WAGE LOSS FOLLOWING DISPLACEMENT - THE ROLE OF UNION COVERAGE

Using two Canadian data sets, the authors explore the role of union co verage in displaced workers' wage losses. While only 32% of the worker s had unionized jobs prior to displacement, the wage loss suffered by these workers represented about 80% of the wages lost by all displaced workers in both samples. Losing union status was associated with larg e losses whether or not a worker switched industries after displacemen t. Extrapolating the results to the United States, the authors estimat e that one-third to one-half of U.S. displaced workers' wage losses ma y be due purely to the loss of union coverage.