An Empirical Study On Employee’s Job Satisfaction And Union Participation

In foreign academic field, the union participation question has been early researched. According to the frustration-aggression theory, when employees encountered fair treatment or dissatisfaction in work, they will participate in the activities of union to solve their problems, so the job satisfaction and union question has attracted lots of attention. But there are few scholars to study the problem in China. The reason is mainly decided by the nature of the Chinese unions. Before reform and opening up, Chinese union is just a affiliated organization of government in the enterprise, but not safeguard the rights and interests of workers by organizing negotiations, strike and other means, so there seems little point in the issue of research union. But with the continuous development of market economy, private enterprises raised, the competition between enterprises is increasingly fierce, the interests contradiction and conflict between labor and capital is growing, Chinese trade unions’ rights protection functions has been stressed, the related union problems such as the relationship between job satisfaction and union participation have appeared in the field of domestic researchers.With the difference of labor relations, union and cultural, the research conclusion of western can’t completely adapt to the Chinese. Based on literature review at home and abroad, two variables of industrial relations and union commitment are introduced and mechanism between job satisfaction and union commitment is explored with the application of in-depth interviews and other research methods and through an mediated moderation model. Workers from non-public enterprises in Jiangsu and Zhejiang area are investigated to verify the model. The study found that the effect of job satisfaction on union participation depends on employees’ perception of labor relations climate. When we research the union participation, job satisfaction should be treated as the individual motivation factors, labor relations climate as the contextual factors, and union participation is the interactive effects of the two factors. This verified the interaction model in the west. But with the difference between Chinese labor relations climate and western labor relations climate, the moderate results are also different. When the labor relations climate is positive, the conception of “Harmony is precious” and aversion make the employees not speak on the union meeting, complaint to the union or some other union behaviors. Only when the labor relations climate is negative, job dissatisfaction can lead to the participation behaviors. At the same time, the interaction of job satisfaction and industrial relations climate to union participation is partly mediated by the union commitment.The discussion and solution of these problems provide theoretical basis and practical guiding significance for the research of job satisfaction and union participation. In terms of theory, foreign scholars have made lots of research, but few under the background of China. The study use the foreign research results, apply the theory and conclusion to the Chinese private enterprises, and test its applicability of the theory by a empirical methods, which opened up a new perspective in the research of job satisfaction and union participation. In terms of practice, the conclusion indicate the importation of Chinese union, provide basis for improving employees’ industrial relations. Besides, through the analyzing the union participation form, made a deepen understanding of Chinese trade unions to participate in the practice of employees, help the Chinese economic construction and development under the background of the period of transition.