Spillover effects of unionisation on non-members' wellbeing

• We examine if unionisation has a spillover effect on non-members' wellbeing.
• We adapt the Social Custom Model of unions and conduct empirical analysis on a rich linked data.
• The empirical analyses uses alternative methodologies and a sensitivity analysis.
• We find that unionisation has a negative spillover effect on non-members' job satisfaction.
• Subgroup analysis reveals that the adverse job satisfaction effect is specific to covered workplaces.

We investigate whether unionisation has a spillover wellbeing effect on non-members. To this end, we adapt the Social Custom Model of trade unions and conduct empirical analyses using linked employer–employee data on private establishments in Britain. We find that unionisation lowers non-members' job satisfaction, but the effect is confined to workplaces where pay is set through collective bargaining.