Are mandated health and safety committees substitutes for or supplements to labor unions?

A subject of recurring debate in both academia and the business world is wh ether workplace committees and other forms of employee participation are su bstitutes for or supplements to labor unions. One well-established effect o f unionization is increased enforcement of government labor policies such a s OSHA; this study investigates the enforcement effects of mandated safety and health committees. A comparison of OSHA inspection records for the two years preceding and following the implementation of committee mandates in O regon in 1991 shows that mandated committees significantly increased the di fferences between union and nonunion workplaces in OSHA enforcement, with e nforcement strengthening considerably in union workplaces but edging upward only slightly in nonunion workplaces. The committees thus appear to have a cted more as supplements to than substitutes for labor unions.