Getting members on board:democratic issues in union

merger negotiationsStephan Baraldi and Magnus Sverke

Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, and

Gary ChaisonClark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine a failed union merger attempt from a democraticperspective. Although it is estimated that a majority of planned union mergers are never completed,the existing literature is unsuccessful in explaining why it is so. Stressing the importance for mergingunions to keep their members informed and participative in the merger process, we highlight twodemocratic aspects of merger implementation: information anchoring (i.e. the spreading of mergerrelevant information throughout the membership), and participatory union climate (i.e. the extent towhich union leaders provide members with opportunities to participate in union activities and decisionmaking). The act of voting for or against a merger proposal can be regarded as a manifestation ofdemocratic aspects in the internal negotiation process. Thus, members’ intention to vote for or againstthe merger proposal was also analyzed.

Design/methodology/approach – Questionnaires were sent to 1,000 members of each of the fourparticipating unions. The survey investigated how many members knew of the merger negotiations, ifthey would have voted for or against the proposal, and also measured perceptions of the participatoryunion climate. Discrepancies between representatives and rank-and-file members were analyzed, withany significant differences between the two groups interpreted as indicative of the merger processlacking in internal democracy.

Findings – The results show that the merger plans were not sufficiently anchored among themembership and that there were significant differences between representatives and rank-and-filemembers in terms of merger plan awareness, vote intention, and perceptions of participatory unionclimate.

Research limitations/implications – The present study is based on cross-sectional data collectedafter the planned merger was rejected.

Originality/value – Few studies have investigated the internal merger negotiation process using anunsuccessful merger attempt as a study case. Also, the need for psychological approaches in IR haslong been called for. The present study meets both of these criteria.

Keywords Democracy, Trade unions, Europe, Organizational structures, Acquisitions and megers

Paper type Research paper

Like most organizations, the structures of labor unions are largely dependent on theirsurroundings. Turbulence in the industrial environment means turbulence for theunions (e.g. Michelson, 2000; Waddington, 2005). After decades of struggling to adapteffectively, many worker representation bodies are realizing that their position in

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The research reported in this article has been financed by the Swedish Council for Working Lifeand Social Research.

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Received 5 March 2007Revised 12 September 2007

Accepted 26 September2007

Employee RelationsVol. 30 No. 3, 2008

pp. 221-236q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0142-5455DOI 10.1108/01425450810866505

society is far from self-evident. Indeed, in the wake of declining memberships,cross-country analyses of representation restructuring have reached rather bleakconclusions about the future of European trade unionism (e.g. Waddington andHoffman, 2000). As a countermeasure, unions have often taken to regarding merger asa means of adapting to their surroundings. The merger process is very complex,however, as merging parties must overcome many challenges, including institutionaldifferences and internal merger opposition. In fact, the most obstructing part of themerger process has been shown to be the actual completion of specific mergers, asprobably more than half of all planned mergers are never completed (e.g. Michelson,2000; Willman, 1996). Despite such findings, failed mergers do not figure largely in theexisting literature. The need to better understand the mechanisms behind thisunder-researched phenomenon is therefore both great and urgent.

The merger processThe study of union mergers is typically conducted from an industrial relationsperspective, with the vast majority of merger studies typically holding to a sociologicallevel of analysis. The bulk of this macro-level research tends to cluster around certainsubjects, such as merger motives (e.g. Adams, 1984; Conant and Kaserman, 1989;Chaison, 1986; Freeman and Brittain, 1977; Janus, 1978), merger waves and frequencies(e.g. Chaison, 1980, 1986; Dewey, 1971; Hose and Rimmer, 2002; Waddington, 1988;Williamson, 1995; Willman, 1996), and merger outcomes (e.g. Brooks and Gamm, 1976;Janus, 1978; Stratton-Devine, 1992; Sverke et al., 2004; Willman, 1989).

Waddington (2005) outlined the structure of union merger literature in terms of theunion merger process. This process is described according to two dimensions, the firstrelating to the impact of mergers on the overall development of union structure, and thesecond describing a process whereby the completion of one single merger is reached.Within the first dimension, researchers are primarily interested in merger frequenciesand merger waves, and how these are associated with developments in the number ofunions and their sizes. The basic assumption is that, through merger, unions becomefewer and larger, as they attempt to increase bargaining power and representationefficiency (Chaison, 1986).

The second dimension outlined by Waddington (2005) concerns the process ofinternal merger negotiations, which subdivides into three inter-related stages: motivesfor merger, choice of specific merger partner, and specific merger outcomes. As formerger motives, scholars have identified a number of challenges for representationalbodies, which result from environmental changes such as increasing internationaleconomic competition, technological change, flexible employment, the rise of privateservice sectors, the overall increase in white-collar workers in combination with anoverall decrease in blue-collar workers, the diversification of employment terms, andthe changing representational needs of the individual member as a result of increasedmembership heterogeneity (e.g. Conant and Kaserman, 1989; Gallagher and Sverke,2005; Waddington, 2005).

The choice of a specific merger partner is often described in terms of the process ofinternal merger negotiations for any specific merger (Waddington, 2005). This is to bedifferentiated from the overarching merger process, which accounts for all mergers.Regarding merger outcomes, researchers are interested in whether the goals of aspecific completed merger, e.g. achieving economies of scale or increasing bargaining

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power, have actually been reached (e.g. Freeman and Brittain, 1977), or if a completedmerger has led to individual-level effects such as changed union commitment orparticipation levels (e.g. Chaison et al., 2001).

This article focuses on the second of these stages, namely choice of specific mergerpartner. In the process of choosing a merger partner, many barriers must be overcome.In most cases, merger negotiations are challenged by internal factors such asinstitutional differences or opposition from representatives or the membership(Chaison, 1996, 2004). Opposition can originate from the representatives, and thenquickly spread to the membership who may, for example, feel that their interests willbe submerged in the new union. Opposition can also originate from the membership,for instance, if they are not allowed the opportunity to participate in the mergerapproval and, thereby, play a part in resolving the differences that often exist betweenmerging unions. If these barriers are not overcome, the process outcome will most oftenbe negative.

It is important, however, to keep in mind the difference between the outcomes ofmerger, on one hand, and the outcomes of the process of internal merger negotiations,on the other hand. Merger outcomes refer to the effects of completed mergers, e.g. thedecreased member participation that can occur as a consequence of members notagreeing with the goals of the newly merged union. In contrast, outcomes of theinternal merger negotiations process refer to whether the proposed merger is supportedor not. We do not argue that outcomes of completed mergers are directly related todemocratic issues per se, although they certainly can have implications for uniondemocracy. What do appear to be directly related to democratic issues, however, arethe outcomes of internal merger negotiations.

Before proceeding, three shortcomings in the existing union merger literature needto be highlighted. First, many of the studied mergers are actually completed ones. Ithas long been known that implementing a planned union merger is a very difficult,time consuming, and expensive venture (e.g. Baraldi et al., 2006; Willman, 1996).Indeed, it is estimated that around half of all planned mergers do not reach the point ofimplementation because the unions are unable to overcome merger barriers (Chaison,1978, 1982, 1986; Michelson, 2000; Willman, 1996). As far back as 25 years ago, Chaison(1982) pointed out that unsuccessful merger attempts need to be included in the field ofunion merger research in order to fully understand the mechanisms of the mergerprocess. However, with very few exceptions (e.g. McClendon et al., 1995), virtually all ofthe research that has been conducted on union mergers rests on empirical cases inwhich the planned mergers have actually been completed. This, from a methodologicalstandpoint, is of major concern since the empirical samples may be heavily biased.

Second, the individual member has been curiously neglected in the study of unionmergers (Devine and Reshef, 1998). This aspect is addressed in the present study, as weconsider the inclusion of a psychological perspective to be necessary in order to fullyunderstand the difficulties involved in union merger implementation. Indeed, the needfor introducing psychology into industrial relations research has long since beenadvocated (Hartley and Kelly, 1986).

Finally, the internal process of merger negotiations needs to be further researched.With all of the difficulties involved in actually implementing union mergers, much ofthe burden is often painfully experienced by the union leaders, whose work behind amerger plan is lost once merger negotiations grind to a halt. A fuller knowledge about

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the mechanisms of the internal process of merger negotiations would therefore be ofgreat value for union leaders who are planning mergers.

Democratic aspects of merger negotiationsUnion democracy is mainly concerned with the relationship between union leaders andrank-and-file members. Legally, it relates to union leaders’ legal obligations to informrank-and-file members about their rights under the law. However, union democracy isalso about member participation and union leaders’ ability to listen and be responsiveto the will of the rank-and-file (Strauss, 1991). The importance of a committed andparticipative rank-and-file cannot be underestimated. As Barling et al. (1992), p. 95) putit – “In many ways, participation in union activities is as important to the union asindividual productivity is to the organization”. However, as earlier investigations haveshown, union members are in general not that eager to participate (Strauss, 1991).Thus, the importance of membership support in relation to merger negotiations mainlycalls for two things. One is that there is an effective dialogue between union leadersand rank-and-file members, which would give members the opportunity to formopinions. Second, the climate needs to be such that members are invited to participatein union affairs (Barling et al., 1992).

The anchoring of merger informationPrevious research has suggested that having support from the membership is aprerequisite for a merger proposition to be successful (Baraldi et al., 2006; Chaison,1986; Devine and Reshef, 1998; McClendon et al., 1995). Therefore, it is important thatadequate and consistent merger-related information be distributed to the membershipand, in addition, that union representatives are responsive to members’ opinions. Unionmembers need to feel confident that those they entrust with representative power willmake sound decisions on issues such as mergers. With adequate knowledge, unionmembers will be better equipped to elect leaders who work in their best interest. Tothis end, increased transparency in the internal process of merger negotiations is offundamental importance. Indeed, poor communication between leaders andrank-and-file members has been described as one of the factors behind Michels’(1958) “iron law of oligarchy,” which constitutes a rather pessimistic view oforganizational democracy in which it is held that organizations are more or less taintedwith oligarchy and eroded democracy when their elected leaders have limitless powerover the electing masses (Strauss, 1991).

Participatory union climateUnion participation is a fundamental part of worker representation (Barling et al.,1992). In order to maintain union effectiveness, members’ interests must be representedin such a way that would mobilize members to support the overall objectives of therepresentation body (Strauss, 1991). The term “participation” itself has receivedincreased attention in the work and organizational psychology community over thepast couple of decades (Heller et al., 1998). In the context of worker representation,participation is often used symbiotically with democracy (Strauss, 1991). There areseveral advantages accompanying a participatory union climate. It not only constitutesa base for personal growth, job satisfaction, and enhancing human dignity, it is also animportant prerequisite for power sharing and organizational efficiency (Strauss, 1998).

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In the context of union merger, in addition to receiving adequate information,members also need to be presented with the opportunity to use the information in theform of actual participation. This can occur in two forms:

(1) Through direct participation, e.g. by attending meetings, participating inproblem-solving groups or decision-making teams.

(2) Through representative participation, e.g. where delegates vote for or against aproposed merger according to the will of the general membership.

Both forms of participation, however, require that a dialogue take place between theleaders and rank-and-file in which both sides are adequately informed and committedto listening to each other. Consequently, union delegates play a major role in ensuringthat transparency characterizes the merger negotiation process leading up to a finaldecision. In order for a membership to be participative in union activities, theirleadership must be responsive and attentive to their members’ willingness toparticipate.

Strauss (1991) proposed that in order for union democracy to exist at the local level,there has to be a core of committed members who perform the following threefunctions:

(1) Scrutinize union leaders’ power.

(2) Provide a nucleus of electoral opposition when needed.

(3) Act as a communications link between the leadership and the rank-and-file.

It is the third of these functions that is of primary focus in the present study, since theanchoring of merger-related information and the providing of responsive leadership byenabling members to participate in union affairs are considered to be two importantdemocratic aspects of the internal process of merger negotiations.

Central to the hypothesis of the present study is the notion that when either of thesetwo aspects of the internal process of negotiations becomes eroded, in terms ofsignificant differences arising between the leadership and rank-and-file, the mergerprocess itself becomes threatened, which, in turn, can lead to negative outcomes. Theultimate manifestation of such erosion is a negative vote. McClendon et al. (1995)showed that members put a lot of stock in their leaders’ recommendations. However,that trust should not be taken for granted. Differences between delegates and therank-and-file when it comes to their awareness of the merger negotiations or theirperceptions on whether the union climate is adequately participatory could very wellbe accompanied by similar differences in these groups’ intentions to vote in favor oragainst a merger, and could also be seen as a warning sign indicating that higher-levelrepresentatives and staff could be dominating the merger discussions (Chaison, 1986).Such a development would likely not be advantageous if the goal is to involve allmembers in order to establish a base of support for the delegates’ voting decisionsleading up to an actual merger implementation.

A planned four-union mergerIn the spring of 1999, two white-collar unions, affiliated with the SwedishConfederation of Professional Employees (TCO), announced that they wereexploring the possibility of merging with each other. The two unions, the Salaried

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Employees’ Union (HTF) and the Union of Civil Servants (ST), were discussingwhether a large group of “privatized” postal banking employees should be transferredfrom ST to HTF. This question exemplified the increasing jurisdictional fluidity andgrowing difficulties in distinguishing the boundaries between many unions. Instead ofsettling on a transfer, the two unions decided to explore merger possibilities. At thetime it was widely believed that the union movement needed to strengthen its positionin the salaried employee sector, since public employers were increasingly resorting toprivatization. The surfacing of these sentiments eventually attracted an additionalTCO-affiliated union to the merger negotiations table, namely the Union of Local CivilEmployees (SKTF). In the fall of 2000, the Social Insurance Workers’ Union (FF), whichat the time was affiliated with the federation of blue-collar unions (the Swedish TradeUnion Confederation, LO), expressed its merger interests and officially joined themerger project in January of 2001.

Of these four unions, FF was by far the smallest, having roughly 15,000 members,while the other three unions had enrollments of 83,000 (ST), 167,000 (HTF), and 177,000(SKTF) members. It appears that FF had gradually come to realize that the sweepingchanges in Swedish industrial relations were too much to deal with on their own.Within FF, it became apparent that a merger would be the only way to deal with itsconcerns, which, given that the union was relatively small, would most likely end uptaking the form of an absorption rather than an amalgamation (FF, 2001). In any case,the FF needed to engage in some type of merger to avoid dissolution.

In April 2001, the leadership of the four unions approved a report (TriO, 2000)written by a workgroup that had been established to help overcome a number ofspecific barriers that were impeding the merger. Among these were certain financialmatters such as membership fees, as well as the substantial differences in thepreexisting organization structures. The HTF, SKTF, and ST had traditionally hadcooperative relations with each other within the structure of the TCO and successfullyworked together on numerous projects. Being members of the same confederation,including the FF who had by this time transferred its confederation affiliation from LOto TCO, these unions also shared a strong interest in issues such as welfare, workenvironment, and the improvement of qualifications.

Important differences existed, however, despite the many similarities. Members ofthe ST and FF were mainly employed at relatively large workplaces, which meant thatthese unions had a relatively small number of larger divisions. In contrast, most of themembers of HTF worked in smaller establishments where they either organized intosmall clubs (workplaces with at least five HTF members) or had no local unionrepresentation at all. Although HTF was also structured into divisions, its memberswere part of a club rather than a division, as in the other unions. As for SKTF, itsmembers were evenly distributed between large and small workplaces, with somemembers being organized into small clubs and others into large union divisions. It wasclear that the organizational structures of the three larger unions involved in themerger plan were relatively incompatible.

Although a number of questions still remained unresolved, the unions began tofocus on the extra union councils (congresses) in which the plans for a new large-scaleunion were to be finalized. In Sweden, for an amalgamation to take place, the partiesmust first dissolve before the new amalgamated union can be formed. The dissolvingof a Swedish union is not regulated by law or confederations, but by each union’s

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statutes. In general, a two-thirds majority at two consecutive congresses, of which onemust be regular, is needed to support dissolution. All four unions planned to hold theirfirst extra union councils in December of 2001.

The HTF was first, convening its extra congress on December 5-6, 2001. Accordingto the HTF statutes, every division is allotted 2 mandates in the congress.Supplementary mandates are allotted to divisions according to their sizes, i.e. the moremembers in a division, the more mandates in the congress, although no division canhave more than 25 percent of all mandates in the congress. However, due to theconstitution of HTF’s structure, there was virtually no chance of that happening. Theregister of electors was established at 92 mandates. After all the votes were tallied, itwas confirmed that 59 of the delegates voted for the merger, while 33 delegates votedagainst it. Although only three more votes were needed to attain the requiredtwo-thirds majority, it was enough to defeat the plans for a new super-union within theservice sector. Confronted with this news, the other three unions each decided not tohold their extra union councils and, with this, the merger plan had definitely collapsed.Had the attempted merger been completed, it would have resulted in a union forsalaried employees in both the public and the private sectors, which would haveconsisted of around 400,000 members and thereby been the largest within TCO.

MethodThe data used in this study was collected via questionnaires that were sent to 4,000randomly selected members of the four unions (1,000 members from each union)approximately six months after the merger proposal was rejected. After correcting forover-sampling (i.e. by excluding persons who, for instance, were no longer members ofany of the unions), the sample was reduced to 3,953 persons. Each questionnaire wasenclosed with two cover letters (one from the labor union, signed by the unionpresident, and one from the research team with a description of the research projectand its aims) along with a self-addressed and postage-paid reply envelope. In the coverletter, confidentiality was guaranteed and members were informed that participation inthe survey was voluntary. In all, 2,305 persons provided useable questionnaires, thusyielding a response rate of 58 percent. In the FF sample, the average age was 52 years,and 85 percent were women. The average age in the HTF sample was 44 years, and 60percent were women. The SKTF sample consisted of 77 percent women, and theaverage age was 48 years. In the ST sample, 67 percent were women and the averageage was 49 years. A non-response analysis showed that the sub-samples wererepresentative of the respective unions (Baraldi and Sverke, 2003).

Measures and statistical analysesAll of the analyses involved comparisons of members who were either rank-and-filemembers or elected lay representatives at some level of the organization. Overall, thesample consisted of about 84 percent rank-and-file members, and 16 percentrepresentatives.

The anchoring of merger information. In order to get a direct feel for how well theanchoring of merger related information had worked in the respective unions, we askedthe respondents whether or not they knew about their union’s merger plans. This wasdone by using a single item: “Before receiving this questionnaire, did you know that theFF, HTF, SKTF, and ST had well advanced plans for a merger?” The data were then

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analyzed using chi square cross-tabulations in order to see if representatives andrank-and-file members differed significantly in their response frequency distributions.

Vote intention. We also compared rank-and-file members with representatives interms of vote intention, which was measured with a single item: “If the vote on themerger had been required among all members, how would you have voted?” (responsealternatives: yes, no, unsure). The data were then analyzed with chi squarecross-tabulations.

Participatory union climate. This aspect of union merger implementation was basedon the measurement of two separate constructs: union democracy and union support.

The union democracy scale, which was based on a centralization scale originallydeveloped by Mellor and Mathieu (1999), measures the extent to which the union isperceived to welcome member participation in the decision-making processes. Thescale initially consisted of five items (e.g. “Members of my union are encouraged toparticipate in decision making processes”), scored on a five-point Likert scale(1 ¼ strongly disagree, 5 ¼ strongly agree) with high scores reflecting a high level ofperceived union democracy. One item had a detrimental effect on the scale’s reliability,and was therefore deleted. The final four-item scale showed a satisfactory Cronbach’salpha reliability coefficient of 0.79.

The union support scale, based on a four-item measure originally developed byShore et al. (1994), relates to the extent to which members feel that their leadership isresponsive to their needs and desires (e.g. “I can always turn to my union for help withany problem”). Responses were given on a five-point Likert type response format scale(1 ¼ strongly disagree, 5 ¼ strongly agree) with high scores reflecting a high level ofperceived support. Again, a reliability test suggested the removal of one item, and theresulting three-item scale showed a satisfactory reliability coefficient of 0.84.

In order to compare the responses of the representatives and rank-and-file membersregarding perceived participatory union climate, we conducted a multivariate analysisof variance (MANOVA), with union democracy and union support as the dependentvariables, and union affiliation and member status as the independent variables.

ResultsThe anchoring of merger information. An examination of the cross-tabulationregarding members’ awareness of the merger plans showed that there were significantdifferences between the unions. The FF was the union that had been most successful atinformation anchoring, with more than 70 percent of its members responding that theywere aware of the planned merger. In contrast, only about 40 to 50 percent of themembers of HTF, SKTF, and ST knew about the merger plans. It is interesting toobserve the large differences found between the representatives and the rank-and-filemembers across all four unions (see Table I). In the FF, nearly all of the representativeswere aware of the merger plans, while the figure was only around 70 percent for theirrank-and-file members. Similarly, nearly 90 percent of HTF’s representatives knewabout the merger plans, while only about 40 percent of their rank-and-file membersreported to have such knowledge. In SKTF and ST, about 70 to 80 percent of therepresentatives knew, while about four to five out of every ten of the rank-and-filemembers were aware of the plans.

In sum, these results suggest that the respective unions did not do a good jobspreading the merger-related information downwards through their organizations,

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which likely inhibited the membership from being able to form an opinion on thematter. This would lead us to expect significant differences between representativesand the rank-and-file also in vote intention and perceived participatory union climate.

Vote intention. The cross-tabulation of members’ vote intentions is presented inTable II. As can be seen, in all of the unions except for the HTF, there was a significantoverall relationship found between member status and vote intention. In the FF, a vastmajority of the representatives would have voted in favor of the proposed merger if ithad been subjected to a general referendum, while only half of the rank-and-file were ofthat opinion. In contrast, less than 10 percent of the members of FF would have rejectedthe proposal. Even more striking in this regard is the result found among the

Rank-and-file (N¼1883) Representatives (N¼347) x 2 (b)

FF (N¼624) 70.09 97.47 26.59 * * *

HTF (N¼494) 37.14 87.23 43.84 * * *

SKTF (N¼565) 41.58 73.96 33.54 * * *

ST (N¼547) 45.74 77.60 39.31 * * *

x 2 (a) 133.91 * * * 19.85 * * *

Notes: Total union £ merger awareness x 2ðdf¼3Þ ¼ 134:93 (p , 0:001;N ¼ 2271); (a) Test for

dependency between merger awareness and union within status level; (b) Test for dependencybetween merger awareness and status level within union; * * * p , :001

Table I.Proportions (%) of

members in the fourunions who knew about

the merger plans; dividedby member status

Rank-and-file (N¼1869) Representatives (N¼346) x 2 (a)

FF (N¼620) 28.23 * * *

Yes 50.09 81.01No 9.61 7.60Unsure 40.30 11.39Total 100 100HTF (N¼488) 3.32 ns

Yes 23.13 31.92No 31.75 36.17Unsure 45.13 31.92Total 100 100SKTF (N¼564) 17.26 * * *

Yes 20.68 38.95No 32.41 32.63Unsure 46.91 28.42Total 100 100ST (N¼543) 6.10 *

Yes 25.60 32.00No 29.19 35.20Unsure 45.22 32.80Total 100 100x 2 (b) 168.36 * * * 54.98 * * *

Notes: Total union £ vote intention x 2ðdf¼6Þ ¼ 209:50 (p , 0:001;N ¼ 2255); (a) Test for dependency

between vote intention and status level within union; (b) Test for dependency between vote intentionand union within status level; * p , 0:05; * * p , 0:01; * * * p , 0:001

Table II.Vote intention (in

percentages) amongmembers of the four

unions; divided bymember status

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rank-and-file members concerning how they would have voted. In total 40 percent ofthe rank-and-file were in fact unsure as to whether they would have supported orrejected the proposal, while merely 11 percent of the representatives were unable totake such a stand.

As for the HTF, the picture is rather different. Only about two to three out of tenmembers would have supported or rejected the merger. However, 31 percent of therepresentatives and 45 percent of the rank-and-file members were unsure about howthey would have voted. In the SKTF and ST, the picture is rather similar to that of theHTF. About two to four out of every ten members would have supported the merger,while roughly every third member would have rejected it. But again, what is moreinteresting is that about 30 percent of the representatives and about 45 percent of therank-and-file members were not able to take a stand in the matter.

In sum, the FF stands out in this analysis as the one union having a majority of itsmembers supporting the merger proposal, with only a few members opposing it.However, a lot of the rank-and-file also in FF were unsure. As for the rest of the unions,the proportions of unsure members stand out in the analysis, especially in therank-and-file group.

Participatory union climate. The results of the multivariate analysis of variance(MANOVA) that was performed in order to investigate the differences between unionrepresentatives and rank-and-file members when it came to perceived uniondemocracy and support are shown in Table III. A significant multivariate effect ofboth union affiliation and member status was found. The follow-up univariate testsrevealed significant main effects of union affiliation as well as membership status onboth perceived union democracy and union support. No significant interaction effectswere revealed in the analysis, thus suggesting that differences between rank-and-filemembers and representatives were fairly-similar across the four unions.

In order to get a more nuanced picture of how the different groups in our samplediffered in regard to perceived union democracy and support, we proceeded withpairwise comparisons (Bonferroni post-hoc tests) and then ran t-tests to see ifrepresentatives and rank-and-file members differed significantly regarding perceivedunion democracy and support within each union. The pairwise comparisons showedthat in terms of perceived union democracy, FF’s members reported higher levels thanthe members of HTF, SKTF and ST whose levels did not differ significantly from eachother. The FF members also perceived more support from their union than SKTF’smembers, while the findings for the members of HTF, SKTF and ST did not differsignificantly. As for membership status, the t-tests revealed that representativesreported significantly higher levels of both perceived union democracy and supportacross all four unions.

These results show that, in general, members’ perceptions of union democracy andsupport were higher among FF members than the members of the other unions. But,more convincingly, the results also show that the union representatives weresignificantly more positive in their perceptions of participatory union climate than therank-and-file were.

DiscussionIn an attempt to better our understanding of why so many merger plans do not succeedin reaching completion, we have chosen to investigate the democratic aspects of the

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Table III.Participatory union

climate means (standarddeviations) and

multivariate analysis ofvariance (MANOVA)

tests for differencesbetween unions andmembership status

(N ¼ 2093)

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231

internal merger negotiation process in this article. The spreading of merger-relatedinformation down through the organization and the establishing of a participatoryclimate in conjunction with responsive leadership are considered to be two suchaspects and constitute the main focus of this study.

The results lend support to the notion that if a merger is to be successfullycompleted, it is important that members are properly apprised of the merger agenda,and that a general participatory climate is implemented so that members receive theopportunity to form an opinion on the proposed merger and participate in thedecision-making processes. The importance of having well-functioning communicationchannels can be regarded as twofold. First of all, if members have to actively seek outinformation about a merger on their own, it is likely that only the committed memberswill end up doing so (Baraldi et al., 2006). The representatives are presumablycommitted, but in their capacity as entrusted representatives, they still need to voteaccording to the general will of the membership. If there is not enough information athand for the rank-and-file to take a position on a proposal, they will then be unable toforward any type of stance on the matter to their representatives. In other words,rank-and-file members need to be presented with adequate information. Thecommunication channels leading from the representatives to their rank-and-filemembers must therefore be effective.

However, the opposite is also important. Once rank-and-file members have beenproperly informed, and thereby been able to form an opinion on a merger proposal,they still need to have a means of communicating their thoughts to theirrepresentatives. This would require a responsive leadership that is attentive to whattheir members have to say. In other words, the communication channels leading fromthe rank-and-file to the representatives have to also be effective (cf. Heller et al., 1998;Strauss, 1991). Nevertheless, as suggested, representatives cannot be sure of what themembership thinks about a merger proposal if the membership has not first beenprovided with sufficient information with which to form an opinion, or if thecommunication channels between themselves and the rank-and-file are somehowimpaired. Indeed, the risk is that if the representatives do not have sufficientinformation about the general will of the membership at their disposal, any decisionthey would make to either reject or support a merger would lack a significantanchoring amongst the broader base of the membership.

As is evident from the present results, rather few of the members in this study knewabout the planned merger investigated. Alongside this, an obvious relationship wasfound to exist between membership status and vote intention, as substantially fewerrank-and-files than representatives would have voted for the merger (with theexception of the non-significant difference in the HTF). The figures clearly suggest thatthe leaderships had failed in convincing most members of the advantages of theproposal. Furthermore, from a democratic perspective, it is of interest that a majority ofthose members who were unable to say if they would have voted for or against themerger proposal were in fact rank-and-file members. In addition, it was the unionrepresentatives who had significantly more positive perceptions of democracy andsupport when compared with the rank-and-file members, who had probably beenconsiderably tainted with uncertainty over the merger proposal. Had there beenadequate information anchoring and properly participatory climates within the four

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unions, the proportion of uncertain individuals might not have been so high, and moremembers might have been convinced of the merits of the potential merger.

When it comes to information anchoring, the role of the representatives isimportant. They constitute the crucial links in the chain of communications (e.g.Baraldi et al., 2006). In this study, however, it is unclear whether the communicationbreakdown occurred between the top leadership and the representatives or between therepresentatives and the rank-and-file. The support-building process seems to be veryfragile in this respect. Note that the total means for perceived union democracy andsupport varied from 2.91 to 3.45 on a 1-5 scale. This indicates that the participatoryclimates in general were not that poor. However, all of the rank-and-file members,except those of FF, were somewhat negative in terms of perceived union democracy ascompared to union support.

The results also show that the perceptions of the participatory union climatediffered significantly between the representatives and the rank-and-file members,which suggests that the elected members (and perhaps higher-level representatives) ofthe organizations dominated the merger discussions. This was probably not the casewith FF though, which was in desperate need of a merger partner due to theircircumstances at the time. In the FF, as is evident from our analysis, the anchoring ofmerger-related information and the perceptions of participatory union climate wereviewed more positively, as there were smaller differences between the responses of therepresentatives and rank-and-files. These results lend support to our initial hypothesissuggesting that when either information anchoring or participatory climate is eroded,the merger process itself will be threatened.

That FF’s members in general were more informed about the merger plans andmore in favor of it, as compared to the other unions, could be attributed to the fact thatFF was a much smaller organization, consisting of larger divisions and members fromlarge workplaces. Such circumstances might be more suitable for informationanchoring and the facilitation of effective dialogs throughout the organization than, forexample, those of the HTF, whose members are mostly from small workplaces.However, these results may also be attributed to FF’s situation and strong need tomerger. The relative importance of union size, on one hand, and union presence at theworkplace, on the other, for information anchoring and participatory union climate –and thereby for merger approval – needs further research.

Some methodological issues that may have affected the present results need to beconsidered. A possible problem involves the fact that the present data was collectedafter one of the unions had voted against the merger. It is conceivable that therespondents from all four unions may have been influenced by the news of therejection. Another possible problem is that the present data was collected on only oneoccasion, which means that we cannot comment on the significance of the results overtime. Accordingly, a longitudinal study with measurements taken prior to and after arejected merger would be called for in order to study the changes in participatoryclimates that occur over time.

Despite some limitations, the present study is unique in its investigation of aplanned, yet unsuccessful, merger attempt from a democratic perspective. Itcontributes to a better understanding of how the internal process of mergernegotiations is affected by factors such as information anchoring and perceptions ofparticipatory climates within merging unions. Furthermore, it provides a basis for

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including democratic aspects as variables in future investigations of completedmergers.

In the case of failed merger attempts, it can be tempting to say that the reason theyfail is because the parties are just not motivated enough to complete the mergerprocess. However, in this case, the truth is probably quite the opposite. After thismerger proposal was abandoned, the ST went ahead and absorbed the FF. Also, at thetime of writing this article, the HTF was on the verge of amalgamating with Sweden’sleading white-collar union, the SIF. An inherent motivation to merge can clearly beobserved in respect to these unions. However, the process of union merger is indeed acomplex one, as it challenges union leaders with a wide variety of problems. Sinceparticipation is most needed when creativity, innovation, and commitment are at apremium (Strauss, 1998), it is essential to not only keep members updated but to alsoinvite them into the merger process if a merger proposal is to have a better chance ofreaching completion.

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About the authorsStephan Baraldi is a PhD student at the department of psychology, Stockholm University,Sweden. Some of his research interests include organizational change; work-related attitudes andbehaviour; social psychology and cognition. Stephan Baraldi is the corresponding author andcan be contacted at sbi@psychology.su.se

Magnus Sverke is professor of work- and organization psychology at the department ofpsychology, Stockholm University, Sweden. Some of his research interests includeorganizational change and its effects on employees; downsizing and job insecurity; labourmarket flexibilization and new employment contracts; union member attitudes and behaviour.

Gary Chaison is professor of industrial relations at Clark University, Massachusetts, USA.His main research interests include comparative industrial relations; union structure,government, and growth; collective bargaining.

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