Effect of teachers unions, 2003-2012, US

This
paper examines how teachers unions affect teachers’ well-being under various
legal institutions. Using a district-teacher matched dataset, this study identifies the union
effects by three approaches. First, I contrast teacher outcomes across
different state laws towards unions. Second, I compare the union-nonunion
differentials within the same legal environment, using multilevel models and
propensity score matching. Finally, unexpected legal changes restricting the
collective bargaining of teachers in four states form a natural experiment,
allowing me to use the difference-in-difference estimation to identify the
causal effect of weakening unionism on teacher outcomes. I find that i) many
teachers join unions even when bargaining is rarely or never available, and
meet-and-confer or union membership rate affects teachers’ lives in the absence
of a bargaining contract, ii) how unions influence teacher outcomes vary
greatly by different legal environment, iii) the changes in public policy
limiting teachers’ bargaining rights significantly decrease teacher
compensation.