Union-firm bargaining over long term benefits

The paper studies bargaining over workers' benefits which are due some time in the future. A union bargains on behalf of a workforce which may be diverse in the sense that workers' probabilities of staying with the firm vary. Bargaining structure, rather than the bargaining power of the union, is found to be the driving force in the model for determining the level of benefits. A further key issue is that of whose preferences are represented in the union's objective function, and thereby in the bargaining process.