Report | Jobs and Unemployment

Still Open for Business: Unionization Has No Causal Effect on Firm Closures

Briefing Paper #230

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Press release

In the debate over legislation to expand employees’ right to choose union representation in the workplace, the organized business lobby has been drumming up fears that enactment of the Employee Free Choice Act would kill jobs by forcing more employers out of business. That claim is not borne out by historical data or existing credible research, according to this new report.  In Still Open for Business, John DiNardo compares data on business failures among unionized and similar nonunion firms and concludes that unionized businesses are no more likely than nonunion ones to fail.


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