Assessing Employee Support during Union Organizing Campaigns

Abstract

Many labor unions assess support among prospective members to guide decision making during organizing campaigns, and to predict voting in representation elections. However, research on the actual practice of how unions make assessments is limited. We fill this void through a study that combined quantitative and qualitative analysis of the assessment activities. The quantitative portion involved a survey of eligible voters in the 2010 flight attendant representation election at Delta Air Lines. The qualitative portion involved in-depth interviews with staff involved in that campaign and organizing directors or key organizing staff in nine of the largest labor unions in the United States. We focus on the factors that influence the accuracy of assessment predictions, describe practices currently being used to predict votes in these campaigns, and discuss future research needs.

Bottom-Up Organizing with Tools from On High: Understanding the Data Practices of Labor Organizers

“…If the election were today 2s would vote yes"), "3" is "undecided or moveable" and "4" is not supportive of the union, with "no clear path to move them to support" [1]. Other numerical schemes are also used, for example Rogers et al describe assessment categories used in the 2010 representation election at Delta Air Lines, where Association of Flight Attendants-Communication Workers of America (AFA-CWA) flight attendants were rated a "1" if they would vote "yes" for the AFA-CWA , "2" if "undecided", "3" if "no", and "4" if they were a "strong no" and "expected to work against unionization" [54].…”