Suppose, you join a club or become a member of an organisation which represents your interests. Then one can expect that you are more satisfied than before joining. This basic idea has led to the hypothesis that individuals who are members of a trade union can be expected to exhibit a higher level of job satisfaction than comparable non-members. Strikingly, early empirical analyses of the relationship between trade union membership and job satisfaction for Anglo-Saxon countries have shown the opposite, namely that union members are less satisfied. This apparent puzzle has sparked a debate, which has continued for almost half a century and become livelier again in recent years.
In a paper on Job Satisfaction and Trade Union Membership in Germany forthcoming in Labour Economics, Laszlo Goerke and Yue Huang from the IAAEU and the chair of Personnel Economics investigate the relationship against the background of the local industrial relations system. Thus far, no comprehensive investigation for Germany is available. Goerke and Huang show that there also exists a negative correlation between trade union membership and job satisfaction. However, when taking into account that individuals with certain interests and characteristics have greater incentives to become members of a trade union, the negative correlation cannot be observed any longer. Therefore, it may be the case that employees who have a more critical view of their working life and, accordingly, exhibit lower job satisfaction are more likely to join a trade union to improve the situation at work. However, even if more pessimistic individuals are more likely to belong to a trade union, eventually they should benefit from membership and job satisfaction go up. Why this expectation is not born out by the data is an issue Goerke and Huang cannot resolve in their analysis. Therefore, solving the puzzle requires additional work and further insights will be reported here, once they are available.