Hisham Said¹ and Ajay Deshmukh¹
¹Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California
Building trade unions have had an instrumental role in advocating for worker welfare, training, health and safety in the U.S. construction industry. Since 1970s, the membership and market share of trade unions have dramatically declined, and there is no clear understanding and previous scholarly assessment of the drivers of such decline. This study provides a data-driven assessment of the market share controlling factors of the U.S. electrical trade unions and their signatory contractors. The study depended on collecting a large amount of data from the union electrical contractor organization, government census agencies, surveys, and interviews of electrical contractors. Union market share trends were found to be correlated to the use of higher crew ratios and the adoption of non-apprenticeship worker classifications.
Key Words: union, electrical construction, labor relations, market strategies, data analytics