U.S. Union Members And Leaders Are Not Always On The Same Page

The saying goes, “don’t ask the question if you don’t want to know the answer”. US labour leaders have taken that advice to heart, largely declining to poll their membership on what political positions their unions should take. The problem is that, for many of them, their own progressive instincts are often woefully disconnected from the views of their members.

Public polling typically shows union members are only slightly to the left of the general public. Nearly three-quarters of potential private-sector union members, who work full-time in non-supervisory roles, say they would prefer organisations to stay out of politics and focus only on the workplace. Among those who say they would not vote to join a union, “union political involvement” is the top reason cited. Still, the labour movement’s leftward tilt survives on the circular logic that unions support Democrats, which goes to show the Democratic party is the pro-worker one, so that’s who they support.

At least, it survived until last month, when the International Brotherhood of Teamsters took the extraordinary step of releasing its own extensive internal polling data to explain its decision not to endorse a presidential candidate. Among Teamsters members, Donald Trump led Kamala Harris by more than 25 points.