This article contributes to debates about trade unions and conflict by studying how individuals' perceptions of conflicts between management and workers relate to trade union membership, country-level trade union density and institutionalization (collective bargaining coverage, centralization and policy concertation). Hierarchical multi-level models are fitted to data from the International Social Survey Programme from 2009. The results show that union members tend to be more likely than non-members to perceive management-worker conflicts and that this appears not to vary substantially between countries. However, regardless of union membership, individuals in countries with higher trade union density and with policy concertation tend to be significantly less likely to perceive conflicts. These findings highlight the risk of atomic fallacies in research limited to the individual-level effects of union membership. Contrary to an argument often raised by pluralists, neither bargaining coverage nor centralization has significant effects. Overall, the results question depictions of trade unions as divisive organizations.

Drawing on insights from the sociology of work, this article contributes to job demands–resources (JD-R) theory by arguing that collective employee voice should be considered within the framework as an antecedent of job demands and job resources. An empirical test is offered to substantiate the theoretical argument, hypothesizing that collective voice – measured as trade union influence at the workplace level – reduces job demands and increases job resources. Based on the notion that some jobs may be inherently demanding, an additional hypothesis posits that collective voice balances demands with job resources by supplementing resources particularly where demands are high. Drawing on data from the European Social Survey covering 27 countries, results of multi-level analyses reveal that while not associated negatively with job demands, collective voice enhances job resources, particularly where demands are high. On this basis the article encourages further sociologically informed analyses of the JD-R model.

This article contributes to debates about trade unions and the environment by studying differences between union members and non-members when asked to prioritize between environmental protection and jobs and economic growth. Differences are explored in a multi-level framework based on European Values Study data from 2017, covering 22 European countries. The empirical results show that members are more pro-environmentally inclined than non-members. This is demonstrated to be attributable to a large extent to the fact that members tend to be more left-leaning politically, a disposition which tends to be associated positively with environmental concern. While those employed in transport and manufacturing generally are least likely to be willing to prioritize environmental protection, membership has the most pronounced positive effect in this group. The tendency for members to be more pro-environmentally inclined is consistent across the studied countries. The article also shows that both members and non-members in countries with higher collective bargaining coverage tend to be more pro-environmentally inclined. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of the political nature of collective interest representation with which unions are concerned, broader debates about union renewal and the importance of unions in garnering workers' support for a greener economy.

This article contributes to debates about trade unions and the environment by studyinginternational variation in the association between union membership and support forgovernment spending on environmental protection. Building on research which demonstrates a positive membership effect on support for environmental protection, the article extends the geographical scope beyond the more economically developed contextsstudied previously. Using World Systems Theory as a comparative framework, distinguishing between core, semi-periphery, and periphery states, the article exploreswhether the positive membership effect extends beyond more affluent core statesand reveals an intriguing empirical puzzle: while public support for environmental spending is substantially weaker in core states relative to non-core states, the latter being subject to more extensive environmental threats, the reverse holds for the membershipeffect on environmental spending support which instead tends to be more positive incore states. Union membership thus tends to have the largest positive impact on environmental spending support in countries where public support for such spending tendsto be lower. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings for the global effortto address an ongoing environmental crisis are discussed by considering the notion of asolidarity effect.