Does union membership matter? Political participation,attachment to democracy and generational change

Abstract

We examine whether trade union membership enhances political activism and beliefs in the democratic system, and argue that trade unions and union membership are more likely to develop workers’ capacities to participate as citizens in the democratic process. Union members are more likely to engage in political activities and hold more positive attitudes towards democracy than non-union respondents across 11 stable European democracies with varying levels of union density and collective bargaining coverage. A notable trend is the decline over generations of the positive gap in political participation levels between union and non-union workers. It appears that the effects of union membership for political participation and attitudes to democracy, though still significant, are less salient for the 1980s generation.

Keywords

Age authoritarianism democracy Europe generation politics trade unions

Introduction

Since 1980, authoritarianism, as measured by a weakening of support for democracy and its institutions, appears to be increasing in the USA and Europe (Foa and Mounk, 2016). Democratic governance seems to be under threat from the growing electoral success of populist movements in many European countries (Yilmaz, 2012). A bulwark against the erosion of a democratic system is a citizenry that espouses the core values of democracy and actively participates in the democratic process (Almond and Verba, 1963). Explanations of the factors that encourage political participation in democracies have focused on levels of economic development and structural characteristics such as education and social position (Inglehart, 1990, 1997); positive civic attitudes, particularly inter-personal trust (Inglehart, 1997; Putnam, 1993); and engagement in politics as learned behaviours arising from a spillover from other institutions and associations (Pateman, 1970; Putnam, 1993).

We focus on the spillover effects of trade unions in the workplace as one important factor in the development of a democratically oriented citizenry participating in the democratic process and attached to its core values. Unions, it has been claimed, foster democratic values: emphasizing participation and autonomy at work, enhancing democratic voice in the workplace and encouraging more liberal views in their members on economic and cultural issues (Kitschelt, 2013; Pateman, 1970). As most people spend a great part of their life working, the way that workplace authority structures function is likely to influence the extent to which there is a positive or negative spillover into democratic behaviours. While firms are vertically organized with hierarchical power relations, trade unions are horizontal associations where all members are essentially equal (Putnam, 1993). As such they function as democratic associations embedded in authoritarian entities. Trade unions allow workers to challenge management authority through collective representation and the capacity to engage in strike action. Collective bargaining, whether at firm, sector or national level, allows workers as a collective to negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment. Such collective participatory actions by union members may be complementary to the development of a wider positive democratic culture.

However, in recent decades membership density of trade unions has declined in most developed industrial societies. In the USA and most European countries, unions enjoyed membership growth up to 1980, yet over the following decades they recorded often substantial declines (Ebbinghaus et al., 2011; Schnabel, 2013). Trade unions now represent a smaller proportion of the employed labour force in Europe than at any time since 1950. It has become increasingly apparent that this decline does not simply reflect structural change in the economy and the growth of unemployment, but also the conscious intent of key industrial relations actors, notably governments and employers, to exclude unions from control of the employment relationship (Claydon, 1996). We examine the relationship between trade union membership and political participation and commitment to democracy over time and the possible implications of declining membership for democratic culture and authoritarian attitudes.

Using three waves of the European Values Study (EVS), we examine whether membership of a trade union enhances an individual’s democratic orientation and behaviour such as political activism and beliefs in the democratic system. While previous research indicates that membership of a trade union can provide a stimulus to both electoral and political participation, receding union membership may have weakened this relationship (Arndt and Rennwald, 2017; D’Art and Turner, 2007). Consequently, any positive relationship between union membership and political participation may have evaporated for later generations of unionized workers, particularly the 1980s generation in comparison with the 1960s generation. The propensity of trade unions to influence political participation among members may have waned, given reduced trade union power and influence in society more generally. In the context of declining union membership, the critical question is whether the relationship between union membership and democratic behaviour has changed across the generations.

Trade unions, democracy and contestation

Advocates of the democratic spillover thesis argue that workplace democracy and participation increases workers’ sense of political efficacy, which transfers to the formal political sphere through greater propensity to join political parties and vote in elections (Pateman, 1970). Not all forms of workplace participation are believed to have an equal impact. The level of participation most likely to engender political efficacy, that is an individual sense of confidence and competence, has been described by Pateman as a process that gives each member equal power to determine the outcome of decisions. This has been interpreted as types of workplace participation that allow workers a say both directly at the lower level in the day-to-day control of shop floor activity and indirectly through representative structures at higher levels such as strategic decisions, investment and marketing.

However, the empirical evidence for the spillover thesis is relatively weak or non-existent (Greenberg et al., 1996; Schweizer, 1995). Even in worker-owned cooperatives where workplace participation can be expected to be significant and extensive, the link between workplace democracy, efficacy and wider political participation has been found to be relatively weak at best (Greenberg et al., 1996). Explanations for this weak evidence have to a large extent pointed to the poor specification of the various measures of participation used in the empirical studies. Yet, the near exclusive focus on measures of workplace democracy and participation, whether direct or indirect, have generally ignored the central importance of collective bargaining as a democratic process that allows workers a say in the determination of their core working conditions and in the everyday activities of the firm. The presence of an independent trade union affects the authority structure in the firm by realigning the distribution of power through leveraging the bargaining position of individual employees into a stronger collective entity (Freeman and Medoff, 1984). Crucial elements of the collective bargaining process are the capacity of union members to challenge and contest elements of the employment relationship such as the effort and wage bargain and ultimately the power to enter into a dispute and withdraw their labour. These elements of opposition and collective action integral to collective bargaining are characteristics fundamental to healthy democracy in the political theory of radical democracy (Finlayson, 2009).

Two core elements are central to these theories. First, conflict is regarded as a permanent and essentially useful feature of democracy and is viewed as a struggle or contest between people with opposing needs, ideas, beliefs, values or goals whose positions may be incompatible (Diez et al., 2006). Thus, conflict and disagreement rather than consensus and harmony are considered the essence of the democratic process. Second, the formation of collectives and solidarities is central to pluralism and the democratic process. In the radical democratic perspective, a properly functioning democracy requires a genuine confrontation of distinctive political positions. The essence of modern democracy is precisely the recognition and legitimation of conflict between collectives with opposing ideas. Mouffe (2000, 2016) suggests that the bedrock of pluralism is conflict between adversaries who accept the principles and institutions of democracy but not necessarily the current social order. Their confrontation both constitutes and creates the conditions for a vibrant democracy. Honig (1993) stresses the ‘emancipatory’ potential of political contestation, which enables questioning of established practices. Conversely, too much emphasis on consensus coupled with an aversion to confrontation can lead to ‘apathy and to disaffection with political participation’ (Mouffe, 2000: 16). There is also an underlying consensus about fundamental values in democratic societies such as freedom of speech, equality before the law and election of governments. These are core values espoused by trade unions (Freeman and Medoff, 1984).

If workplaces are to have a positive impact on democracies then these core elements must be allowed to flourish. As in the political arena, relations between employers and employees have pluralist attributes. In the work sphere, conflict and disagreement arise in the employment relationship from the different interests of employers and employees. Conflict can occur over what constitutes a fair day’s wage, the effort levels required from employees and how employees are treated (Edwards, 1995). Trade unions through the institution of collective bargaining provide an independent and oppositional voice to workers to raise concerns over matters that affect their working lives, particularly the terms and conditions of employment (Dundon and Gollan, 2007). Union membership and representation in the workplace provide employees with the autonomy to voice their concerns without fear of victimization or discrimination. Such independent voice allows employees to ‘speak up’ and legitimizes a culture of opposition that is central to a pluralist ethos. Trade union membership potentially socializes workers into the legitimacy of opposition, a sense of efficacy that workers can achieve change and a concern with fairness and justice.

Many firms prefer to exclude trade unions, believing that unions interfere with the intrinsic harmony and common interests between employer and employees and undermine management’s prerogative to manage. Excluding a union from the workplace allows the employer to determine unilaterally the rules of the workplace, and more importantly to structure the dominant discourse of beliefs and attitudes that construct a particular world view (Butler, 2009; Flood and Toner, 1997). Consequently, non-union firms are likely to be more authoritarian, as employees are encouraged to identify wholly with management, give unquestioned obedience and refrain from any principled public ‘dissent’ (Kitschelt, 2007).

Forging solidarities and collectives

A crucial element in radical democracy theory is the role of collectives and struggle in the political sphere. The creation of an ‘us’ can only exist by its demarcation from a ‘them’. Democratic politics is a clash between collectives with different projects, not about differences between private and isolated individuals. For Mouffe (2000), the glue that holds collectives together in the democratic process is a commitment to a particular identity (based, for example, on party or ideological allegiances). Consequently, a key challenge for democratic politics, as Mouffe (2000, 2016) argues, is how to establish an ‘us’ and ‘them’ distinction in a way that is compatible with a pluralist ethos and is positively constitutive to democratic culture. Forging solidarity among workers has been a leitmotif of trade unions since their foundation. In the workplace, trade unions facilitate the development of solidarity and the legitimacy of opposition (Fantasia, 1989). Solidarity is most likely when workers not only realize there is a community of interests but also have a strong sense of identity, attachment and allegiance which leads to solidaristic actions such as the protection of weaker members and the honouring of strike pickets (Salamon, 1998). At this level of solidarity, workers refer to themselves as ‘we’ in relation to the ‘others’: they create an informal and spontaneous shield of solidarity against the continuous demands of the company (Bild et al., 1997). Being a member of a trade union is likely to socialize workers in the habits of opposition, involvement and commitment to a collective, essential to a pluralist democracy.

Traditionally, workers were associated with voting for left social-democratic parties rather than mainstream right-wing parties (Goldthorpe et al., 1968). However, recent evidence indicates an overrepresentation of workers among the electorate of new extreme-right populist or radical right-wing parties that emerged since the 1990s (Kitschelt, 2007; Rydgren, 2013). Working-class supporters of new radical right-wing parties in Europe are more likely to be non-union. Low levels of unionization are therefore likely to allow populist right-wing parties to gain ground inside the working class. As Arndt and Rennwald (2017) observe, ‘de-unionization might well be a decisive element for the phenomena of electoral de-alignment and realignment that many Western European countries have faced since the 1970s’ (p. 158). In the workplace, the absence of a union effectively undermines a pluralist ethos and reduces the possibility that citizens will be socialized in the work sphere into the values and behaviours characteristic of the democratic pluralist process. A workplace governed by a unitarist ideology that disallows contestation over the conditions of employment is more likely to dispose employees to authoritarian alternatives in the wider society than a pluralist workplace where trade unions are present.

Union membership, political participation and generational change

In the radical democracy perspective, the essential building blocks for pluralism and the democratic process are contestation and the creation of collectives with a sense of identity that allows for distinctive different political choices. In the work sphere, trade unions and union membership are more likely to prepare workers to participate as citizens in the democratic process. Involvement in the democratic process is taken to cover two broad areas: active political participation and commitment to a democratic system of government. Participation and attitudes to democracy are generally acknowledged to have a mutually stimulating and ‘recursive’ relationship, where involvement in political activities strengthens attitudes and commitment to democracy (Quintelier and Van Deth, 2014). Conversely, citizens who support democratic norms and values are predicted to be more likely to become politically active (Mansbridge, 1999). However, the direction of causality is not clear, though the weight of the extant evidence seems to point to participative activities strengthening democratic values (Van Deth, 2014). Here, the effects of union membership on political participation and democratic values are treated as independent phenomena.

Measures of political participation are commonly divided into conventional or elite-directed forms of action such as voting, joining political parties and active membership of a party, and non-conventional or elite-challenging forms of action such as street protests, signing pledges and joining new social movements such as environmental groups. It can be expected that union membership will ceteris paribus be associated with increased levels of active political participation (Hypothesis 1).

A commitment to the values and principles of democracy is generally conducive to a stable political system (Almond and Verba, 1963). Here, commitment to democracy is measured by the degree of people’s attachment to the democratic system of government and their perceptions of the effectiveness of democracy. Attachment is assessed by the strength of preferences for a strong leader over parliament and having experts make decisions rather than politicians. Effectiveness refers to the efficiency of democracies in managing the economy and maintaining order. We predict that union membership will ceteris paribus be associated with stronger levels of commitment to the democratic system of government (Hypothesis 2).

Membership of a trade union and the effects of membership are likely to display a cohort effect, depending on when respondents were born. The cohort effect takes into account the effect of major contemporary social, cultural/political influences and events that can shape individual and group perspectives. People acquire values and opinions grounded in the specific historical life experiences that shape their political stance and ideology (Ventura, 2016). Cohort or generational differences are primarily based on an individual’s key formative years of political socialization usually defined as that period from mid-adolescence to early adulthood (age 15 to 25) (Grasso, 2014). An individual’s political orientation between left and right or radicalism and conservatism tends to emerge in these formative years and remain stable thereafter (Ghitza and Gelman, 2014; Prior, 2010). We draw on commonly used categories of political cohorts or generations (Grasso, 2014; Van Deth and Elff, 2000):

Pre-Second World War: those born between 1910 and 1930, whose formative years tended to be marked by relative conservatism, economic depression and war;

Post-war: those born between 1931 and 1945, whose formative years occurred in the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s, a period of reconstruction in Europe and emergence of social-democratic regimes;

The 1960s or protest generation: those born between 1946 and 1960, whose formative years were shaped by affluence and radicalism;

The 1980s generation: born after 1960 and whose formative years in the 1970s and 1980s occurred in a period of increasing conservatism and economic retrenchment.

Using the cohort effect allows us to explore, first, the likely shifts in the attachment of different generations to democracy and democratic culture. Given the trends towards authoritarianism and new right-wing parties discussed earlier, those born in the pre-war, post-war and 1960s generations might be expected show a greater commitment and attachment to a democratic culture than the 1980s generation. We predict that both union and non-union respondents born in the earlier generations will have greater levels of political participation and a stronger commitment to democracy (Hypothesis 3).

A second focus is on how historical changes in union movements may have affected their capacity to provide opposition in the workplace and to forge solidarities. The impact of a social group depends on the power that it is perceived to possess by others, the degree and extent of activism and crucially the number of members involved (Latané, 1981). Two major sources of union power are the number of workers in trade unions and the political influence they possess. Undoubtedly, a primary source of organized power for trade unions is membership strength (Traxler et al., 2001). The extent of union presence and power is typically measured by the proportion of the employed labour force in membership of a union. European countries generally display a similar trend of low union density before 1950 followed by a steady increase to 1980 to over 50 percent in many countries and then a decline that accelerated after 2000 (Wallerstein and Western, 2000). The growing presence of unions in the workplace after 1950 was accompanied by increased confrontation as measured by strike levels (Van der Velden et al., 2007). After the 1970s, the incidence of strike activity against employers declined dramatically in Western Europe, whether measured by days lost, numbers of strikes or workers involved (Piazza, 2005). Declining membership and reduced strike levels are likely to have reduced the influence and visibility of unions in the workplace and weakened their capacity to provide a vibrant opposition. In addition, the decline in union numbers occurred in the context of the increasing marginalization of trade unions from the centre of political power. Between 1950 and 1980, social-democratic parties and governments reached a peak of political influence. Corporatist agreements between unions, employers and governments were pervasive in many European countries and provided unions and their members with considerable power and influence over a wide range of political and workplace matters (Kitschelt et al., 1999). Thus, union members in the 1960s generation are likely to have experienced more confrontational unions with greater political and workplace influence. Conversely, union members born after 1960, whose formative years were shaped by increasingly liberalized markets and political conservatism, with declining numbers in trade unions, are likely to have a weaker attachment to democratic values compared with the previous generation. We predict the gap in participation levels and commitment to democracy is likely to be greater between union and non-union workers in the 1960s generation compared with union and non-union workers in the 1980s generation (Hypothesis 4). Prior generations were born into turbulent times with extreme political and economic dislocations, and hence it is more difficult to specify the relationship between union membership and democratic culture.

Social class, education and country effects

The relationship between union membership and democratic participation and values may vary depending on a number of characteristics, including social class and country. Social class position is best measured in the EVS by educational and income levels. Consistently, those with higher levels of education are associated with a greater commitment to democratic culture and are more active politically than those with low levels of education (for the USA, see Bruce et al., 2014). Similarly, those in the lower classes are less likely to engage in political activities and have a weaker commitment to the institutions of democracy than members of higher social classes. While many other factors may also determine attitudes, such as country-specific political patterns over time, unique historical and personal events such as economic depressions and individual downwards or upwards mobility, they are outside the scope of our analysis.

The relationship between union membership and political participation and commitment to democracy should hold regardless of institutional and historical differences in industrial relations regimes. Changes in union membership and influence have been attributed to a range of institutional factors such as the nature of collective bargaining, labour legislation and the ‘Ghent’ system of unemployment insurance (Ebbinghaus et al., 2011; Scheuer, 2011). Union density and collective bargaining coverage differ across the countries studied and may influence the effect of union membership on participation and commitment to democracy. In the multivariate analysis, we control for these factors by grouping countries according to collective bargaining coverage: low in the UK and Ireland; medium in Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain; and high in Sweden, Belgium, France and Finland. Countries were also grouped by levels of union density: low in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain; medium in the UK, Ireland, Belgium and Italy; and high in Sweden, Finland and Denmark (European Commission, 2015). Figure 1 illustrates a model of the basic concepts and attendant relationships we propose to test. Attachment and commitment to democracy are predicted to be enhanced by the engagement of union members in the collective bargaining process and their experience of collectives and representation regardless of biographical characteristics, generation and industrial relations regime.

Figure 1.

A model of union membership, democratic orientation and generational change.

Data and methods

The EVS is a large-scale, cross-national and longitudinal survey on how Europeans think about family, work, religion, politics and society. Respondents are interviewed individually and the survey is repeated every 9 years. Four waves of the survey were conducted in European and other countries, and the integrated longitudinal file 1981–2008 provides our dataset. Our analysis is based on 45,627 respondents from three waves of the EVS carried out in 1990, 1999 and 2008 and includes 11 European countries. The number of respondents by cohort are as follows: pre-war, 6099; post-war, 9458; 1960s generation, 17,186; 1980s generation, 12,123; and missing, 761.

Measures of political participation and attachment to democracy

Measures of political participation or action are commonly divided into conventional and non-conventional forms. Since all forms of political action seek to achieve some form of collective good and attempt to influence the political decision-making process, it could be argued that joining a trade union is a political act in itself (Grasso, 2014). Certainly, many of the goods that trade unions seek can be classified as public goods, and union movements constantly pursue influence over decisions and policies in the political arena (Freeman and Medoff, 1984). However, apart from the leadership and a relatively small core of activists, the main bulk of union members take little part in the political aspects of the union. Research indicates that union members are more likely to join unions for instrumental and security reasons than because it represents an extension of their ideological and political beliefs (D’Art and Turner, 1999, 2007); Consequently, in our analysis joining a union is discounted as a political act in itself and, as noted above, the possibility of a political spillover from membership arises from the everyday experience of the collective bargaining process.

Controls

The cohort category is based on a respondent’s year of birth. Each respondent is assigned to a particular generation based on the historic formative period of their generation during which they have spent the majority of their formative years. Combining the three waves of the EVS allows a comparison of respondents born from 1920 up to 1990. To address the true cohort effect on attitudes to democracy requires that the distinctive generation and age effects be separated. Since the three EVS surveys measure a respondent’s level of political participation and commitment to democracy at the time of the survey, rather than during their actual formative years, it is important to attempt to disentangle the age and cohort effect to ensure the result is a function of being born in a particular generation and not due to the ageing process. Thus, in the multivariate analysis a respondents age squared (or the natural log of age) is used to disentangle the possible conflating effects of generation and age. A second possible issue is that the survey waves only measure union membership at the time of the survey and not necessarily in a respondent’s formative years. Political generations theory suggests that experiences in formative years have a substantial influence on democratic participation and values, and though theoretically union membership is not necessarily tied to a respondent’s formative years, the coincidence of both may have an added effect. In any case, the little extant evidence available of when workers first join a trade union indicates that in the case of the USA, 50 percent were unionized by age 23 and three-quarters by age 27 (Budd, 2010).

Results

Union members are more likely to engage in both conventional and non-conventional political participation (Table 1). There is a statistically significant and positive difference between union and non-union respondents across all measures. Union members are almost three times more likely to belong to a political party and/or engage in local politics. Up to 70 percent of union members would sign a petition compared with 50 percent of non-union respondents and are twice as likely to join a boycott. Members are significantly more likely to attend a lawful demonstration and to a lesser extent to occupy buildings and factories. These results show a consistent and positive relationship between union membership and political participation and appear to confirm Hypothesis 1.

Table 1.

Union membership and political participation, three waves (%).

	Conventional participation		T-tests
	Yes	No
Belong to party and/or engage in local politics
Member	17	83	**
Non-member	6	94
Vote in general election^a
Member	95	5	**
Non-member	87	13
	Non-conventional participation^b
Have signed/would sign petition
Member	70	8	**
Non-member	54	17
Have joined/would join boycott
Member	23	31	**
Non-member	11	51
Have attended/would attend demonstration
Member	38	22	**
Non-member	25	38
Have occupied/would occupy buildings
Member	5	75	**
Non-member	4	79

Only available for wave 2008.

Responses to these questions are: yes, maybe and would never.

p < 0.01; **p < 0.001.

Commitment to a democratic system of government is measured by how far respondents are attached to the democratic process and their beliefs in the effectiveness of a democratic system. Union members score higher, with 80 percent believing that having a strong leader without a parliament and elections is very or fairly bad compared with 75 percent of non-union respondents (Table 2). Similarly, significantly more union members (59 percent) indicate that having experts not government to make decisions is very/fairly bad compared with 49 percent of non-union respondents. The difference in attitudes between union and non-union respondents towards having the army rule the country is significant though not as large as the previous measures.

Table 2.

Commitment to democracy, two waves (%).

Attachment to the democratic system of government
	Very good	Fairly good	Fairly bad	Very bad	Pearson test
Strong leader without elections
Member	5	15	27	53	**
Non-member	7	18	28	47
Experts make decisions
Member	7	33	34	25	**
Non-member	11	40	30	19
Having army rule
Member	1	3	15	81	**
Non-member	1	4	19	76
Effectiveness of a democratic system of government
	Strongly agree	Agree	Disagree	Strongly disagree
Having democratic system
Member	65	31	4	1	**
Non-member	53	40	5	2
Democracy better
Member	57	38	4	1	**
Non-member	50	43	6	2
In democracy, economy runs badly
Member	2	14	61	23	**
Non-member	5	24	54	17
Democracies: too much squabbling
Member	5	36	45	14	**
Non-member	11	42	37	10
Democracies not good at order
Member	3	14	57	26	**
Non-member	5	22	52	21

p < 0.01; **p < 0.001.

Non-union respondents are significantly less likely to believe in the importance of having a democratic political system: 53 percent strongly agree compared with 65 percent of members. They are also less likely to accept that though democracy has problems, it is better than other governments: 50 percent of non-unionists agree strongly compared with 57 percent of members. Fewer union members are likely to agree or strongly agree (16 percent) that in a democracy, the economic system runs badly compared with 29 percent of non-unionists. Significantly more non-unionists (53 percent) either agree or strongly agree that democracies are indecisive, with too much squabbling compared with 41 percent of unionists; and 27 percent of non-unionists compared with 17 percent of union members believe that democracies are not good at maintaining order. Taken together, the evidence from the measures of attachment and effectiveness tend to support Hypothesis 2.

In each of the four generations, union members score significantly higher than non-unionists on the conventional and non-conventional political measures, and the differences are statistically significant (Table 3). The pattern is similar, with union members significantly scoring higher than non-unionist on almost all measures.

Table 3.

Participation and commitment to democracy by cohort (mean score on all items reported with measures of significance using T-tests reported).

	Political participation (three waves)
	Conventional		Non-conventional		Attachment		Effective
	Union	Non-union	Union	Non-union	Union	Non-union	Union	Non-union
Pre-war	0.32	0.07**	1.7	1.47**	3.17	3.12ns	3.04	3.0ns
Post-war	0.26	0.08**	1.91	1.65**	3.24	3.13**	3.17	3.01**
1960s generation	0.18	0.07**	2.06	1.85**	3.34	3.16**	3.24	3.04**
1980s generation	0.12	0.05**	2.01	1.9**	3.22	3.13**	3.17	3.02**

p < 0.01; **p < 0.001.

In the main the results confirm Hypothesis 3, particularly for union members: respondents born in the earlier generations have higher levels of political participation and a stronger commitment to democracy. The positive gap in conventional political participation levels between union and non-union respondents has consistently declined from the pre-war generation to the 1980s generation (Figure 2, available in the Supplemental Appendix). The non-conventional participation gap between union and non-union respondents peaked in the post-war generation and declined in the 1960s and 1980s generations. Conversely, the gap between union and non-union respondents on the attachment and effective measures peaked in the 1960s generation and dropped in the 1980s generation. This provides some support for Hypothesis 4, that the gap in participation levels and commitment to democracy between union and non-union workers is likely to be greater in the 1960s generation than the 1980s generation, though the gap in political participation levels was greater in the pre- and post-war generations.

Overall, the descriptive results indicate a consistent and statistically significant relationship between union membership and our measures of political participation and commitment to democracy. Using binary and linear regression, we test whether the positive relationship between union membership and political participation and commitment to democracy remains significant when controlling for age-related changes, respondents’ social class as measured by income level and education, and collective bargaining coverage (Table 4, available in the Supplemental Appendix). Union members are nearly three times as likely to engage in conventional forms of political participation and more than twice as likely to vote in the next general election compared with non-unionists, regardless of generation, age, social class and collective bargaining coverage. The post-war generation are more likely to engage in conventional participation than the other generations, and the 1980s generation are least likely to vote. On both the conventional and voting measures, collective bargaining coverage (or union density) has no appreciable effect on the strength of the union membership measure though respondents in high- and medium-coverage countries are more likely to vote compared with low-coverage countries.

Union members are also more likely to engage in non-conventional forms of political participation, controlling for generation, age, social class and bargaining coverage. The standardized beta coefficient for union membership is relatively large and statistically significant. The impact of union membership on both measures of commitment to democracy is statistically significant. Respondents from the 1980s generation are likely to have a weaker attachment to democracy than the other generations. Higher levels of income and education have the expected effect on attachment and commitment to democracy. Overall, the multivariate results confirm our conclusion based on the descriptive data that union members are associated with significantly increased levels of political participation and commitment to democracy when compared with non-unionists, controlling for cohort effects, income and educational levels, and a country’s bargaining coverage.

Conclusion

We proposed a theoretical association between the central elements of contestation and the formation of solidarities at the core of the political theory of radical democracy and the experiences workers gain from involvement as union members in the collective bargaining process. A crucial element of this process is the capacity of union members to challenge and contest conditions in the workplace. In the radical democracy perspective, the essential building blocks for pluralism are contestation and the creation of collectives with a sense of identity that allows for distinctive different political choices. Our main argument is that trade unions and union membership are more likely to develop in workers the capacities to participate as citizens in the democratic process than for workers in non-union environments. Overall, the descriptive and multivariate results showed a consistent and significant positive relationship between union membership and levels of political participation and commitment to democracy. Union members are more likely to engage in political activities and hold more positive attitudes towards democracy than non-unionists, across the 11 European countries. This positive relationship holds even in countries where union density and collective bargaining coverage are low. Levels of participation and commitment to democracy varied across the generations with both union and non-union respondents born before the 1980s generation having higher levels of political participation and a stronger commitment to democracy. The gap in participation levels and commitment to democracy was greater between union and non-union workers in the 1960s generation than in the 1980s generation.

Yet, despite the support for a positive relationship between union membership and political participation and commitment to democracy, the theorized connection between the pluralist conditions of democracy and the formative experiences of union membership and collective bargaining remain merely suggestive, but plausible. The cross-sectional nature of the data from the EVS and the fusing of two complex and sociologically rich areas of analysis of politics and work caution against any claim of causal linkages. For example, the effects of union membership on participation and commitment to democracy are likely to differ depending on the extent and militancy of the union presence. Similarly non-union firms are likely to vary on a spectrum from relatively participative to strongly authoritarian, with differential effects on non-union respondents. A more serious challenge is the possibility that workers who join trade unions already possess a stronger ideological orientation towards political participation and democracy than other workers. Union members in this scenario would select to work in a unionized environment consistent beliefs while other workers would either be indifferent to a firm’s union status or elect not to join a union. Any significant gap between union and non-union workers in participation and attitudes towards democracy would then arise from the pre-work characteristics of individuals and not from involvement in the collective bargaining process. However, the evidence indicates that few workers join unions because of their ideological beliefs but because for instrumental motives, including protection from arbitrary management actions. Thus it is unlikely that substantial numbers of workers already predisposed towards political participation and democracy self-select into union membership. Moreover, for such an explanation to be plausible, all workers would require a free choice to join a trade union; yet in many countries there is no union available in the workplace, particularly in the private sector. Overall, research suggests that the direction of causality is more likely to run from union membership to political participation and not the reverse (D’Art and Turner, 2007).

A notable trend in the differences between union and non-union workers is that the positive gap in political participation levels declined since the post-war generation and the positive gap in commitment to democracy peaked in the 1960s generation and dropped in the 1980s generation. It appears that the effects of union membership for political participation and attitudes to democracy, though still significant, are weaker for the 1980s generation. A number of factors may account for these trends, such as the secular decline in union density, declining union influence and reduced strike levels, increasing employer hostility to trade unions and the pervasive neoliberal culture that views trade unions as redundant legacies of the past. From a democratic perspective, the decline in union density and the dilution of the collective bargaining effect is likely to increase the drift towards populist and authoritarian forms of government.

Supplemental Material

Turner_et_al_online_supp – Supplemental material for Does union membership matter? Political participation, attachment to democracy and generational change

Supplemental material, Turner_et_al_online_supp for Does union membership matter? Political participation, attachment to democracy and generational change by Thomas Turner, Lorraine Ryan and Michelle O’Sullivan in European Journal of Industrial Relations

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Author biographies

Thomas Turner is Professor in Industrial Relations in the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland.

Lorraine Ryan is Lecturer in Employment Relations in the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland.

Michelle O’Sullivan is Senior Lecturer in Industrial Relations in the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, Ireland.

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