Solidarity in times of inequality: trade union politics and union membership effects

(1)

Thesis

Reference

Solidarity in times of inequality: trade union politics and union membership effects

MOSIMANN, Nadja

Abstract

Europe has been marked by many profound changes since the 1980s. Among those prominently discussed in the political economy literature are the massive decline in trade union membership, the alarming rise in income inequality, and the increasingly disproportionate distribution of labor market risks. This thesis combines these issues and explores how unionization relates to income and risk inequality by investigating the roles of trade unions and trade union membership in the political arena: One article analyzes if and how unions represent high-risk individuals in the legislative arena by lobbying for labor market outsiders in dualization reforms; three articles examine how union membership shapes electoral demand for policies alleviating income and labor market risk inequality and electoral support for left-wing parties in pursuit of such policies. In doing so, this thesis contributes to our understanding of solidarity in the context of inequality and how union decline might fuel inequality.

MOSIMANN, Nadja. Solidarity in times of inequality: trade union politics and union membership effects. Thèse de doctorat : Univ. Genève, 2017, no. SdS 82

DOI : 10.13097/archive-ouverte/unige:103968 URN : urn:nbn:ch:unige-1039682

Available at:

http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:103968

Disclaimer: layout of this document may differ from the published version.

1 / 1

(2)

Solidarity in Times of Inequality

Trade Union Politics and Union Membership Effects

Thèse présentée à la Faculté des sciences de la société de l’Université de Genève

Par Nadja Mosimann

pour l’obtention du grade de Docteure ès sciences de la société mention science politique

Membres du jury de thèse:

Prof. Jonas Pontusson, directeur de thèse, Université de Genève Prof. Simon Hug, président du jury de thèse, Université de Genève Prof. Lucio Baccaro, Université de Genève

Prof. Silja Häusermann, Université de Zurich Prof. David Rueda, Université d’Oxford

Genève, le 10 novembre 2017

(3)

(4)

La Faculté des sciences de la société, sur préavis du jury, a autorisé l’impression de la pré- sente thèse, sans entendre, par-là, émettre aucune opinion sur les propositions qui s’y trou- vent énoncées et qui n’engagent que la responsabilité de leur auteur.

Genève, le 19 décembre 2017

Le doyen

Bernard Debarbieux

(5)

(6)

To my mother.

(7)

(8)

Tables

Article 1

Table 1. Determinants of redistribution support at the individual level, three-level random intercept line-

ar probability models 41

Table 2. Predicted probabilities of support for redistribution conditional on union membership and in-

come (controlling for ideological self-placement) 43 Table 3. Predicted probabilities of support for redistribu-

tion conditional on union membership and age

(controlling for ideological self-placement) 44 Table 4. Predicted probabilities of support for redistribu-

tion conditional on type of unionism, based on two-level linear probability models estimated with separate samples (time-varying macro control var-

iables) 48

Table 5. Predicted probabilities of support for redistribution conditional on type of unionism, based on three-level linear probability models estimated with four-way interaction (time-varying macro

control variables) 49

Table 6. Predicted probabilities of support for redistribution among respondents in countries with different national union movements, based on three-

(15)

level linear probability models estimated with four-way interaction (time-invariant macro con-

trol variables) 49

Article 2

Table 1. Classification of main parties in CSES-4 94

Table 2. Marginal effects of union membership, redistribu-

tion support, and other variables on vote choice 101 Table 3. Marginal effects on union membership, political

sophistication, and other variables on vote choice 106 Table 4. Predicted probabilities of vote choice among

redistribution supporters conditional on union

membership and level of political sophistication 107 Table 5. Marginal effects of union membership, immigra-

tion attitudes, and other variables on vote choice 110 Table 6. Predicted probabilities of vote choice among

redistribution supporters conditional on union

membership and attitudes towards immigration 112

Article 3

Table 1. Four ideal-typical groups differing in their expo-

sure to risk and level of income 141

Table 2. Determinants of support for unemployment in-

surance generosity and differentiation 153

Table 3. Predictions of support for generous and earnings- related unemployment insurance among groups A

to D 155

(16)

Table 4. Determinants of support for unemployment insurance generosity and differentiation including

interactions with union membership 160

Article 4

Table 1. Conditions and directional expectations 188

Table 2. Sample of reforms 189

Table 3. Sample of unions 192

Table 4. Measurement and calibration 199

Table 5. Analysis of necessity 201

Table 6. Sufficient conditions for unions' representation

of outsiders (REP) 203

(17)

(18)

Figures

Article 1

Figure 1. Unions' encompassment and inclusiveness 26

Figure 2. Marginal effects of union membership conditional on income with 95% confidence intervals (con-

trolling for ideological self-placement) 43

Figure 3. Marginal effects of union membership conditional on age with 95% confidence intervals (control-

ling for ideological self-placement) 44

Figure 4. Marginal effects of union membership conditional on Ghent unemployment insurance or employment protection, with 95% confidence inter-

vals 45

Figure 5. Marginal effects of union membership under low- wage unionism conditional on employment pro-

tection, with 95% confidence intervals 52

Figure 6. Movement of countries from earliest to latest

observation, paired-coordinate plot 56

(19)

Article 2

Figure 1. Marginal effects of union membership on vote choice among redistribution supporters and redistribution opponents with 95% confidence inter-

vals 104

Figure 2. Marginal effects of union membership among redistribution supporters conditional on immigration attitudes in ESS 2010 - 2014 with 95% con-

fidence intervals 114

Article 3

Figure 1. The relationship of unemployment insurance generosity and unemployment insurance differen-

tiation with the risk-income correlation 158

Figure 2. Marginal effect of union membership on support for generous unemployment insurance condition-

al on risk with 95% confidence intervals 161

Figure 3. Marginal effect of union membership on probability to support earnings-related unemployment insurance conditional on income with 95% confi-

dence intervals 162

Article 4

Figure 1. Analysis of sufficient conditions (intermediate

solution) 205

(20)

(21)

(22)

Acknowledgements

I remember sitting in a café, pondering whether I should switch my major to political science. Never would I have imagined on what a journey the decision to do so would take me.

A few years later, I am sitting in another café, this dissertation in hand. It makes me think of all the people who have encouraged and accompanied me along the way. They have not only been tremendously helpful in finishing this thesis but also made writing it a lot more fun.

First and foremost, I wish to thank Jonas Pontusson for supervising my thesis. His construc- tive feedback and intellectual brilliance have improved every aspect of this thesis and my work as a scholar in general. I am immensely grateful, Jonas, for your constant support, en- couragement, and patience at every stage of my doctoral studies. I am also indebted to Lucio Baccaro, Silja Häusermann, Simon Hug, and David Rueda for having served as members of my thesis committee. Their detailed and inspiring comments are now reflected in many parts of this dissertation.

During my doctoral studies, I have received generous financial support from the European Research Council and the Swiss National Science Foundation. I would like to thank the Eu- ropean Research Council project 'Unequal Democracies' for having granted me the oppor- tunity to work on this thesis from October 2017 onwards. I would also like to thank the Swiss National Science Foundation for having funded my participation in the Essex Summer

(23)

School in Social Science Data Analysis in 2012 and my research stay at Nuffield College in 2015. I am equally grateful to Nuffield College for having invited me as a junior visiting scholar and especially David Rueda for having acted as my College supervisor during my stay. The year at Nuffield College has significantly improved the quality of this thesis. For having made my time in Oxford even more interesting and enjoyable, I wish to thank Cathe- rine de Vries and Gerda Hoijer.

Throughout my time as a doctoral student, I have benefited a lot from collaborations and conversations with Celine Colombo, Beatrice Eugster, Dominik Geering, Thomas Kurer, Jasmine Lorenzini, Damian Raess, Line Rennwald, Jan Rosset, David Schönholzer, and Hanna Schwander. Moreover, valuable comments have been provided by Despina Alexi- adou, Michael Becher, Paul Marx, Aidan Regan, Jake Rosenfeld, and other participants at the ECPR Joint Sessions 2013 in Mainz, the International Conference of Europeanists 2013 in Amsterdam, the ECPR General Conference 2014 in Glasgow, the SPSA Annual Meeting 2014 in Berne, the IPSA World Congress 2014 in Montréal, the APSA Annual Meeting 2016 in Philadelphia, the EPSA Annual Conference 2017 in Milan, and the International Confer- ence of Europeanists 2017 in Glasgow, as well as workshops at the University of Berne in 2012 and 2016, the University of Konstanz in 2014, and the University of Geneva in 2014.

I am grateful to Sarah Bütikofer, Michael Cemerin, Kurt Imhof, Silja Häusermann, Hanspeter Kriesi, Gesine Krüger, Frank Schubert, Tobias Schulz, and Bruno Wüest for having opened the doors to academia to me during my master’s studies. Thank you, Silja and Hanspeter, in particular, for having encouraged me to embark on this journey as a doctoral student. Moreover, I am thankful to Dominik Geering, Noam Lupu, Line Rennwald, and Jan Rosset for clarifying Stata code; Philipp Rehm for sharing his data on occupational unem-

(24)

ployment risks; Melanie Berner and Marianne Rieter for proofreading; Antoine Champetier, Lisa Marx, Noémi Michel, Line Rennwald, and Nina Eggert for translations to French; and the staff at the parliamentary archives of Germany, Great Britain, and Switzerland as well as Xenia Wassihun for their help with data collection.

Finally, I am immensely thankful for having had my colleagues, friends, and family along for this ride. I thank Alexandra, Dominik, Jasmine, Line, Nina, Noémi, Thomas, and especially Lisa and Simone for making academia the best place to be. To Alexa, Christa, Lena, Melanie, Nina, Simone, Tamaki, Victoria, and Xenia: Thank you for sisterhood and champagne su- pernovas! Fabio, Luciano, Sabina, Tat, Grosi, and the rest of my family always have had my back and I am deeply grateful for that. Thanks also to you, Dad, for having always supported my intellectual curiosity. Mami, you have showed me what women can accomplish and it means the world to me. Thank you for your unwavering support – this one is for you! Above all, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Stefan. Stefan, not only did you tell me about this so-called political science in the first place, but we also have held up the sky together ever since. Am Ende zählt nur die Liebe.

(25)

(26)

Introduction

Europe has been marked by many profound changes since the 1980s. Among those prominently discussed in the political economy literature are the massive decline in trade union membership, the alarming rise in income inequality, and the increasingly disproportionate distribution of labor market risks. This thesis combines these issues and explores how unionization relates to income and risk inequality by investigating the roles of trade unions and trade union membership in the political arena. In doing so, this thesis will show that unions are political allies of workers exposed to labor market risks and that union membership is associated with electoral demand for redistribution and social insurance. Most important, this thesis will highlight how unions and union members are willing to "moderate the pursuit of their own economic self-interest to help the disadvantaged" (Banting and Kymlicka 2017: 1).

Ultimately, this thesis thus contributes to our understanding of solidarity in the context of inequality and how union decline might fuel inequality.

(27)

The progressively unequal distribution of income is widely recognized as a pivotal character- istic of capitalist democratic societies. A puzzling feature of this rise in income inequality is the simultaneous lack of new redistributive policies since more citizens arguably stand to gain from redistribution as inequality rises (e.g., Iversen and Soskice 2009, Pontusson 2013). One could argue that the concentration of labor market risks among low-income individuals (Rehm, Hacker, and Schlesinger 2012), partially explains the absence of new redistributive measures: In as far as low-income individuals have become disproportionately affected by unemployment, welfare losses, poverty, and other risks, those benefitting from redistribution are the ones lacking political representation. Existing research not only shows turnout to be low among low-income and high-risk individuals (e.g., Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995, Giger, Rosset, and Bernauer 2012, Gilens 2014, Rovny and Rovny 2017) but also reveals channels beyond political participation by which high-income and low-risk individuals influence politics (e.g., Bartels 2008, Gilens 2005, Hacker and Pierson 2010, Rueda 2007).

A similar argument is made by the literature on labor market dualization where it results, among other things, in the absence of generous social insurance, that is, generous public provisions in case a labor market risk occurs. Dualization refers to the implementation of policies that differentiate rights, entitlements, and services provided to separate categories of individuals (Emmenegger et al. 2012: 10). Within this process, politically well-represented insiders, that is, persons in regular employment, are sheltered from labor market risks where- as politically marginalized outsiders, that is, unemployed or atypically employed persons, are more and more exposed to these risks (see Seeleib-Kaiser, Saunders, and Naczyk 2012, Rov- ny and Rovny 2017). In as far as risk inequality lessens political support for social insurance from labor market insiders, dualization renders the implementation of generous social insurance ultimately more complicated and unlikely (see Rueda 2007, Palier 2010).

(28)

To the extent that unions lobby for marginalized groups of workers in the legislative arena, and union membership increases demand for redistribution and social insurance in the electoral arena, the massive decline in union density across Europe since the 1980s would also appear to be highly relevant in explaining the lack of new redistributive politics and welfare state retrenchment (see Pontusson 2013). The period since 1980 has not only seen a substan- tial drop in union membership rates, these last decades have also been characterized by a general weakening of organized labor. Baccaro and Howell (2011) or Brugiavini et al. (2000) find, for instance, that collective bargaining has become increasingly decentralized, while Visser (2016) emphasizes the pervasive decrease in collective bargaining coverage. At the same time, recent research also highlights the persistent negative relationship between bargaining coverage and wage inequality (Visser 2016) or union density and wage inequality (Pontusson 2013, OECD 2011), and links union strength to generally low incidences of labor market risks (Hassel 2015).

From early on, studies on income inequality have demonstrated that strong unions mitigate income inequality through solidaristic wage bargaining in the industrial relations arena, especially when high levels of unionization coincide with relatively centralized wage bargaining institutions that allow unions to push for wage compression.¹ Unions' track record is more mixed when it comes to labor market risk inequality, and a number of authors even assume unions' strategies in the industrial arena to foster risk inequality (e.g. Lindbeck and Snower 1988, Holmlund and Zetterberg 1991, Saint-Paul 1997, 2000, Teulings and Hartog 1998, Keune 2015). There is, in contrast, consensus in the comparative welfare state literature that the collective organization of workers has been crucial in implementing generous and redistributive social policies in the political arena (e.g., Esping-Andersen 1985, 1990, Huber and Stephens 2001). Moreover, recent research shows that union density continues to be associ-

(29)

ated with generous and redistributive social policies in the context of risk and income inequality (e.g., Vlandas 2011, Pontusson 2013, Gordon 2015).

Yet, research that uncovers the mechanisms through which unionization affects the provi- sion of generous and redistributive social policies by its impact in the political arena is scarce.² This thesis addresses this lacuna: On the one hand, unions are likely to make use of eventual affiliations with political parties, partake in public political debates, and lobby for certain policies in legislative processes (see Brugiavini et al. 2000, Hacker and Pierson 2010).

On the other hand, union membership is likely to be associated with electoral demand for redistribution and social insurance (see Korpi 1983). One article of this thesis thus analyzes if and how unions are representing high-risk individuals in the political arena by lobbying for labor market outsiders in dualization reforms. The other three articles of this thesis explore how union membership shapes preferences for policies alleviating income and labor market risk inequality, and how union membership affects electoral support for left-wing parties in pursuit of such policies.

These latter papers are based on the assumption that union membership affects electoral demand for redistribution and social insurance in three ways: First, union membership increases support for redistribution and social insurance among high-income and low-risk individuals known for high political participation rates. Second, union membership raises turnout among low-income and high-risk individuals likely to support redistribution and social insurance but known for low political participation rates. And third, union membership increases left-party voting among supporters of redistribution and social insurance.

Studies of redistribution and social insurance preferences at the micro-level that control for union membership consistently find union membership to increase support for redistribution and social insurance (e.g., Iversen and Soskice 2001, Finseraas 2008, Kwon 2013, Häu-

(30)

sermann, Kurer, and Schwander 2015). In addition, a large body of literature shows that union members are not only more likely to vote but also more likely to vote for left-wing parties than non-union members (e.g., Kerrissey and Schofer 2013, Arndt and Rennwald 2015).³

The first three articles of this thesis focus on these channels by which union membership shapes electoral demand for redistribution and social insurance. They discuss union membership effects labeled solidarity, enlightenment, and saliency. According to the solidarity effect of union membership, union membership is a source of preferences that cut against one's material self-interest (see Ahlquist and Levi 2013, Iversen and Soskice 2015). The enlightenment effect of union membership refers to the idea of union membership as source of political information pertaining to public policies and party platforms. The saliency effect of union membership rests on the assumption that union members think of issues related to income and labor market risk inequality as important when it comes to party choice. While solidarity and enlightenment effects of union membership will be important in the first and third article, enlightenment and saliency effects of union membership will be discussed in the second article.

The first article of this thesis, co-authored with Jonas Pontusson, focuses on the effect of union membership on individuals' support for redistribution. Union membership appears in the existing literature on redistribution preferences, if at all, only as a control variable. Studies that include union membership, however, invariably find that union members are more likely to support redistribution than non-union members (e.g., Rueda 2012). Checchi, Visser, and van der Werfhorst (2010) suggest that union members' support for redistribution may simply be due to self-selection, that is, the fact that individuals with egalitarian values are more likely to join unions. The aim of this first article of the thesis is to propose alternatives to the self- selection hypothesis suggested by Checchi, Visser, and van der Werfhorst. Jonas Pontusson

(31)

and I hypothesize that the wage-bargaining practices of unions promote egalitarian distributive norms inducing support for redistribution among union members, and that this effect is strongest among high-income individuals. This solidarity effect of union membership will be most pronounced when unions encompass a very large share of the labor force or primarily organize low-wage workers.

The second article of this thesis explores how union membership conditions the degree to which redistribution support translate into votes for left-wing parties. Research on the electoral behavior of individuals has neglected redistribution preferences as a determinant of vote choice in the past years. Many of these studies assume that economic and social policies are more and more constrained by factors exogenous to national political systems and party choice therefore informed by attitudes towards cultural issues such as immigration or the nation rather than economic preferences (e.g., Frank 2004, Kriesi et al. 2008). Recent studies that examine the effect of redistribution preferences on vote choice, however, show that redistribution support continues to render individuals more likely to support left-wing parties in pursuit of redistributive politics (see Rueda and Stegmueller 2016, Fossati and Häuser- mann 2014). While these studies fail to explain how individuals obtain the political knowledge on which such an informed party choice is based, a recent contribution by Iversen and Soskice (2015) defines union membership as a source of such political information. In their role as political discussion networks, unions provide relevant economic and political information to their members and prompt them to become politically informed.

The aim of this second article of the thesis is to suggest that redistribution preferences re- main an important determinant of vote choice among union members. I argue that union members are thinking of economic issues as their top concern in the run-up to an election because unions disseminate information pertaining to income and risk inequality among their

(32)

members (see Francia and Bigelow 2010).⁴ This saliency effect of union membership will be biggest among individuals cross-pressured in their party choice by leftist redistribution preferences and rightist attitudes on the cultural dimension. I also suggest that union members are informed about how party platforms relate to their policy preferences because union members actively acquire political information relevant to party choice and are passively exposed to such information. This enlightenment effect of union membership will be strongest when individuals lack political sophistication.

The third article of this thesis is interested in the effect of union membership on individuals' support for generous and redistributive social insurance, that is, generous and earnings- unrelated public provisions in case of income loss. Research on the effects of union membership on electoral demand for social insurance is lacking, and the multi-dimensionality of social insurance design is equally neglected in studies on individuals' social policy preferences. Studies that include union membership as a control variable invariably observe that union membership increases individuals' likelihood to support social insurance designed in a generous and/or redistributive way (e.g., Gelissen 2000, Iversen and Soskice 2001, Arts and Gelissen 2001, Häusermann, Kurer and Schwander 2015). The aim of this third article of the thesis is to propose ways by which union membership and the possibility to design social policy in a more or less redistributive way relate to the formation of electoral coalitions in favor of generous and redistributive social insurance. Mirroring the argument in the first article of this thesis, I hypothesize that the solidaristic behavior and rhetoric of unions with regard to social insurance create solidaristic principles and distributive norms that union members adopt as their own and thus encourage union members to join society wide risk pools.⁵ This solidarity effect of union membership will be most pronounced among low-risk and high-income individuals, and thus strengthen the formation of electoral coalitions in support of generous and redistributive social insurance.

(33)

The way in which unions shape electoral demand for social insurance represents one mode by which unionization might affect risk inequality, the way in which unions lobby for certain measures in policy reforms pertaining to risk inequality represents another. A final article of this thesis is thus interested in union politics in the context of dualization. By focusing on the position of unions in dualization reforms, the article investigates whether unions (a) aggra- vate risk inequality by politically representing labor market insiders or (b) lessen risk inequality by politically representing labor market outsiders. While the dualization literature assumes unions to champion the interests of insiders, the revitalization literature and findings at the macro-level imply that unions display solidarity with outsiders.⁶

Existing studies on the political representation of insiders and outsiders allow important insights into union politics and political dynamics in the context of risk inequality.⁷ They are, however, bound at the national level, restricted to qualitative accounts of single cases, and mainly interested in employment protection legislation. Conversely, the fourth article of this thesis explores cross-country, cross-union, cross-sectoral, and cross-reform differences of union politics in the context of risk inequality. I discuss three explanations for why unions might display solidarity with outsiders: (a) Unions may organize a fair number of outsiders or seek to organize them, (b) unions may be motivated by ideological considerations, and (c) the interests of insiders may be less straightforward than commonly assumed.

The remainder of this thesis contains the four papers introduced in this chapter: A first article, co-authored with Jonas Pontusson, that looks at how union membership affects redistribution preferences, a second article that analyzes how union membership relates to vote choice, a third article that focuses on the effects of union membership on social insurance preferences, and a fourth article that investigates the lobbying activities of unions in policy

(34)

reforms pertaining to risk inequality. The thesis ends with a concluding chapter that summa- rizes the main findings of these articles and reflects on their broader implications.

(35)

References

Ahlquist, John S., and Margaret Levi. 2013. In the Interest of Others: Organizations and Social Ac- tivism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Ahlquist, John S., Amanda B. Clayton, and Margaret Levi. 2014. "Provoking Preferences:

Unionization, Trade Policy, and the ILWU Puzzle." International Organization 68, no.

1: 33-75.

Aidt, Toke, and Zafiris Tzannatos. 2001. The cost and benefits of collective bargaining: a survey.

Washington: World Bank.

Arndt, Christoph, and Line Rennwald. 2015. "Union members at the polls and the dilemmas of social democracy." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Polit- ical Science Association, San Francisco, September 3-6.

Arts, Wil, and John Gelissen. 2001. "Welfare States, Solidarity and Justice Principles: Does the Type Really Matter?" Acta Sociologica 44, no. 4: 283-299.

Baccaro, Lucio, and Chris Howell. 2011. "A Common Neoliberal Trajectory: The Transfor- mation of Industrial Relations in Advanced Capitalism." Politics & Society 39, no. 4:

521-563.

Baccaro, Lucio, Kerstin Haman, and Lowell Turner. 2003. "The Politics of the Labor Movement Revitalization: The Need for a Revitalized Perspective." Cornell Univer- sity, ILR School. At http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/ articles/761/.

Banting, Keith, and Will Kymlicka. 2017. The Strains of Commitment: The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bartels, Larry. 2008. Unequal Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Bélanger, Eric. 2003. "Anti-Partyism and Third-party Vote Choice: A Comparison of Cana- da, Britain and Australia." Paper presented at the European Consortium for Political Research Joint Sessions of Workshops, Edinburgh, 28 March-2 April 2003.

Béroud, Sophie. 2009. "Organiser les inorganisés: Des expérimentations syndicales entre renouveau des pratiques et échec de la syndicalisation." Politix 22, no. 85: 127-146.

Blau, Francine D., and Lawrence M. Kahn. 1996. "International difference in Male wage inequality." Journal of Political Economy 104, no. 4: 791-837.

Brugiavini, Agar, Bernhard Ebbinghaus, Richard Freeman, Pietro Garibaldi, Bertil Holmund, Martin Schludi, and Thierry Verdier. 2000. "What do Unions Do to the Welfare States?" A Report for the Fondazione Rodolfo DeBenedetti.

Card, David, Thomas Lemieux, and W. Craig Riddell. 2003. "Unionization and Wage inequality: A comparative study of the US, the UK, and Canada." NBER Working Pa- per No. 9473.

Checchi, Daniele, Jelle Visser, and Herman G. van de Werfhorst. 2010. "Inequality and Un- ion Membership: The Influence of Relative Earnings and Inequality Attitudes." Brit- ish Journal of Industrial Relations 48, no. 1: 84-108.

(36)

Church, Roy, and Quentin Outram. 1998. Strikes and Solidarity: Coalfield Conflict in Britain, 1889–1966. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Citrin, Jack, Eric Schickler, and John Sides. 2003. "What if Everyone Voted? Simulating the Impact of Increased Turnout in Senate Elections." American Journal of Political Science 47, no. 1: 75-90.

Clark, Paul F., and Marick F. Masters. 2001. "Competing Interest Groups and Union Mem- bers' Voting." Social Science Quarterly 82, no. 1: 105-16.

Clegg, Daniel, Paolo Graziano, and Christa van Wijnbergen. 2010. "Between sectionalism and revitalisation: Trade unions and activation policies in Europe." Working Papers on the Reconciliation of Work and Welfare in Europe, REC-WP 07/2010.

Crewe, Ivor, Anthony D. Fox, and Neil Day. 1995. The British Electorate, 1963–1992: A Com- pendium of Data from the British Election Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Davidsson, Johan. 2009. "The Politics of Employment Policy in Europe: Two Patterns of Reform." Paper presented at the ECPR Conference, April 14-19, 2009, Lisbon.

Delaney, John T., Marick F. Masters, and Susan Schwochau. 1990. "Union Membership and Voting for COPE endorsed Candidates." Industrial and Labor Relations Review 43, no.

5: 621–35.

Ebbinghaus, Bernhard. 2006. "Trade Union Movements in Post-Industrial Welfare States:

Opening up to New Social Interests?" In Klaus Armingeon, and Giuliano Bonoli, eds., The Politics of Post-Industrial Welfare States: Adapting Post-War Social Policies to New Social Risks, 123-142. Abingdon: Routledge.

Edin, Per-Anders, and Bertil Holmlund. 1993. "The Swedish wage structure: the rise and fall of solidarity wage policy." NBER Working Paper 4257.

Emmenegger, Patrick, Silja Häusermann, Bruno Palier, and Martin Seeleib-Kaiser. 2012.

"How We Grow Unequal." In Patrick Emmenegger, Silja Häusermann, Bruno Pal- ier, and Martin Seeleib-Kaiser, eds., The Age of Dualization, 3-26. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

Esping-Andersen, Gøsta. 1985. Politics against Markets. The Social Democratic Road to Power.

Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Esping-Andersen, Gøsta. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Prince- ton University Press.

Finseraas, Henning. 2008. "Income Inequality and Demand for Redistribution: A Multilevel Analysis of European Public Opinion." Scandinavian Political Studies 32, no. 1: 94-119.

Fortin, Nicole M., and Thomas Lemieux. 1997. "Institutional changes and rising wage inequality: Is there a linkage?" Journal of Economic Perspectives 11, no. 2: 75-96.

Fossati, Flavia, and Silja Häusermann. 2014. "Social Policy Preferences and Party Choice in the 2011 Swiss Elections." Swiss Political Science Review 20, no. 4: 590-611.

(37)

Francia, Peter L, and Nathan S. Bigelow. 2010. "Polls and Elections: What's the Matter with the White Working Class? The Effects of Union Membership in the 2004 Presiden- tial Election." Presidential Studies Quarterly 40, no. 1: 140-158.

Frank, Thomas. 2004. What's the matter with Kansas? How conservatives won the heart of America. New York: Metropolitan Books.

Freeman, Richard B. 1980. "Unionism and the Dispersion of Wages." Industrial and Labor Relations Review 34, no. 1: 3-23.

Freeman, Richard B. 1982. "Union Wage Practices and Wage Dispersion within Establish- ments." Industrial and Labour Relations Review 36, no. 1: 3-21.

Freeman, Richard B. 1993. "How much deunionization contributed to the rise in male earnings inequality?" In Sheldon Danziger and Peter Gottschalk, eds., Uneven tides: Rising inequality in America, 133-162. New York: Russell Sage.

Freeman, Richard B. 2003. "What Do Unions Do . . . To Voting?" NBER Working Paper 9992.

Freeman, Richard B., and Lawrence F. Katz. 1995. Differences and changes in Wage structures.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Frege, Carola, and John Kelly. 2004. Varieties of Unionism: Strategies for Union Revitaliza- tion in a Globalizing Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gelissen, John. 2000. "Popular support for institutionalized solidarity: a comparison between European welfare states." International Journal of Social Welfare 9: 285-300.

Giger, Nathalie, Jan Rosset, and Julien Bernauer. 2012. "The Poor Political Representation of the Poor in Comparative Perspective." Representation 48, no. 1: 47-61.

Gilens, Martin. 2005. "Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness." Public Opinion Quarterly 69, no. 5: 778-796.

Gilens, Martin. 2014. Affluence and Influence. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Gordon, Joshua C. 2015. "Protecting the unemployed: varieties of unionism and the evolution of unemployment benefits and active labor market policy in the rich democracies." Socio-Economic Review 13, no. 1: 79-99.

Gumbrell-McCormick, Rebecca. 2011. "European Trade Unions and 'Atypical' Worker."

Industrial Relations Journal 43, no. 3: 293-310.

Hacker, Jacob, and Paul Pierson. 2010. Winner-Take-All Politics. New York: Simon and Schus- ter.

Hassel, Anke. 2015. "Trade unions and the Future of Democratic Capitalism." In Pablo Beramendi, Silja Häusermann, Herbert Kitschelt, and Hanspeter Kriesi, eds., The Pol- itics of Advanced Capitalism, 231-259. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Häusermann, Silja, and Bruno Palier. 2008. "The State of the Art: The politics of employment-friendly welfare reforms in post-industrial economies." Socio-Economic Review 6, no. 3: 1-28.

(38)

Häusermann, Silja, Thomas Kurer, and Hanna Schwander. 2015. "High-skilled outsiders?

Labor market vulnerability, education and welfare state preferences." Socio-Economic Review 13, no. 2: 235-258.

Heery, Edmund, Hazel Conley, and Rick Delbridge. 2004. "Beyond the Enterprise: Trade Union Representation of Freelancers in the United Kingdom." Human Resource Man- agement Journal 14, no. 2: 20-35.

Holmlund, Bertil, and Johnny Zetterberg. 1991. "Insider Effect in Wage Determination."

European Economic Review 35, no. 5: 1009-1035.

Huber, Evelyn, and John Stephens. 2001. Development and Crisis of the Welfare State: Par- ties and Policies in Global Markets. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Iversen, Torben, and David Soskice. 2001. "An Asset Theory of Social Preferences." Ameri- can Political Science Review 95, no. 4: 875-893.

Iversen, Torben, and David Soskice. 2009. "Distribution and Redistribution: The Shadow of the Nineteenth Century" World Politics 61, no. 3: 438-486.

Iversen, Torben, and David Soskice. 2015. "Information, Inequality and Mass Polarization."

Comparative Political Studies 48, no. 13: 1781-1813.

Jensen, Carsten. 2012. "Two sides of the same coin? Left-wing governments and labor unions as determinants of public spending." Socio-Economic Review 10, no. 2: 217-240.

Juravich, Tom, and Peter R. Shergold. 1988. "The Impact of Unions on the Voting Behavior of their Members." Industrial and Labor Relations Review 41, no. 3: 374-85.

Kerrissey, Jasmine, and Evan Schofer. 2013. "Union membership and political participation in the US." Social Forces 91, no. 3: 895-928.

Keune, Maarten. 2015. "Trade unions, precarious work and dualization in Europe." In Wer- ner Eichhorst and Paul Marx, eds., Non-Standard Employment in Post-Industrial Labor Markets: An Occupational Perspective, 378-400. Cheltenham and Northampton, MA:

Edward Elgar.

Kim, Sun Eun, and Yotam Margalit. 2014. "The Impact of Unions on Workers' Political Preferences." Unpublished Paper.

Klausen, Jytte. 1999. "The Declining Significance of Male Workers: Trade-Union Responses to Changing Labor Markets." In Herbert Kitschelt, Peter Lange, Gary Marks, and John D. Stephens, eds., Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism, 261-292.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kloosterboer, Dirk. 2008. "Trade union Strategies to Organise Youth, Ethnic Minorities and Atypical Workers." Economica e Lavoro 42, no. 3: 119-130.

Korpi, Walter. 1983. The Democratic Class Struggle. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Kriesi, Hanspeter, Edgar Grande, Romain Lachat, Martin Dolezal, Simon Bornschier, and Timotheos Frey. 2008. "Globalization and Its Impacts on National Spaces of Com- petition." In Hanspeter Kriesi, Edgar Grande, Romain Lachat, Martin Dolezal, Si-

(39)

mon Bornschier, and Timotheos Frey, eds., West European Politics in the Age of Globali- zation, 3-22. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kwon, Hyeok Yong. 2013. "Solidaristic Union? Group Identity, Electoral Systems and Pref- erences for Redistribution." Paper presented to the Annual Meeting of the European Political Science Association, Barcelona.

Leigh, Andrew. 2006. "How do unionists vote? Estimating the causal impact of union membership on voting behavior from 1966–2004." Australian Journal of Political Science 41, no. 4: 537-52.

Leighley, Jan E., and Jonathan Nagler. 2007. "Unions, Voter Turnout, and Class Bias in the Electorate, 1964-2004." The Journal of Politics 69, no. 2: 430-441.

Leonardi, Salvo. 2008. "Union Organization of Employees in Atypical and Precarious Work in Italy." International Journal of Action Research 4, no. 3: 203-224.

Lindbeck, Assar, and Dennis Snower. 1988. The Insider-Outsider Theory of Employment and Un- employment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Lynch, Samantha, Amanda Pyman, Janis Bailey, and Robin A. Price. 2009. "Union strategies in representing 'new workers': the case of UK retail union." 27th International Labor Process Conference, Edinburgh, UK.

MacKenzie, Robert. 2010. "Why Would Contingent Workers Join a Trade Union? Union Organization of Contingent Workers in the Irish Telecommunications Sector." Eu- ropean Journal of Industrial Relations 16, no. 2: 153-168.

Masters, Marick F., and John T. Delaney. 1986. "Union Political Activities: A Review of the Empirical Literature." Industrial and Labor Relations Review 40, no. 3: 336-353.

Neustadtl, Alan. 1990. "Interest-Group PACs-manship: An Analysis of Campaign Contribu- tions, Issue Visibility, and Legislative Impact." Social Forces 69, no. 2: 549-564.

OECD. 2011. Employment Outlook. Paris: OECD.

Palier, Bruno, ed. 2010. A Long Goodbye to Bismarck? The Politics of Welfare Reform in Continental Europe. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Pernicka, Susanne. 2005. "The Evolution of Union Politics for Atypical Employees: A Com- parison between German and Austrian Trade Unions in the Private Service Sector."

Economic and Industrial Democracy 26, no. 2: 201-224.

Pontusson, Jonas, and David Rueda. 2000. "Wage Inequality and Varieties of Capitalism."

World Politics, 52, no. 3: 350-383.

Pontusson, Jonas, David Rueda, and Christopher R. Way. 2002. "Comparative political economy of wage distribution: The role of partisanship and labor market institutions." British Journal of Political Science 32, no. 2: 281-308.

Pontusson, Jonas. 2013. "Unionization, Inequality and Redistribution." British Journal of Indus- trial Relations 51, no. 4: 797-825.

Radcliff, Benjamin, and Patricia Davis. 2000. "Labor Organization and Electoral Participa- tion in Industrial Democracies." American Journal of Political Science 44, no. 1: 132-141.

(40)

Rehm, Philipp, Jacob S. Hacker, and Mark Schlesinger. 2012. "Insecure Alliances: Risk, Ine- quality, and Support for the Welfare State." American Political Science Review 106, no. 2:

386-406.

Rovny, Allison, and Jan Rovny. 2017. "Outsiders at the Ballot Box: Operationalizations and Political Consequences of the Insider–Outsider Dualism." Forthcoming in Socio- Economic Review.

Rueda, David, and Daniel Stegmueller. 2016. "The Externalities of Inequality: Fear of Crime and Preferences for Redistribution in Western Europe." American Journal of Political Science 60, no. 2: 472-789.

Rueda, David. 2007. Social Democracy Inside Out. Partisanship and Labor Market Policy in Industrialized Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rueda, David. 2012. "Dualization and Crisis." Swiss Political Science Review 18, no. 4: 523-530.

Saint-Paul, Gilles. 1997. Dual Labor Markets. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Saint-Paul, Gilles. 2000. The Political Economy of Labor Market Institutions. Oxford: Oxford Uni- versity Press.

Saltzman, Gregory M. 1987. "Congressional Voting on Labor Issues: The Role of PACs."

Industrial and Labor Relations Review 40, no. 2: 163-179.

Scheve, Kenneth, and David Stasavage. 2009. "Institutions, partisanship and inequality in the long run." World Politics 61, no. 2: 215-253.

Seeleib-Kaiser, Martin, Adam Saunders, and Marek Naczyk. 2012. "Shifting the Public- Private Mix." In Patrick Emmenegger, Silja Häusermann, Bruno Palier, and Martin Seeleib-Kaiser, eds., The Age of Dualization, 151-175. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

Simms, Melanie. 2010. Trade Union Strategies to Recruit New Groups of Workers - United Kingdom. Dublin: European Foundation.

Teulings, Coen, and Joop Hartog. 1998. Corporatism or Competition? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Traxler, Franz, and Bernd Brandl. 2009. "The Economic Effects of Collective Bargaining Coverage." International Labour Office, Global Union Research Network (GURN).

TUC. 1995. Congress Report. London: TUC.

Uhlaner, Carlore J. 1989. "Rational Turnout: The Neglected Role of Groups." American Jour- nal of Political Science 33, no. 2: 390-422.

Verba, Sidney, Kay L. Schlozman, and Henry Brady. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Volunta- rism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Visser, Jelle, and Anton Hemerijck. 1997. A Dutch Miracle. Job Growth, Welfare Reform and Cor- poratism in the Netherlands. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Visser, Jelle. 2002. "The First Part-Time Economy in the World: A Model to Be Followed?"

Journal of European Social Policy 12, no. 1: 23-42.

(41)

Visser, Jelle. 2016. "What happened to collective bargaining during the great recession?" IZA Journal of Labor Policy 5, no. 9: 1-35.

Vlandas, Tim. 2011. "The dependent variable problem in quantitative studies of Active La- bor Market Programs: uncovering hidden dynamics?" Working Papers on the Rec- onciliation of Work and Welfare in Europe, REC-WP 03/11.

Wallerstein, Michael. 1999. "Wage-setting institutions and pay inequality in advanced industrial societies." American Journal of Political Science 43, no. 3: 649-80.

(42)

Notes

1 See, e.g., Freeman 1980, 1982, 1993, Freeman and Katz 1995, Blau and Kahn 1996, Fortin and Lemieux 1997, Wallerstein 1999, Pontusson and Rueda 2000, Aidt and Tzannatos 2001, Pontus- son, Rueda, and Way 2002, Card, Lemieux, and Riddell 2003, Scheve and Stasavage 2009, Traxler and Brandl 2009.

2 See, however, Masters and Delaney 1986, Neustadtl 1990 or Saltzman 1987 on union lobbying;

Leighley and Nagler 2007 or Radcliff and Davis 2000 on unions' impact on turnout; Kim and Margalit 2014, Ahlquist, Clayton, and Levi 2014 or Ahlquist and Levi 2013 on how union membership affects political attitudes.

3 See also Juravich and Shergold 1988, Uhlaner 1989, Delaney, Masters, and Schwochau 1990, Crewe, Fox, and Day 1995, Clark and Masters 2001, Bélanger 2003, Citrin, Schickler, and Sides 2003, Freeman 2003, Leigh 2006.

4 A newsletter from Switzerland's biggest union, dating from March 2017, exemplifies the type of information that unions communicate. In the newsletter, the union links to videos on political and economic subjects on the internet, announces symposia targeted at specific groups of workers, and informs about recent labor market developments by using terms like "inequality," "precariousness," or "solidarity." More specifically, the newsletter pertains to healthcare professionals' exposure to precariousness, how digitalization might increase inequality, and why the introduction of certain labor market policies would mitigate labor market risk exposure among hair stylists. Such information is likely to enlighten hair stylists and healthcare professionals but also likely to increase the saliency of issues related to inequality among other union members receiving the newsletter.

The newsletter is available in German, at: http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=02580 9683c895aaa05 7f304ae&id=057 29d3f55&e= cc9069d3f4, last accessed April 15, 2017.

5 A statement from a representative of the British Transport and General Workers Union in 1995 exemplifies this type of rhetoric with regard to high-risk individuals, that is, atypically employed labor market outsiders: "There are in Britain today near enough six million part-time workers. Be- coming the voice of part-time workers is key to the trade union movement's future (…) because the trade union principles of equality, justice and solidarity with the lowest paid demand it" (TUC 1995: 82).

6 See, e.g., Edin and Holmlund 1993, Church and Outram 1998, Baccaro, Hamann, and Turner 2003, Frege and Kelly 2004, Clegg, Graziano, and van Wijnbergen 2010, Jensen 2012, Gordon 2015, Keune 2015

7 See, e.g., Visser and Hemerijck 1997, Klausen 1999, Visser 2002, Heery, Conley, and Delbridge 2004, Pernicka 2005, Ebbinghaus 2006, Häusermann and Palier 2008, Kloosterboer 2008, Leonardi 2008, Béroud 2009, Davidsson 2009, Lynch et al. 2009, MacKenzie 2010, Simms 2010, Gumbrell-McCormick 2011.

(43)

(44)

Solidaristic Unionism and Support for Redistribution in Contemporary Europe

Nadja Mosimann and Jonas Pontusson, University of Geneva

Abstract

Using data from the European Social Survey (2002-14), this paper explores the effect of union membership on support for redistribution. We hypothesize that the wage-bargaining practices of unions promote egalitarian distributive norms, which lead union members to support redistribution, and that this effect is strongest among high-wage workers. Consistent with our expectations, the empirical analysis shows that the solidarity effect of union membership is strongest when unions encompass a very large share of the labor force or primarily organize low-wage workers. We also show that low-wage workers have become a significantly less important union constituency in many European countries over the time period cov- ered by our analysis.

(45)

Introduction

This article seeks to advance the literature on preferences for redistribution by making the case that more attention ought to be paid to the formative role of the social networks and, more specifically, intermediary organizations. It is fair to say, we think, that the literature to date tends to treat individuals as disconnected from each other. This holds for scholars who emphasize self-interest conceived in terms of income maximization (e.g., Meltzer and Rich- ard 1981) or insurance (Iversen and Soskice 2001), and also for those who introduce other- regarding considerations, such as affinity with the poor (e.g., Alesina and Glaeser 2004) and self-identification with the nation (Shayo 2009). For some proponents of the other-regarding perspective, group membership matters, but the groups to which individuals belong are typically conceived in broad and abstract terms, such as ethnic groups, classes, or nations.

Empirically, we focus on the effects of union membership on preferences for redistribution.

Studies that include union membership as an explanatory variable consistently find that respondents who identify themselves as union members are more likely to support redistribution than other individuals, controlling for income and other socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., Finseraas 2009, Checchi, Visser, and van de Werfhorst 2010). While these studies treat union membership as a control variable, we seek to shed light on "the union effect."¹ With data from the European Social Survey (ESS) covering twenty-one countries over the period 2002-14, we explore how the effect of union membership varies with income and also how it varies across countries and over time.

We draw inspiration from Torben Iversen and David Soskice's recent discussion of social networks and union membership as sources of political attitudes and behavior (Iversen and Soskice 2015). More loosely, we have also been inspired by Putnam's (2000) ideas about membership in voluntary associations as a source of solidarity among individuals with different endowments. For Iversen and Soskice (2015), unions disseminate information and pro-

(46)

vide a venue for political discussion among like-minded people, making union members more aware of their material interests and more sophisticated in choosing among political programs on offer. For Putnam, in contrast, social interaction among members of unions and any number of other voluntary associations breeds trust, tolerance, and willingness to look beyond material self-interest (Putnam 2000: ch.1).

We propose an account of the union effect that differs from Putnam's as well as Iversen and Soskice's. Focusing on distributive norms created by unions, our core argument boils down as follows. Unions that organize low-wage workers typically pursue compression of earnings differentials. The behavior and rhetoric of unions create distributive norms that union members adopt as their own, and these norms induce union members to support redistribution.

Crucially, not all unions are the same: some emphasize wage solidarity more than others. The variation among unions in this respect is in part a function of the percentage of union members drawn from the lower half of the earnings distribution. We do not expect high-wage workers who belong to a union that organizes only high-wage workers to be more support- ive of redistribution than their non-union peers, but we do expect this to be the case for high-wage workers who belong to a union that primarily organizes low-wage workers.

Though distributive norms do not feature in their discussion of unions as "communities of fate," our argument resembles that of Ahlquist and Levi (2013) in several respects. Like Put- nam, and unlike Iversen and Soskice, Ahlquist and Levi argue that union membership can be a source of preferences (or dispositions) that cut against one's material interests. In contrast to Putnam, however, they conceive the formation of solidaristic values as a political process in which union leaders play a critical role. Most important, we join Ahlquist and Levi (2013) in emphasizing the heterogeneity of unions and their internal dynamics.

(47)

Although there are many national and cross-national surveys that allow us to explore how the policy preferences of union respondents differ from those of non-union respondents, we are not aware of any survey that allows us to identify the type of union to which unionized respondents belong. In our empirical analysis, we rely on two country-level variables, union density and union inclusiveness, to capture union heterogeneity across countries and over time. We identify three types of union movements – comprehensive unionism, low-wage unionism, and high-wage unionism – and hypothesize that the effect of union membership on support for redistribution varies across the three types.

The rest of this article is organized as follows. To begin with, we develop our core argument about solidaristic norms generated by union practices, engage with alternative explanations of why union membership is associated with support for redistribution, and articulate the hypotheses that we set out to test. We then introduce the data that we use and define the variables included in our analysis. In a third section, we specify the models that we estimate.

In the fourth section, we present and discuss empirical results that do not take into account union-movement types and in a fifth section, we present and discuss results with union- movement characteristics as conditioning variables. We conclude by summarizing our empirical findings and discussing the implications of union decline for redistributive politics.

Theory and core hypotheses

Earnings inequality has long been a topic of interest to comparative political economists.

One of the most consistent empirical findings in this literature is that unionization is associated across countries and over time with compression of earnings differentials (see, e.g., Rueda and Pontusson 2000, Pontusson 2013, and Vlandas 2016). As commonly noted, in negotiations with employers Nordic union movements have a long history of insisting that wage restraint be solidaristic – meaning that low-wage workers should receive larger percent-

(48)

age increases (or smaller cuts) than high-wage workers. The combination of trade openness and labor encompassment has rendered wage solidarity a particularly prominent feature of Nordic unionism, but wage solidarity in practice and, above all, in rhetoric seems to represent a more generic feature of what unionism is about (Freeman and Medoff 1984). Studies of the US and other countries with decentralized wage setting show that wage differentials between firms tend to be smaller in unionized sectors, and that differentials between skilled and unskilled workers tend to be smaller in unionized firms (Freeman and Medoff 1984: ch.

5, Card, Lemieux, and Riddell 2004).

Freeman and Medoff (1984) invoke the standard median-voter framework to explain why unions seek to compress wage differentials among their members, positing that union policy on the distribution of wage increases is determined by majority voting and that the median union member typically earns less than the average wage of all union members. Based on the Nordic experience, Wallerstein (1990) instead conceives wage solidarity as the outcome of bargaining between different unions. In essence, Wallerstein argues that wage solidarity is a concession that workers and employers in more efficient (profitable) sectors – sectors exposed to trade – make to workers in less efficient sectors to solicit their cooperation in the exercise of wage restraint. In Wallerstein's bargaining model as well as Freeman and Medoff's voting model, the share of low-wage workers in total union membership features as an important parameter.

Building on the aforementioned literature, we hypothesize that the extent to which unions pursue solidaristic wage policies is a function of the extent to which they organize low-wage workers. Furthermore, we assume that the wage demands pursued by unions and their rhe- torical justification of these demands generate norms that union members internalize, and that these norms have implications for attitudes towards redistribution. While the former

(49)

does not necessarily imply the latter, it is surely reasonable to suppose that individuals who favor a more equal distribution of earnings are, on average more likely to favor government measures to reduce income inequality.

The distributive norms promoted by unions involve ideas about fairness, as well as a general aversion to inequality (see Swenson 1989). The principle of equal pay for equal work, articu- lated most forcefully by the Swedish confederation of blue-collar unions in the 1960s and 1970s, is arguably a fundamental principle to which all unions subscribe in some measure.

Within firms, this principle means that employees should be remunerated based on the tasks that they perform and that employers should not be able to discriminate among workers based on race or gender, let alone union activism. Unions may not be able to prevent employers from using low-paid apprentices or temporary workers to perform regular work, but they invariably oppose such practices in principle. Across firms, the principle of equal pay for equal work stands in opposition to remuneration based on the profitability of firms. In the standard formulation of American as well Swedish unions (Rosenfeld 2014:70), wages should be taken out of competition. From this perspective, what distinguish Nordic unions are not so much the basic principles that they have embraced but rather their ambition and ability to apply these principles on an economy-wide basis. Relatedly, Nordic union movements have been more successful than other union movements in articulating the idea that decoupling wage growth from corporate profitability promotes broad-based economic pros- perity.²

A further step in our argumentation posits that the distributive norms promoted by unions influence the preferences of high-wage workers more than the preferences of low-wage workers. As suggested by Dimick, Rueda, and Stegmueller (2016), altruism or support for redis- tribution that benefits others can be seen as a luxury good, the utility of which increases with

(50)

income. In a slightly different vein, the effect of norms arguably depends on the level of support for redistribution determined by self-interest. When support for redistribution among individuals who are the direct beneficiaries of redistribution is very high, there is little room for norms or ideology to boost support for redistribution further. Combining this idea with the proposition that the norms promoted by unions depend on the composition of union membership leads us to expect that the effect of union membership on support for redistribution is most pronounced for high-wage workers who belong to unions that are responsive to the interests of low-wage workers.

We do not have survey data that allow us to identify union members with particular unions, but the ESS allows us to estimate union density in each decile of the household income distribution for any given country in a given year. The ratio of union density in the lower half of the income distribution to union density in the upper half of the income distribution pro- vides a simple summary measure of the low-income inclusiveness of national union movements. This measure is the equivalent of the percentage of all union members drawn from the lower half of the income distribution, with values greater than 1 indicating that a bigger percentage of low-income respondents are unionized than high-income respondents and that the former constitute a majority of union members.³ We assume that the probability that union members are members of unions that include a large number of low-wage workers increases with low-income inclusiveness measured at the country level. More directly, low- income inclusiveness constitutes a plausible measure of the influence of low-wage workers within the union movement as a whole.⁴

Following Wallerstein (1990) and others, overall union density and wage-bargaining coordi- nation should also be taken into account if our objective is to explore whether or how the

(51)

Figure 1. Unions' encompassment and inclusiveness

a. Country-years b. Averaged country scores

Data sources: ESS 2002-14, Visser 2016.

characteristics of national union movements condition the effects of union membership on support for redistribution. Critically important for our purposes, overall density and low- income inclusiveness are not entirely independent of each other, at low levels of union density, low-income inclusiveness may vary a great deal, but as union density approaches 100 percent, low-income inclusiveness must, by definition, converge on unity. Figure 1 illustrates this point by plotting union density, as reported by Visser (2016), against our ESS-based measure of low-income inclusiveness. While panel (a) presents the data for all ESS country- years included in our analysis, panel (b) presents data for each country averaged across all ESS years. The horizontal gridline in both panels, represents a natural cut-off between countries with union density above 50 percent and countries with union density below 40 percent.

The vertical gridline in turn separates countries or country-years with inclusiveness scores above and below 1.00.

Based on the data presented in Figure 1, we propose to distinguish three ideal-typical union movements. Denmark, Finland, and Sweden exemplify what we refer to as encompassing union- ism, distinguished by the combination of high density and a more or less equal split between

Solidarity in times of inequality: trade union politics and union membership effects

Thesis

Reference

Solidarity in times of inequality: trade union politics and union membership effects

Solidarity in Times of Inequality

Contents

Tables

Figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Solidaristic Unionism and Support for Redistribution in Contemporary Europe