Union members at the polls in diverse trade union landscapes

Abstract

This article investigates to what extent social democratic parties still benefit from the support of union members at the polls. Not only are social democratic parties confronted with new competitors in the party systems, but also the union confederations of the socialist labour movement are in some countries losing their dominant position due to the rise of separate professional confederations. It is argued in the article that the effect of union membership on voting choice is conditioned by the structure of the trade union movement. The support of union members for social democracy is fostered by the strength of the confederations historically close to this party family, while it is hampered when strong separate (or politically unaffiliated) white‐collar confederations exist. Using European Social Survey and Swedish Public Opinion data, the article shows that social democratic parties still enjoy important support from trade union members, but at the same time are under fierce competition from bourgeois and green parties among members of white‐collar confederations. This reinforces the challenges for social democracy to build new voters’ coalitions in post‐industrial societies.

The radical right, the labour movement and the competition for the workers’ vote

“…to 2010, Arndt and Rennwald (2016) show that union members are significantly less likely to support the radical right (see also Arndt and Rennwald, 2017) and that the membership effect is even slightly bigger when contrasting the radical right with the left than when contrasting the centre-right with the left. In a case study of Sweden, If one adopts a "bottom-up" perspective, one could argue that workers decision to join a union might not be entirely independent from pre-existing ideological convictions (see Ebbinghaus et al, 2011, for a review of decisions to join unions).…”

Working-Class Strength by Institutional Design? Unionization, Partisan Politics, and Unemployment Insurance Systems, 1870 to 2010

“…In most long--standing democracies, organized workers are more likely to vote (Flavin & Radcliff, 2011) and more likely to support Left parties than unorganized workers (Arndt & Rennwald, 2016). There are good reasons to suppose that the effects of union membership have been stronger in the past.…”

White-Collar Unions and Attitudes towards Income Inequality, Redistribution, and State–Market Relations

“…Similarly, this analysis provides a micro-foundation for the recent findings from Arndt and Rennwald (2016) as to why white-collar union members vote conservative and not social democratic. Accordingly, the present study addresses one vital point made by Becher and Pontusson (2011), namely, that we should take into account unionization by income when investigating the stances of union members on socio-economic issues.…”

“…A serious shortcoming in this literature is that unions are usually treated as unitary actors, and differences within the union movement are largely ignored (cf. Becher and Pontusson 2011 for this critique; see also Arndt and Rennwald 2016). This is striking since not least the Scandinavian countries saw the membership growth in independent white-collar unions and their federations at the expense of the traditional blue-collar (and commonly studied) union federations (Kjellberg 2013).…”

“…Becher and Pontusson 2011;Mosimann and Pontusson 2017;Pontusson 2013;Vlandas 2016; but see Kim and Margalit 2016). Other studies have looked at voting patterns across members' different union federations without tapping into the mechanism that links a white-collar union member to a conservative party for instance (Arndt and Rennwald 2016).…”