780974211428
Negative
Positive
Negative
Negative
Negative
Positive
Positive
Positive
Positive
Negative
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ISBN : 9780974211428
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