Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines the impact of organized labor in elections particularly in the 1990s. The central finding is that labor has managed to maintain a high degree of influence in elections by maximizing the voter turnout of union members and their households through grassroots political mobilization. Even though union density in the workforce has declined, labor remains a potent electoral force because the turnout of union members and their households has gone up while turnout in the general electorate has gone down. Union households represented 26 percent of the electorate in 1980 when union members were 22 percent of the workforce. By the 2000 elections union density had declined considerably to 14 percent of the workforce but union households again represented 26 percent of the electorate. The paper examines why voter turnout among union households declined in the early nineties, particularly in 1994 when union households were a record low 14 percent of the electorate and the Republicans took control of Congress, and why it has increased in subsequent elections including the mobilization efforts of the newly revitalized AFL-CIO leadership.