Employee representatives in firms are a potentially key but not yet studied source of the impact of unions and works councils. Their actions can shape multiple drivers of firm performance, including collective bargaining, strikes, and training. This article examines the impact of union representative mandates by exploiting legal membership thresholds present in many countries. In the case of Portugal, which we examine here, while firms employing up to forty‐nine union members are required to have one union representative; this increases to two (three) union reps for firms with fifty to ninety‐nine (100–199) union members. Drawing on matched employer–employee data on the unionized sector and regression discontinuity methods, we find that a one percentage point increase in the legal union representative/members ratio leads to an increase in firm performance of at least 7 percent. This result generally holds across multiple dimensions of firm performance and appears to be driven by increased training. However, we find no effects of union representatives on firm‐level wages, given the predominance of sectoral collective bargaining.

中文翻译：

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员工代表的微观经济影响：来自成员资格阈值的证据

公司的员工代表是工会和工会的影响力的潜在关键，但尚未研究。他们的行为可以塑造公司业绩的多种驱动力，包括集体谈判，罢工和培训。本文通过利用许多国家/地区中存在的法定成员资格阈值来检验工会代表授权的影响。以葡萄牙为例，我们在这里进行研究，而雇用最多49名工会会员的公司则必须拥有一名工会代表；对于拥有五十至九十九（100-199）个工会会员的公司，这增加到两个（三）工会代表。利用有关工会部门的雇主和雇员的匹配数据以及回归不连续性方法，我们发现合法工会代表/成员比例增加1个百分点将导致公司业绩至少提高7％。该结果通常适用于公司绩效的多个方面，并且似乎受培训增加的推动。但是，鉴于部门集体谈判的优势，我们发现工会代表对公司一级的工资没有影响。