Labour unions face collective action issues that impact both their organization and
the power that they can wield in the policy process. Not only is there the need to have
both sheltered and exposed, public and private sector unions acting together to present
maximum strength, there is also the difficulty of getting enough members to mobilize to
make lobbying successful. This latter issue is largely a by-product of social policies
themselves, as labour unions only have an incentive to lobby if they expect to receive
either concentrated benefits or prevent concentrated costs. However, having an incentive
does not guarantee that the interest group can afford the costs of lobbying.
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These costs
can take several forms, such as external advertising campaigns, access fees required by
legislators in the form of contributions, and internal mobilization costs.
Given these considerations, the origins and development of labour organizations
throughout the world has captured the attention of scholars for several decades. Several
explanations exist for how workers become organized and the type of union that results.
Marks (1989) presents a theory of development that analyses the variation in union
political strategy, at the individual union level, through organization strength and the
labour market context. In his view, the way a union develops depends in large part on
how motivated workers are to organize and the receptiveness of the party system to
labour interests. Wallerstein (1989) argues that the union density in a country is
inversely related to the size of the labour force, as individual unions must weigh the costs
of recruiting new members with the expected social benefits of increased solidarity. He
concludes that in large countries, unions may rationally be satisfied with lower union
density, which runs contrary to common expectations. Fiorito, Jarley and Delaney (1995)
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Grier, Munger and Roberts (1994) show that contribution (or lobbying) decisions depend on the costs of
organizing members and securing cooperation compared to the benefits from political action.
Convention