The Politics of Union Decline: The Contingent Determinants of Union Recognition Elections and Victories

Abstract

Despite the close political regulation of union recognition disputes, sociologists have paid little attention to recent political determinants of success in these contests. A state-centered political-opportunity approach suggests that if conservative political officials can reduce the number of union recognition elections, union organization will be blocked. Partly because many labor scholars claim there was a postwar departure in labor movement fortunes, we attempt to detect and model a contingent break in the relationship between Republican control of the presidency and these elections using interactive specifications. Our findings show that shortly after the conservative, anti-union Reagan administration took office, recognition elections, and union victories in these elections, fell sharply. With macroeconomic and other determinants held constant, other political conditions with explanatory power include congressional oversight committee ideology and conservative appointments to the key regulatory agency. Our findings support political accounts and also suggest that unions' failures to organize new workplaces were sustained by subsequent conservative administrations.