Trade union participation in Sabah

The participation from union members is essential for trade unions to increase the effectiveness of trade unions in advocating for intrinsic and extrinsic rights. It is important for trade unions to continue evolving and remain relevant in today's employment relations. Therefore, objective of this study is to analyse relationship between union support, pro-union attitude, and industrial relations climate towards unions participation. Respondents involved is 294 trade union members from selected sectors in Sabah. The selection of the study sample was done using the stratified random sampling technique because the study sample has a non-uniform population (heterogeneous). Data were analysed used regression analysis to answer the second objective and test the hypothesis in this study. The results of the study found that the level of trade union participation has been divided into two dimensions, namely the collective action dimension and the communication dimension. The novelty of this journal its focus on trade union participation in Sabah, an underexplored region in Malaysia. It empirically tests a modified theoretical framework and introduces new validated dimensions such as collective action, communication, and aspects of industrial relations climate offering a more detailed understanding of factors influencing union involvement. This will have implications for employment relationships and it requires attention from all industrial relations actors. Furthermore, from a theoretical perspective, these findings fill the gap in previous studies regarding the factors influencing trade union participants while simultaneously testing the theoretical framework empirically.