The impact of labor unions on corporate perks in Korea: Human resource management perspective

In this study, we analyzed census samples linking the finance-labor information of unionized companies in Korean manufacturing industries from 2002 to 2006 in an effort to assess the effects of labor unions on corporate perk expenditures. The majority of previous studies conducted into CEO perks have paid less attention to the determinants of corporate perk expenditures. This paper focuses on analyzing the impact of unions on corporate perks. The results of our empirical study show that unions reduce corporate expenditures on perks and also decrease the probability that the perk expenditure will exceed the tax exemption limit. In analyses of separate samples of unions in which very different climates of industrial relations prevailed, our findings also indicate that the negative influence of unions on corporate perks increases with the union organization rate and the inclination to strike. This paper probes several theoretical reasons underlying the negative influence of unions on corporate perks.