Is non-union labor more productive than union labor? A claim was made today by an equipment manufacturing industry representative that in the last 10 years Non-Union labor had far out paced Union labor in productivity gains and that Non-Union Shops where now significantly more productive than Union Shops. Are there any statistics that can confirm or refute this?

here is a link to an empirical study conducted by a professor of mine. It may help answer your question.

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A small exerpt from section IV

> Based on the extant evidence to date, a reasonable conclusion is that the average effect of unions upon productivity is small and, if anything, more likely to be negative than positive

and

> In short, union firms clearly display substantially slower productivity growth than do nonunion firms, but most (if not all) of this difference is associated with effects attributable to industry differences, since union firms are located in industries or sectors with slow growth. As with the evidence on productivity, it is concluded that there exists no strong evidence that unions have a causal effect on productivity growth.