Working Conditions, Personal Experience, and Partisan Labor Policy Preferences

• In Event: From Shop Floors to Work from Home: Workplace Determinants of Political Behavior

Abstract

Do Republican workers and Democratic workers hold similar views on pro-union labor policy? Extensive research in American political behavior suggests individuals absorb the views of their party and therefore Republicans and Democrats should hold vastly different views on labor policy. However, much of this research overlooks and underestimates the potentially meaningful role of personal experience in policy preferences. A key constraint has been the absence of data on political attitudes, partisanship, and working conditions contained within a single source. This study draws on original data from The Shift Project that includes 5,425 individuals working in the service sector to examine the relationship between partisanship, direct experience with poor working conditions, and pro-union labor policy preferences. We develop a novel eleven-item index of workers' working conditions and find that partisanship is influential in shaping policy preferences among workers who experience relatively good working conditions. For such workers, in line with party-driven attitudes, Democrats are more supportive of easing unionization than are Republicans. However, we find that there is a convergence of policy preferences as workers’ working conditions deteriorate. For workers subject to high levels of precarity, we find there is alignment on labor policy preferences with Republicans and Republicans and Democrats all largely supportive of policy to make unionizing easier. The results suggest that both partisanship and personal experience are important factors in shaping policy preferences, but the worse a job is, the less partisanship and politics affect policy preferences and the more workers embrace common and shared goals on policy that affects the workplace.

Authors

• Gregory Lyon, Georgetown University

• Daniel Schneider