노사관계의 특성들과 산업재해

This study conducts an empirical study on whether some characteristics of labor relations affect occupational injury and illness(OII), using the manufacturing sample of the 6th-8th rounds(2015-19) of Workplace Panel Survey collected by Korea Labor Institute. Conjecturing that differing characteristics of labor relations can explain the inconsistent research outcomes for the impact of labor unions on OII in the previous studies, we draw the following hypotheses from the perspective of two faces of unionism developed by Freeman & Medoff(1984): Wage growth rate as a proxy for workers’ wage preference, labor participation in management, and labor dispute are likely to increase OII. Besides, we explore how labor union and labor density rate affect OII. Based on the Hausman test, we employ panel-data random effects models, and minorly fixed effects models. We use simple OII rate as the dependent variable, and also OII rate approved by the Korean OSHA to check which one is more valid. The results of this study indicate as follows. First, the existence of labor union and union density rate do not have statistically significant impacts on the rate of OII. Second, labor participation in management and wage growth rate increase significantly the OII rate. Third, labor dispute weakly significantly increase the rate. Finally the results are summarized and interpreted, and their implications are discussed.