Job Queues and the Union Status of Workers

Author(s): John M. Abowd and Henry S. Farber

Source: Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Apr., 1982), pp. 354-367
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.
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 JOB QUEUES AND THE UNION STATUS
OF WORKERS

JOHN M. ABOWD and HENRY S. FARBER*

This paperdevelopsa modelof thedetermination oftheunionstatusof

workers thatallowsforthepossibility ofqueuingforunionjobs.The em-
piricalresultsderived,usinga samplefromtheUniversity ofMichiganPanel
StudyofIncomeDynamics,aresupportive ofthequeuinghypothesis. The
no-queuemodelcan be rejected usinga likelihood-ratio
test.This suggests
thata simpleprobitorlogitmodelforunionstatusis misspecified becauseit
is notbasedon anyconsistent behavioraltheory.An important implication
ofthemodelis thatbecausemostnewentrants tothelabormarket un-
prefer
ion jobs but cannotgetthemand becauseaccrualof nonunionseniority
makesworkers lesslikelytodesireunionjobs,theunionstatus
progressively
ofworkers is largelydetermined bytheirsuccessin beingselectedfromthe
queue earlyin theirworkinglife.

MOST recentempiricalresearch on the theutilityof union and nonunion jobs, and

union status of individuals is based
on an underlyingmodel thatassumes that
workersdeterminethe union statusofjobs
through individual, utility-maximizing
decisions.' In this view, workerscompare
*John Abowd is an assistant professor of
econometricsand industrialrelationsat theUniversity
of Chicago and HenryFarberis an associate professor
of economics at the MassachusettsInstituteof Tech-
nology. For this study they had support from the
National Instituteof Mental Health and the National
Science Foundation.
'See, for example, Peter Schmidt and Robert P.
Strauss,"The Effectof Unions on Earningsand Earn-
ings on Unions," International Economic Review,
Vol. 17, No. 1 (February1976),pp. 204- 12; Lung-Fei
Lee, "Unionism and Wage Rates: A Simultaneous
Equations Model with Qualitative and Limited De-
pendentVariables," InternationalEconomic Review,
Vol. 19,No. 2 (June 1978),pp. 415- 33; Lung-Fei Lee,
"On the Estimation of Probit Choice Model with
Censored Dependent Variables and Amemiya's Prin-
theobservedunion statusis theresult.Ash-
enfelterand Johnson and Leigh recognize
that this individual utilitycomparisonde-
terminesonly thedemandforunion services
and thatthereis a supplyfunctionforunion
servicesthatis derivedfromsome model of
employerbehavior and the cost of union-
izationofjobs.2The demand forand supply
ciple" Discussion Paper 78- 99, CenterforEconomic
Research, Department of Economics, Universityof
Minnesota, 1978; and JamesJ. Heckman and George
R. Neumann, "Union Wage Differentialsand the
Decision to Join Unions" mimeo, Universityof Chi-
cago, 1977.
2OrleyAshenfelterand George Johnson, "Union-
ism, Relative Wages, and Labor Quality in U.S. Man-
ufacturing Industries," International Economic
Review, Vol. 13, No. 3 (October 1972),pp. 488-507.
See also Duane E. Leigh, "An Analysis of the Inter-
relation Between Unions, Race, and Wage and Non-
wage Compensation," final report submittedto the
Employment and Training Administration, U.S.

Industrialand Labor Relations Review, Vol. 35, No. 3 (April 1982). ? 1982 by Cornell University.
0019-7939/82/3503-0354$01 .00

354

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 JOB QUEUES AND UNION STATUS
of union servicesare implicitlyassumed to
equilibrate througha marketmechanism,
yielding an equilibrium relationship that
determinesthe observed union status of
individuals.
It is argued here that while an explicit
marketmechanism may be operational in
the determinationof the size of the union
sector-where on the margin the costs of
unionizationofan additionaljob will equal
the benefitsof unionization of thatjob-
the allocation of existingunion jobs is not
mediatedthroughsucha market.The major
costsof unionizationare incurredwhen the
bargainingunit is organized,and thebene-
fitsof unionization are generallynot capi-
talized in initiation fees or recovered
throughdues payments.Since, in general,
union jobs are not sold and the benefitsof
the union jobs are fixedthroughcollective
bargaining,therewill be excessdemandfor
job vacancies in existing union establish-
ments.
These considerationssuggest that there
maybe a queue ofworkersforunion jobs. In
mostindustriestheemployerhas discretion
in fillingvacancies,and a profit-maximiz-
ing employerfacedwitha queue ofworkers
and the fixedcompensationrules imposed
by the collective bargaining process will
systematically selectworkersfromthequeue
so as to minimizeproductioncosts.3Thus,
the observedunion statusof individuals is
the product of distinct decisions system-
atically made by both the workerand the
potentialemployer.
The existence of a queue raises serious
questions about the interpretationof the
results of the earlier studies of the union
statusof workers.Since a simple unioniza-
tion functiondoes not necessarilyreflecta
marketin equilibrium,it is notclearwheth-
er it is a demand function,a supply func-
tion, or some hybridof the two.A worker's
union statusis determinedby both a desire
for a union job and the employer'sselec-
DepartmentofLabor, April 1978,and Duane E. Leigh,
"Racial Differentialsin Union Relative Wage Effects:
A Simultaneous Equations Approach," mimeo,
WashingtonState University,1978.
31n industriessuch as construction,where thereare
strong union hiring halls, employers do not exert
such controlover hiring.
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355
tion criteria.An individualwill be working
on a union job ifthatindividualbothwants
a union job and is selectedfromthequeue.
If an individual is not workingon a union
job, however,the observercan not know
whetherthat is because the individual did
not want a union job or whetherhe or she
wanted a union job but could not get one.
The Composition of theQueue
forUnion Jobs
Assume that individual i has a utility
functionof the form
(1) Vi = V(wi,UiPi)
wherewi representsthe wage of individual
i, Ui is a zero-onedummyvariable denot-
ing the union status of individual i, and
Oi is a factorthatrepresentsthepecuniary
and nonpecuniary costs and benefitsof
unionization thatare not included in earn-
ings.It is assumedthat XV > 0 and < 0.
Intuitively,the latter inequality implies
thatindividualswith positive O's findthat
the costs of union membershipoutweigh
the benefitsnet of any wage differential.
Conversely,individuals with negative O's
findthatthebenefitsof union membership
outweighthecostsnetofany wage differen-
tial. If individual i is a union member,
utilityis
.(2) Vui= V(wUi, :i)
while if theworkeris not a union member,
utilityis
(3) Vni= V(wni,0),
where wui and wni representthe union
and nonunion wages, respectively,of in-
dividual i.
It is assumed thattheutilityfunctionhas
the particularform
(4) Vi= Inwi - Uifi.
Thus, the differencebetweenthe utilityto
individual i of a union job and of a non-
union job iS4
40ur specificationassumes that the net benefit(or
cost) of a unionized job is independentof the union
thatorganized the job being considered.
356 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW

(5) yli= nwu, - Inwni - Oi. and nonpecuniary costs and benefitsof
Individual i will prefera union job if y i union membershipnet of any wage differ-
> 0 and a nonunion job ifYIi < ? 5 ential. The obvious elementsof thecostsof
Assume that each individual has union union membershipare dues paymentsand
and nonunion earnings functionsof the initiation fees. The pecuniary benefitsof
form unionization other than higher wages ac-
crueas higherlevelsoffringebenefits,such
(6) Inwuz = XU7
Mu+ Fuiand as insurance and pension plans, in union
(7) nwni = XniI0n + Enz jobs relativeto nonunion jobs. While data
where xui and xniare row vectorsof indi- concerning relative provision of fringe
vidual and labor market characteristics benefits forindividuals in union and non-
pertainingto individuali and Euland Eni union jobs arerare,theU.S. Bureau ofLabor
representrandom errors.The parameter Statistics reports thatin 1972 "pay fortime
vectors f8uand f3n are assumed to be con- workedas a percentof total compensation
stant across individuals and to be given was about 6 percentagepoints lower for
exogenously.6 union than for nonunion workersin all
The union-nonunion wage differential situations."7Thus, evenifunions conferno
facingany workeris wage advantageon theirmembers,on aver-
age union members receive more fringe
(8) AzSnwi= Anwui- nW
benefits.8
-

=xw (P U - f3n) + Fwi The nonpecuniarycosts and benefitsof

where ewi = Eu- eni, xwi represents a union membership flow from union-in-
vectorof all the variables in xuZlor xni,and duced changes in job and workplacechar-
flu - On is the vectorof coefficients for acteristics.Examples of such changes in-
elementsthatcorrespondto theappropriate clude changes in the time spent at work
variables in xwi. actually working and the introductionof
The variable Oi representsthepecuniary formal grievance-handling procedures.
Workers may also realize nonpecuniary
costs or benefitssimply from holding a
5Up to thispoint in theanalysis,union membership union job as opposed to a nonunion job.
and employmentin a union job have been used inter- These aspects of union employmentare
changeably. They are not in fact identical. Union
membershipdenotes actual membershipin the or-
notoriouslydifficultto evaluate, but one
ganization while employmentin a union job denotes attempt to attach a value to the impact of
simply that the job is coveredby a collectivebargain- unionizationon thewaytimeis spenton the
ing agreement.Unless thereis an explicit agreement job was made by Duncan and Stafford.9
in thecontractconcerninga membershiprequirement, concludedthatdifferences in thestruc-
They
an individual may work on a job thatis coveredby a
collective bargaining contract without actually be- tureoftheuse oftimeat workoffset approxi-
coming a member of the union. However, such in- mately one-third of the measured union-
dividuals are "covered" by the contractin the sense nonunion wage differential.
that theirtermsof employmentare thoseagreedto by Although these aspects of union mem-
the union and the employer.In light of this,it is as-
sumed forthepurposes of thisstudythatunion mem-
bership ( Oi) are not measureddirectly,they
bershipand employmentin a union job are identical. are assumed to varyacross individuals as a
When we turn to the empirical work below, cover- linear functionof individual and market
age by a collectivebargaining agreementwill be the
measureofunion "membership"used. Implicitin this
convention is the assumption that an individual re- 7U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,Employee Com-
ceives no utilityor disutilityfromactually belonging pensation in the PrivateNonfarmEconomy,Bulletin
to a union that differsfromthat receivedby a non- 1873 (Washington,D.C.: G.P.O., 1975),p. 4.
memberwho workson a "covered" job. 8RichardB. Freeman, "The Effectof Unionism on
6The assumption of exogenous wage structuresis Fringe Benefits,"Industrialand Labor Relations Re-
not strictlyaccuratein thecontextofa broaderview of view, Vol. 34, No. 4 (July 1981), pp. 489-509.
union behavior.The union wage structureis clearlya 9GregJ. Duncan and Frank P. Stafford, "Do Union
resultof the collectivebargainingprocessand it will MembersReceive CompensatingWage Differentials?"
feedback upon the nonunion wage structure,thereby American Economic Review, Vol. 70, No. 3 (June
modifyingit as well. 1980),pp. 355-371.

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 JOB QUEUES AND UNION STATUS
characteristics(xp i) with a random com-
ponent, eo.
Formally,
(9) X~ i 00 + Eoi
where 13g is a vectorof parameters.Sub-
stitutionofEquations 8 and 9 intoEquation
5 yields
(lO)Y1x(= X fi( - 3n) + X i13k+ E li >O
as the condition forindividual i wantinga
union job where Eii = Ewi + E i.
It is clearfromEquation 10 thattheeffect
of individual characteristicson the desire
fora union job is only in parta functionof
f,3 - /, which representsthe difference
between the pecuniaryreturnsto individ-
ual characteristicsin the union and non-
union sectors.It is argued herethatunions
standardizewage rates,resultingin a reduc-
tion in skill differentials
within the union
sector.This notion can be tracedback to at
least the Webbs.'0 Recent empirical work
by Bloch and Kuskin and by Freemansup-
portsthis hypothesis.
The implication of this standardization
of rates within the union sectoris that the
propensity of an individual to desire a
union job is inverselyrelatedto his or her
skill level. In addition, since thereseems
to be less wage discrimination against
blacks in the union sector,blacks will be
more likely to desire union jobs.'2 These
hypothesizedrelationships may be modi-
'0Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb, Industrial De-
mocracy(New York: August M. Kelley,1965).Reprint
of 1920 edition.
"Farrell E. Bloch and Mark S. Kuskin, "Wage De-
terminationin the Union and Nonunion Sectors,"
Industrialand Labor Relations Review,Vol. 31, No. 2
(January1978), pp. 183-92 and Richard B. Freeman,
"Unionism and the Dispersion of Wages," Industrial
and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 34, No. 1 (October
1980), pp. 3-23.
A wage-functionanalysis using the same data we
analyze in this paper shows thatour data also exhibit
the standardizationof wage rates within the union
sector.The union-wage equation is flatterthan the
nonunion equation in virtually every dimension.
These resultsare available in an appendix,whichwill
be supplied by the authorson request.
I2Orley Ashenfelter,"Racial Discrimination and
Trade Unionism," Journal of Political Economy,
Vol. 80, No. 3 (May/June1972), pp. 435-64.
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357
fiedbyanysystematic relationshipsbetween
the characteristicsof workersand the non-
wage costs and benefitsof unionization
embodied in Oi.
Standardizationof wage ratesby unions
implies that worker skill characteristics
will be negativelyrelatedto thedesirefora
union job; however,thereare fourpotential
relationships between worker character-
istics and nonwage aspects of unionism
that might reversethis prediction. First,
initiation fees and annual dues could be
structured to favormoreseniorworkersover
less senior workers.'3Since there do not
appear to be any negative relationships
betweenactual union dues and seniorityor
skill groups,thiseffectis unlikelyto reverse
the standardization implication. Second,
the demand for grievance procedures to
protectunion members'job rightsshould
differsystematically across groups. We ex-
pect minoritiesto benefitrelativelymore
from grievance procedures.Third, to the
extent that formalizationof the work en-
vironmentand job progressionswithin a
union firmbenefitsome skill groups more
than others, the insulation of high-skill
jobs fromsome formsof within-firm com-
petitioncould mitigatethe standardization
implications. Finally, fringebenefits-in
particular, the division of compensation
between wages and pensions-are a non-
wage factorthatcould reversethestandard-
ization implications. Since older workers
benefitmore frompensions than younger
workers,thedesireto remainin a union job
could increasewithage because of theanti-
cipated pension benefits, despite union
wage benefits that may favor younger
workers.
13lnitiationfeescould, in principle,capitalize some
of the advantage accruing to younger, less skilled
workers.A large initiationfeecould serveas a transfer
fromthe new union entrants,whose gains are largest,
to the older union members,whose wage growthmay
be slowerin theunion thanin thenonunion sector.As
a nonunion workerages and becomes more skilled in
the nonunion sector,the size of the initiationfee the
workerwould be willing to pay to gain access to the
union declines. To the extentthat initiation feesare
largerthan annual dues payments,thiseffectstrength-
ens the predictionthatstandardizationof wages leads
to an inverserelationshipbetweenskill measuresand
the desire fora union job.
358 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW
Due to theoverlapin variablesthatwill be
included in xw and x?., it will not be pos-
sible to estimate/,h, ,n,and 13p fromdata
on union status.'4Thus, the condition for
desiring a union job in Equation 10 can
be simplifiedto
(11) Y ii =Xli1 + Eli > 0
where x i representsa vectorof individual
characteristics thatincludesall theelements
of xU)iand xpi. The parametervector /31
includes 8,,, f, and flOand itselements
can be interpretedas the overall wage and
nonwage effectof the relevantcharacter-
isticson the desirefora union job.
If thereis no queue and workerscan thus
translatetheirdesirefora union job into the
factof a union job, thenEquation 11deter-
mines the union statusof workersdirectly.
Assuming that E 'i is distributedas a stan-
dard normal random variable, there is a
probit specificationfor the probabilityof
observingunion statusgiven by:
(12) Pr[Ui = 1] = Pr[yli > 0]
= Pr[ E li > - Xli oil]
where Ui is a dichotomous variable that
equals one ifindividual i workson a union
job and zero otherwise.
If,on theotherhand, thereis a queue for
union jobs, workers cannot necessarily
translatetheirdesirefora union job into the
factof a union job, and Equation 11 merely
determineswhetheror not an individual is
in the queue.'5 More formally,
(13) Pr[IQj = 1] = Pr[yli > 0]
= Pr[Eli > -xii3l]
where IQj is a dichotomous variable that
equals one ifindividuali is in thequeue and
zero otherwise.Unlike union status,how-
ever,queuing has no observableanalogue.
Therefore Equation 13 cannot be empir-
ically implementedby itself;such imple-
"4Itis theoreticallypossible to identifyand estimate
re-
flu, /3n, and 83p in a known regime-switching
gressionmodel consistingof two wage equations and
a union-statusmodel. However, the implementation
of such a model in a queuing contextis quite compli-
cated,and it is not attemptedhere.
"5Itis assumed thatqueuing is costlessand thatin-
dividuals can be working on nonunion jobs while
waiting to be selectedfromthe queue forunion jobs.
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mentationrequiresa model of theselection
processused by employers.
The Process of Selection fromthe Queue
Conditional on the composition of the
queue and on the earnings structureim-
posed throughcollectivebargaining, it is
reasonable to assume thatunion employers
systematically selectworkersfromthequeue
so as to minimize the costs of production.
The model developedin thissectionimplies
that in orderto minimizecosts union em-
ployers attempt to hire the more highly
skilled workersfromthe queue.
It was arguedpreviouslythatthequeue is
likely to be composed of the less skilled
workersdue to the fact that the marginal
wage returnto an additional unit of skill is
lower in the union sectorthan in the non-
union sector. The same union and non-
union wage functionscan be interpreted
fromtheemployers'point of view to imply
thatthemarginalcost ofan additional unit
of skill, holding numberof workersfixed,
is lowerin theunion sectorthanin thenon-
union sector.
Given this interpretationof the relative
shapesoftheearningsfunctions,we assume:
(1) that firmshire workersof various skill
levels until their marginal product is no
greaterthantheirwage rate;(2) thatthepro-
duction functionsexhibit declining mar-
ginal productivityforeveryskill level; and
(3) thatskilland numberofworkersaresub-
stitutesin production.It can be shown that
in firmsthatare identicalexceptforfacing
different pricesforhuman capital, thefirms
facinga lower priceforhuman capital will
hirea smallerworkforcewitha higheraver-
age human capital levelin orderto produce
a given output. In other words, theywill
substituteskill for numbers.'6Since it is
hypothesizedthatunions lower the priceof
human capital, employersof union labor
will want to hire a moreskilledworkforce
I6George E. Johnson, "The Demand forLabor by
Educational Category,"SouthernEconomic Journal,
Vol. 37, No. 2 (October 1970),pp. 190- 204. See Ashen-
felterand Johnson,"Unionism, Relative Wages, and
Labor Quality," foran analysis of the role of skill in
the productionprocess.
 JOB QUEUES AND UNION STATUS 359

than employers in the nonunion sector. selectedfromthe queue. More formally,'7

Thus, more skilled workers will have a
(16) Pr[Ui = 1] = Pr[IQi = 1 & CFQi = 1]
higher probabilityof being chosen from
the queue. = Pr[IQj = l]Pr[CFQ, = lIIQi = 1]
More formally,let SubstitutionfromEquations 13 and 15 into
(14) Y2i = X2i f2 + "2i Equation 16 yields
wherex2iis a vectorof individualcharacter- (17) Pr[Ui=l] = Pr[yli > O]Pr[y2i > 0]
istics, 1 2 is a parametervector,and E2, is = Pr[ Eli > - xIjf3l]Pr[F2i > - X2i f2]
a random error.For anyindividual i who is
in thequeue theprobabilityofbeingchosen It is assumed that Eli and E2i have inde-
fromthe queue is pendent standard normal distributions,
and this implies what can be called a par-
(15) Pr[CFQj = lIIQu= 1] = Pr[y2i > 0] tiallyobservablebivariateprobitmodel.'8
= Pr[ c2i > - X2i 132] Since the observable event is the union
status of an individual and the queuing
where CFQi is a dichotomousvariable that process is not directlyobservable,it is clear
equals one if theindividual is chosen from thatif x1 and x2contain the same setofvar-
the queue and zero otherwise. iables, therewill be no way to distinguish
The unobservable latent variable, Y2i, B~lfrom 22. In thiscase a union statuslike-
whichdetermineswhetheror nota workeris lihood functionbased on Equation 17 will
selectedfromthe queue, is hypothesizedto have twodistinctglobal optima.The second
be positivelyrelated to the skill variables, will be symmetric to thefirstwiththemaxi-
such as education and work experience, mum-likelihood estimatesof /PIand / 2
included in x2i. Variables other than skill interchanged.While these two optima are
measures are also included in x2i, how- well definedand have equal likelihoodval-
ever,to capturedifferences in the supply of ues, thereis no way to discernwhich of the
union jobs (across geographicregions)and estimatedparametervectorscorrespondsto
in the preferences of union employerswith B1 and which correspondsto /B 2-
regardto certainindividual characteristics Poirierhas argued thatas long as thereis
(such as race). at leastone variablethatis containedin one
It is interestingto note thatthemodel as of the variable vectors(eitherxl or x2) but
it is developedherehas a ratherparadoxical not in theother,both parametervectorsare
implication.The queue will be composedof identified.'9While the parametervectors
predominantlylowerskilledworkerswhile
employerswill be attemptingto hirework- '7Note that
ers with just the opposite characteristics.
This setofcompetinggoals givesrisetobar- Pr[Ui=O] = 1 - Pr[ Ui= 1]
gaining strategies that could determine = - Pr[IQi=l]t + Pr[IQi=l]
the union wage structurerelative to the I - Pr[CFQi= IlIQi= 1]}
i
nonunion structure. Althoughwe have not In other words, the probabilitythat a workeris not
modeled the determinationof the ultimate workingon a union job is the sum of theprobability
union sectorwage, the use of constantco- thattheworkerdid not wanta union job and theprob-
efficientmodels of thatstructureforcross- ability that the workerdid want a union job but was
not selectedfromthe queue.
sectional data analysis is consistentwith a
"8The specificationimplicit in Equation 17 of i
bargaining determinationof thatstructure. and ? 2i being independentlydistributedfalls natur-
ally out of the interpretationof the CFQ process as
being conditional on being in the queue. This is ex-
The Determinationof Union Status: plicit in Equation 16. In particular,this model does
An EconometricFramework not require the joint IQ, CFQ process to be inde-
pendent.
The probabilitythat an individual will '9The variablescommon to xI and x2 include a con-
be observed in a union job is simply the stant, education, labor market experience and its
probabilitythat the workeris both in and square, and race and region dichotomous variables.

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360 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW
for the IQ and CFQ equations contain
largelythesamevariables,thereare twovar-
iables thataffecttheIQ decision but not the
CFQ decision. Thus, by Poirier's criterion
the model is identified.
The variables thatare included in xl but
not in x2are measuresof seniority.Senior-
ity is an important determinantof both
the wage and nonwage benefitsa worker
receivesfromthejob. How a worker'ssen-
iorityaffectsthe decision regardingunion
employmentdepends on whetherany ac-
crued seniorityis relatedto a union job or a
nonunion job. A worker employed on a
union job has what is called union seniority
(USEN). The union workerwould have to
give up this seniorityto take a nonunion
job; thus USEN will have a positiveeffect
on theprobabilitythattheworkerdesiresa
union job. In contrast,a workeron a non-
union job has what is called nonunion sen-
iority (NUSEN). The nonunion worker
would have to giveup thisseniorityto takea
union job; thus NUSEN will have a nega-
tiveeffecton theprobabilitythattheworker
desiresa union job.20Clearly,being selected
fromthe queue entails changing jobs; sen-
iority should have no effecton the prob-
The data are discussed in the next section. (For a dis-
cussion of technicaldetails,see Dale J. Poirier, "Par-
tial Observabilityin Bivariate Probit Models," Jour-
nal of Econometrics,Vol. 12, No. 2 (February1980),
pp. 209 -18.)
20A referee correctlynoted thatmostworkerswould
be required to give up theirunion seniorityif they
took a job coveredby a different union. We have de-
liberatelychosen not to model multipleunion queues
since this appears to be econometricallyuntractable
and is not in thespiritoftheotherunionizationmodels
we are extending(Lee, "Unionism and Wage Rates,"
and Schmidt and Strauss,"The Effectof Unions on
Earnings and Earnings on Unions," for example).
Nevertheless,the union-specificjob-tenure variable
certainlycaptures the essential notion that workers
coveredbya collectivebargainingagreementnegotiate
a compensationpackage tiedto seniorityin ways that
are not transportableto the nonunion sector.Non-
union workersmay also receivecompensation pack-
ages tied to seniorityin waysthatare not transportable
to other employers(see Edward P. Lazear, "Why is
There Mandatory Retirement?"Journal of Political
Economy,Vol. 87, No. 6 (December 1979),pp. 1261-
84). Enforceability ofcollectivebargainingagreements
allows substantialdifferences in the methodsused by
union and nonunion employersin tying compen
sation to seniority.
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abilityof being chosen fromthe queue.
Implicit in thisdiscussionis thefactthat
theanalysis is developedconditionalon the
worker's union status in the last period.
Simply put, the hypothesisformulatedin
the last paragraph statesthatworkerswho
held a union job last yearare morelikelyto
desire a union job this year, and workers
who held a nonunion job last yearare less
likelyto desirea union job thisyear.In addi-
tion,themagnitudeoftheeffect oflastyear's
union status is directlyrelated to the sen-
ioritytheworkerhas.2'
The fact that the analysis is conditional
on last period'sjob statushas an important
implication,which providesa morefunda-
mental kind of identificationthan is pro-
videdbythefactthatsenioritydoes notaffect
Pr[CFQ=l1IQi=l]. Note thata workerwho
is observedto hold thesame union job both
last yearand thisyeardid not have to be se-
lectedfromthequeue thisyear.The worker
held job rightsto that union job, and de-
siring the union job (IQI=1) is a sufficient
condition for finding him or her in the
union job. Alternatively, if theworkervol-
untarilyleaves a union job to take a non-
union job, it can be inferredthat the indi-
vidual did not want a union job, without
referenceto selectionfromthe queue.
A workerwho has job rightstoa union job
does not have to join the queue.22 In the
contextof the model,Pr[CFQi=l I IQi=l &
JRi=1] = 1 whereJRtis a dichotomousvari-
able thatequals one if individual i has job
rightsto a union job and zero otherwise.
Thus, fromEquations 13, 16, and 17
(18) Pr[Ui=llJRi=l]
= Pr[IQj=l]Pr[CFQj=lIIQj=l & JRI=l]
= Pr[IQj=l]
=Pr[ 1i, > - x1i1i]d.
Thus, for individuals with job rightsthe
union-statusdecision is modeledas a simple
univariate probit under the assumption
2lA workerfiredfromor voluntarilyleaving thejob
sen-
he or she held last yeardoes not have any effective
iority.Hence, both USEN and NUSEN would be zero
forsuch an individual.
22A workerwho is firedfromtheunion job held last
yearalso does not have anyjob rightsand mustjoin the
queue like any otherworkerwithoutjob rights.
 JOB QUEUES AND UNION STATUS
that E ,.is distributedas a standardnormal.
This provides sufficientinformation to
identifythe queuing process. Some care is
required to interpretthe resulting prob-
abilities correctly,
however.
As in Equations 15- 17 above, theresult
in Equation 18 describesthe conditional
probabilityof holding a union job, given
queue and job-rightsinformation.Of neces-
sity,union status,queue status,and job-
rightsstatusmustpossessa joint probability
distributionin which theyare structurally
correlated.To constructthe joint proba-
bilities of union and job-rightsstatus we
requirethemarginaldistributionofcurrent
job-rightsstatus.This requiresthemarginal
distributionof union statusin theprevious
year, along with job separation informa-
tion. Although our model allows calcula-
tion of this quantity given separation as-
sumptions,we do not requireit forestima-
tion.The interested readermaycalculateall
the relevantprobabilitiesby taking a new
entrantinto the labor force(JRi = 0) and
using the laws of probabilityto move from
year to year.
Equation 18 thususes an observablechar-
acteristic(JR,) to distinguishtwo different
functionalformsfor the structuralproba-
bility of currentunion status,conditional
on previous employmenthistory.This is
thesensein whichjob-rightsinformationis
thekeyto identificationof theIQ and CFQ
structuralequations. Equation 17 still rep-
resentstheprobabilityofobservinga worker
in a union job forworkerswho have no job
rightsto a union job (JR,=O).23
The likelihoodfunctionforunion status,
conditional on previous union statusand
job rights,can be derivedin a straightfor-
ward fashion fromEquation 17 for those
workerswithoutjob rights,fromEquation
18 for those workerswith job rights,and
from the assumption that El and E,2zhave
23Moreformally,
Pr[Ui=lJRi=O]= Pr[Iti=l]Pr[CFQi=lIQi=1&JRi=0]
wherePr[CFQ1-1IIQ1-l &JRiO=] =Pr[ ?2i > - X 2/ 32].
It shouldalso be notedthatworkerswho quit one
unionjob to takeanotherdo nothavejob rightsto
theirnew unionjob. Thus, theyneedto be selected
fromthequeue as if theydid notpreviouslyholda
unionjob.
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361
standard normal distributions.24 We now
turn to the descriptionof the data used to
estimatethe parametersof this likelihood
( f I and 02
function )-
The Data and Empirical Analysis
The sample consistsof 1341 males who,
accordingto the 1976probabilitysample of
theUniversityofMichigan's Panel Studyof
Income Dynamics, (a) were employed,but
not self-employed,in 1976, (b) were not
employed in the constructionindustry,25
and (c) werehead of thesame household in
1975and 1976.26 An individualis assumedto
be a union memberifhis primaryjob is cov-
eredbya collectivebargainingagreement.27
Under thisdefinition,439 individuals,rep-
resenting32.7 percentof the 1341 in the
sample, were union members.
The definitions,means, and standard
deviationsof thevariablesused in theanaly-
sis are shownin Table 1. The in-queue (IQ)
vector (x 1) includes a constant; dichoto-
mous variables for education, race, and
region; potential labor marketexperience
and its square; union seniorityand its
square; and nonunion seniorityand its
square. The chosen-from-queue (CFQ)
vector(x 2) includes all the same variables
except the foursenioritymeasures.Over 38
percentof the sample reportedhaving ex-
actly twelveyearsof education. Thus, edu-
cation is enteredin intervalform,with the
base group having exactlytwelveyearsof
education. Overall, the base group with
referenceto the dichotomous variables is
24Theassumption that thevariancesof El and E2
equal one is an arbitrarynormalizationcommon to
probitmodels necessaryto fix the scale of l'1and /B2*
25Themechanismby which workersare assigned to
union jobs in theconstructionindustryis substantially
differentfromthe mechanismmodeled above.
26Thiscriterionis used to ensure that the informa-
tionon job and union statusin 1975relatesto thesame
person as the analogous informationfor 1976. It is
necessaryto consider this problem because the Panel
StudyofIncome Dynamicsfollowshouseholdsand not
individuals.SurveyResearchCenter,A Panel Studyof
Income Dynamics: Proceduresand Tape Codes, 1977
Interviewing Year (Ann Arbor: Institutefor Social
Research,Universityof Michigan, 1978).
27Primary job refersto themain job of theindividual
as opposed to second or part-timejobs.
 362 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW

Table 1. Means, StandardDeviations, and Definitionsof Variables for1976.

Standard
Variable Definition Mean Deviation

Union Union job = 1 .3274

Education Years of education 12.72 2.872
Education < 12 Education < 12= 1 .2028
Education > 12 Education > 12 = 1 .4161
Experience (EXP) EXP=Age- education- 6 19.18 12.99
ExperienceSquared EXP squared 536.5 614.9
Union Seniority(USEN) Years of union 11. l1a 9.312a
seniority
Union SenioritySquared -210.a 271.8a
Nonunion Seniority(NUSEN) Years of nonunion 8.967b 8.441b
seniority
Nonunion SenioritySquared - 151.7b 254.8b
Nonwhite Nonwhite= 1 .1044
South South = 1 .3020
Job Rights Job rights= 1c .2901

N = 1341
a Taken over thesubsample of408 workerswho had positive USEN. These 408 workerswerenot firedor laid off
fromthe union job theyheld in 1975.
bTaken overthesubsampleof 826 workerswho had positiveNUSEN. These 826 workerswerenot firedor laid off
fromthe nonunion jobs theyheld in 1975.
c See textfordefinitionof job rights.

whitemalesfromthenon-Southwithtwelve 17 and 18.28 This impliesa univariateprobit

yearsof education.
The union job-rightsvariable (JRi) dis-
cussed in the previous sectionis definedto
be one if theindividual held a union job in
1975,was notfiredfromthatjob, and did not
quit that job to take another union job.
Twenty-nine percent of the sample (389
workers)held job rightsby this definition.
Workerswithjob rightshad a much higher
probabilityof holding a union job in 1976
thanthosewithoutjob rights(.936 vs. .0788).
In lightof thisfact,itis importanttokeepin
mind that the analysis is conditional on
job rightsand hence on 1975 union status.
We firstestimatethe constrainedversion
of themodelwherethereis no queue. This is
thespecial case of thequeuing model where
Pr[CFQr=IIIQ= 1] = 1 for all individuals.
More formally,assume that Pr[U =1] is
likelihood functionfor union status.The
resultsofbothmodelsarepresentedin Table
2. The firstcolumn of Table 2 contains the
maximum-likelihoodestimatesof the pa-
rametersof theno-queue model.The maxi-
mum log-likelihood value is -331.9 (col-
umn labeled "No-queue model") which
compares to a log-likelihood value of
- 847.9 (not shown in the table) fora con-
strainedversion of the model in which all
the elementsof f3Iexcept the constantare
28This is a constrained version of the model in
which all the parametersexcept the constantof the
fl2vectorin Equation 15 are setequal to zero and the
constantis set equal to some arbitrary,
large,positive
number. This yields an arbitrarilyclose approxima-
tion to
Pr[CFQ-=1IIQ=1] = Prx2[2 -l2- = 1

given by Equation 12 insteadof Equations forall i.

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 JOB QUEUES AND UNION STATUS 363

Table 2. Maximum Likelihood Estimatesof the Parameters

of the Union Status Functions.a
(The numbersin parenthesesare asymptoticstandarderrors)

No-Queue Model Queue Model

Pr[U=1] Pr[IQ=1] Pr[CFQz1lII=11]

Coefficientof (Equation 12) (Equation 13) (Equation 15)

Constant - .2349 1.2810 - 1.1270

(.1724) (.3168) (.3279)
Education < 12 .2530 .6454 - .2478
(.1596) (.2740) (.3101)
Education > 12 -.4735 -.2697 -.5269
(.1374) (.2273) (.2533)
Experience - .0224 -.0867 .1005
(.0199) (.0344) (.0410)
ExperienceSquared .3089 x 10- 3 .1457 x 10-2 -.2099 x 10-2
(.3748 x 10-3) (.6465 x 10 - ) (.8489 x 10-3)
Union Seniority .4030 .2285
(.0233) (.0357)
Union Seniority Squared -.0110 -.6217 x 10-2
(.7458 x 10-3) (.1054 x 10-2) -

Nonunion Seniority -.2148 - .2566

(.0258) (.0408)
Nonunion SenioritySquared .5923 x 10-2 .7294 x 10-2
(.8316 x 103) (.1506 x 102) -

Nonwhite .3134 -.0613 .6068

(.1576) (.2819) (.3867)
South - .3245 - .4596 .0526
(.1316) (.2561) (.2791)
Log-Likelihood - 331.9 -305.5
N = 1341

aThe base group consistsof whitenonsouthernmales with twelveyearsof education.

set equal to zero. A likelihood-ratiotestof likelythanwhitesto hold a union job while

thissetof constraintsrejectstheconstrained
versionof themodel at any reasonablelevel
of significance.Thus, the no-queue model
has a significantamount of explanatory
power forunion status.
The qualitative nature of the parameter
estimates of the no-queue model accords
well with the resultsof previous studiesof
the union status of individuals. Union
statusis negativelyrelatedto theeducation
levelof theindividuals.Union seniorityand
nonunion seniorityhave the hypothesized
effects(positive and negative,respectively)
on union status,and nonwhites are more
southernersare less likely to hold a union
job. It is interestingto note thatneitherthe
coefficientof experiencenor thecoefficient
of its square is significantly different
from
zero.In addition,a Wald-testofthehypothe-
sis thatthesetwocoefficients arezerofailsto
rejectthe hypothesisat conventionallevels
of significance.29 This suggests that labor
marketexperienceis nota significantdeter-
29Theteststatisticwas 2.215, which is less than the
criticalvalue of a X2distributionwith two degreesof
freedomat the .25 level of significanceof 2.77.

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364 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW
minant of union status in spite of theevi-
dencecitedabove thatthewage advantageof
unionization is inverselyrelated to labor
marketexperience.
The last two columns of Table 2 contain
the maximum-likelihoodestimatesof the
parametersof thequeuing model definedin
Equations 17 and 18. The maximum log-
likelihoodvalue is - 305.5,whichcompares
to a log-likelihoodvalue of -331.9 in the
no-queue versionof the model. The likeli-
hood ratio teststatisticof52.8(not shownin
to rejecttheno-queue
thetable) is sufficient
model at reasonable levelsofsignificance.30
The resultsare generallyconsistentwith
the hypothesesderivedpreviously.For the
in-queue relationship, individuals with
fewerthantwelveyearsofeducationare sig-
nificantlymore likely,at the one percent
level of significance,to desire a union job
than workers with exactly twelve years'
education. Individuals with more than
twelveyearsof education are less likelyto
desire a union job than individuals with
exactly twelve years' education, although
this estimatedeffecthas a relativelylarge
standarderror.
The estimatesof the queue model imply
that additional labor-forceexperiencesig-
nificantlyreduces the probabilityof desir-
ing a union job. Holding union and non-
union seniorityconstantat zero, the mar-
ginal impact of an additional yearof labor-
forceexperienceon theprobabilityofbeing
in theunion queue is negativeover therel-
evant working life of the individual. The
marginal effectof experienceis dampened
as experienceincreases.On theotherhand,
thereis no statisticallysignificanteffectof
experienceon union statusin theno-queue
model. In addition,theprobabilityofbeing
in thequeue is moresensitiveto changesin
experience,absolutely, than is the proba-
bility of being in a union job in the no-
queue model.3'
30The no-queue model embodies seven constraints
on thequeuing model. These are describedin footnote
28. The criticalvalue of a X2 distributionwith seven
degreesof freedomat the .005 level of significanceis
20.3.
31These claims are supported statisticallyin the
appendix, which is available fromthe authors.
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Union and nonunion seniorityhave the
hypothesizedeffectson the probabilityof
desiring a union job. Union seniorityis
positivelyrelatedtoPr[IQ=1], and nonunion
seniorityis negativelyrelatedto Pr[IQ=1].
A resultthatis contrarytoour expectation
is thatnonwhitesare not morelikelyto de-
sire a union job. The lower white-black
wage differentialgenerally found in the
union sectorsuggestedthatblackswould be
more likely than whites to desire a union
job.32 In addition, Farber and Saks have
found that nonwhiteswere more likely to
vote for union representationin National
Labor Relations Board supervised repre-
sentation elections, even aftercontrolling
for the wage effect.33 The nonwhite co-
efficient in our queue equation is essentially
zero.This is consistentwithnonwage bene-
fitsof unions accruingprimarilyto whites.
The effectwould cancel the wage benefit
effectmodeled above.
A final result is that southernworkers
are less likelytodesirea union job thannon-
southerners.It is possible to rejectthe hy-
pothesisthatthecoefficient on southequals
zero against the alternativethatthe coeffi-
cientis less thanzeroat thefivepercentlevel
of significance.
Now consider the resultsof the chosen-
from-queueequation (CFQ) reportedin the
last column ofTable 2. Given thedefinition
of thejob-rightsvariable,theCFQ function
mayj ustbe measuringtheeffect oftheprevi-
ous year'sunion statuson thecurrentyear's
union status,and it is trivialto say simply
that nonunion workerslast year are less
likely to be union workersthis year.Any
explanatorypowermustcomefromthevari-
ables included in the CFQ function.As a
firsttest,the hypothesisthatall the coeffi-
cientsin the CFQ functionexceptthecon-
stantare zero can be rejectedat the .05 level
of significanceusing the usual likelihood-
ratio test.34This suggeststhat the charac-
32SeeAshenfelter, "Racial Discriminationand Trade
Unionism."
33HenryS. Farberand Daniel H. Saks, "Why Work-
ersWant Unions: The Role ofRelativeWages and Job
Characteristics,"Journal of Political Economy, Vol.
88, No. 2 (April 1980), pp. 349- 69.
34The log-likelihood of the constrained model is
 JOB QUEUES AND UNION STATUS
teristicsincluded in the CFQ functiondo
indeed have a significanteffecton theselec-
tion probability.
The hypothesizeddirectrelationshipbe-
tweenPr[CFQ=lIQ=li] and educationis not
supportedby thedata. In fact,workerswith
more than twelve years of education are
significantlyless likely to be chosen from
the queue than thoseworkerswith exactly
twelve years of education. The estimated
Pr[CFQ=l1IQ1l], based on the coefficients
in Table 2, forwhitenon-southernworkers
with no experience or seniority(new en-
trants)and twelveyearsof education is .13,
while otherwise identical workers with
morethantwelveyearsofeducationhavean
estimatedprobabilityof being chosen from
the queue of .049.
Two potential explanations can be ad-
vanced forthisresult.First,union employ-
ers may perceive some negativecharacter-
istic in more highlyeducatedworkersthat
offsetstheirhigherskill level.These work-
ersmaybe tooindependentand ambitiousto
fitwell in a structuredunion workenviron-
mentwhereadvancementis likelytobe gov-
erned strictlyby seniority.A second expla-
nation is thatthesupplyofunion jobs suit-
able for highly educated workersmay be
relativelysmall. Thus, the education vari-
ables in the CFQ functionmay be picking
up a supply effect.35
Since the supply of union jobs is not as
- 312.7,which givesa likelihood-ratiostatisticof 14.4
when compared to the log-likelihood of - 305.5 in
the unconstrained model. The critical values of a
X2 distributionwith 6 degreesof freedomat the .05
level is 12.6.
35This highlights a weakness of the assumption
implicitin the formulationof the model thatthereis
only one queue. A more realisticmodel would allow
forthe possibilitythat thereare likelyto be different
queues forworkersof different basic skill levels. For
example, there may be distinct queues for white-
collar and blue-collar workersor for workerswith
high versus low levels of schooling. In this case we
might expect qualitativelydifferent resultsfordiffer-
ent stratificationsof the sample. In fact, when our
model is estimatedusing just theblue-collarworkers,
the resultsare qualitativelyverysimilar to the results
discussed in the text.Results forhigh school gradu-
ates and lower schooling levelsare qualitativelysimi-
lar but poorlydetermined.The blue-collarresultsare
contained in a separateappendix available fromthe
authorson request.
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365
likely to be differentiated by appropriate
experience levels as by appropriateeduca-
tion levels, the experiencelevels ought to
reflectmore closely the employerdecision
calculus describedpreviously.Indeed, this
is the case. The effectof experienceon the
probabilityof being chosen fromthequeue
is significantlypositive. For levels from
zero to over twentyyearsof experience,the
marginal effectof experience,although de-
clining,is positive.The effectofadditional
experienceis essentiallyzero for the most
experiencedworkers.This is not an anom-
oly since the theoreticalmodel does not
predict that the derivativeof the positive
effectof experienceshould be ofanysign.36
In order to summarizethe effectsof ex-
perience on union status, Table 3 con-
tains the marginal effectsof experienceon
Pr[IQ=1], Pr[CFQ-lIQ=l] andPr[ U=1]. Itis
clear thatin both the queue and no-queue
models theeffectofexperienceon Pr[U=1] is
relativelysmall. However, it is also clear
that this masks the real relationshipsbe-
tween experience and the probabilitiesof
being in thequeue and ofbeingchosenfrom
thequeue. Columns 1 and 2 ofTable 3 show
that the relativelysmall overall effectof
experienceon union statusis theresultofa
negativeeffect on theprobabilityofbeingin
the queue combinedwitha larger(in abso-
lute value) positiveeffecton theprobability
of being chosen fromthe queue.
Nonwhites have a higherprobabilityof
being chosen from the queue. However,
this coefficientis significantlydifferent
fromzero only at the ten percentlevel of
significance.This resultsuggeststhatunion
employershave a preferencefornonwhite
workersthatis not explicitlycapturedelse-
where.
The queuing model has some interesting
implications for the allocation of an in-
dividual's timeto theunion and nonunion
sectorsover the life cycle. New entrantsto
thelabor forcewitha highschooleducation
have a probabilityofdesiringa union job of
.90.37 However, theseworkershave a prob-
36These claims are supported statisticallyin the
appendix available fromthe authors.
37Theseand all the followingnumbersused in this
discussion are derived fromTable 2 for white non-
southernworkerswith twelveyearsof education.
366 INDUSTRIAL AND LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW

Table 3. The Marginal Effectof Changes in Experienceon

Pr[IQ= 1], Pr[CFQ-lIIQ=l], and Pr[U=1]
in the Queue and No-Queue Models.a

Experience Queue No-Queue

a Pr[IQ-l ]b a Pr[CFQ=l|IQ-l ]c a Pr[U=1]d aPr[U=]b

3EXP 3EXP aEXP JEXP

0 - .01523 .02125 .01608 - .00871

5 - .01947 .02522 .01562 - .00729
10 - .01964 .02209 .00846 - .00592
20 - .01125 .00659 - .00570 - .00344

aComputed forwhite nonsouthernworkerswith twelveyearsof education and no seniority.

b apr[IQ=1]
= (PIE + 2/3iES(EXP))f(xi /13)where PIE and PIES
3EXP
are thecoefficientsof experienceand experiencesquared in thein-queue equation andf( . ) is thestandardnormal
density.
c aPr[CFQ=l1IQ=l]
a EXP = (If2E + 2/82ES(EXP))f(x2 132)where 82E and P2ES
are thecoefficientsof experienceand experiencesquared in thechosen-from-queue equation andf( . ) is thestand-
ard normal density.
d -
aPr[U=1] aPr[IQ=1] Pr[CFQ=lIQ1l] + ?Pr[CFQ=11IQ=1] Pr[IQ=1]
8EXP aEXP 3EXP
by a simple application of the chain rule fordifferentiation.

ability of being selectedfromthe queue of Once a workeris selectedfromthe queue,

only .13. Thus, theyare unlikely to get a
union j ob (Pr[U=1] = .12). If theworkerdoes
not get a union job forfiveyearsand holds
one nonunion job forthattime,theproba-
bility of desiring a union job falls to .41.
Afterten years on the nonunion job, the
worker'sprobabilityofdesiringa union job
falls to .10, and aftertwentyyearsit falls to
.02.
Table 4 contains Pr[IQ1l] for various
values of experienceand nonunion senior-
ity. Consistentwith the above discussion,
the numbers in this table suggest that
Pr[IQ=l] is relativelyhigh forworkerswith
no nonunion seniority,but it falls rapidly
with the accrual of nonunion seniority.
Given thattheprobabilityof being selected
fromthe queue is relativelysmall at most
experience levels, only those workerswho
are "lucky" enough to be selectedfromthe
queue while they are still in it (at low
NUSEN) will be found in union jobs.38
38ThePrtCFQ=1IQ=1] is .1299 for workers with
EXP=O, .2494 with EXP=5, .3670 with EXP=10, and
.5173 with EXP=20.
theaccrual of union senioritymakesit pro-
gressivelyless likelythathe or she will vol-
untarilygive up a union job fora nonunion
job. Since theseworkershavejob rights,they
do not have to be selectedfromthe queue
again; so theywill remain in theirunion
jobs.
Intuitively,individualswill becomelong-
run union workersif theyare successfulat
being selected from the queue relatively
earlyin theirworkinglife,beforetheybuild
up too much nonunion seniority.As they
build up nonunion seniority,theybecome
less willing to sacrificethe benefitsasso-
ciated with this seniorityin orderto takea
union job.39Since mosthigh school gradu-
390f course,workerswho are firedor permanently
laid offfromtheirnonunion jobs lose nonunion sen-
iorityand may desireunion jobs. However, theprob-
ability of losing one's job falls with seniorityeven in
the nonunion sector.See Richard B. Freeman, "The
Exit-Voice Tradeoffin the Labor Market:Unionism,
Job Tenure, Quits and Separations," QuarterlyJour-
nal of Economics, Vol. 94, No. 4 (June 1980), pp.
643 -73.

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 JOB QUEUES AND UNION STATUS 367

Table 4. Probabilitiesof Being in the Queue forVarious Values

of Experienceand Nonunion Seniority.a

Experience (in years)

Nonunion
Seniority
(in years) 0 5 10 15 20

0 .8999 .8116 .7121 .6210 .5516

5 - .4142 .2942 .2140 .1658
10 - - .1008 .0632 .0439
15 - - .0287 .0188
20 - - - - .0185

a Computed fornonsouthernwhiteswith a high school education fromthe estimatescontained in Table 2.

ates would prefera union job when they
enter the labor force,it becomes the em-
ployer'sdecisionas to who will makeup the
union labor forcein the long run.
Summaryand Conclusions
A modelofthedetermination oftheunion
statusofindividualworkersthatallowed for
the possibilityof queuing for union jobs
was developed. It was hypothesizedthat
moreskilledworkerswould be less likelyto
desirea union job while union employers
would be more likelyto want to hiremore
skilled workers.
Overall, the empirical results provide
evidencethatis generallysupportiveof the
queuing hypothesis.The no-queue model
can be rejected,using a likelihood-ratio
test,and theprimaryskill measure(experi-
ence) is negativelyrelatedto theprobability
of desiringa union job and positivelyre-
lated to theprobabilityofbeingchosenfrom
the queue, as was hypothesized.These re-
sults suggestthata simple probitmodel for
union statusmay be misspecifiedbecause it
is not based on any consistentbehavioral
theory.Such a probitwas shown to hide a
numberof interestingrelationshipsand, to
the extentit does so, it is misleading.
Finally, it was shown thatthemodel has
implicationsfortheallocationofworkersto
theunion and nonunion sectors.The results
suggestthatmostnew entrantspreferunion
jobs but cannot get them.As timegoes by
and workers accrue nonunion seniority,
theybecome less likelyto want union jobs.
Thus, the union statusof most workersis
determinedby theirsuccessin beingselected
fromthe queue earlyin theirworkinglife.

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