While a small, although growing, body of research has emerged that focuses on individual perceptions of voice (Withey and Cooper, 1989; Leck and Saunders, 1992; Luchak, 2003; Avery and Quiñones, 2004; Bryson, 2004), little attempt has been made to understand how trade union membership impacts these perceptions.

Contemporary research findings contest the accepted wisdom in the industrial relations literature that unions are the primary mechanism of employee voice through their representative role (Freeman and Rogers, 1993; Lansbury et al., 1996; Kaufman and Taras, 1999; Bryson and Freeman, 2007). As Addison and Belfield (2004: 564) argued, the collective voice model is deficient for ‘uncritically equating collective voice with autonomous unionism’.

As Addison and Belfield (2004: 564) argued, the collective voice model is deficient for ‘uncritically equating collective voice with autonomous unionism’.

(Freeman and Rogers, 1993; Lansbury et al., 1996; Kaufman and Taras, 1999; Bryson and Freeman, 2007).

Over the past two decades, the collective union voice view has been challenged as research has broadened to include direct voice mechanisms within a variety of non-union settings (McCabe and Lewin, 1992; McLoughlin and Gourlay, 1994; Terry, 1999; Benson, 2000; Gollan, 2003, 2006; Butler, 2005; Dietz et al., 2005; Dundon et al., 2005; Haynes, 2005; Machin and Wood, 2005; Taras and Kaufman, 2006; Bryson and Freeman, 2007; Dundon and Gollan, 2007).