The Geography of US Union Elections 2: Performance of the United Auto Workers Union and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union, 1970–82

Abstract

This paper is an extension of previous work on the geography of US union elections. It is largely an exercise in description. The issue here concerns the electoral performance of two unions, the United Auto Workers union and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union, over the period 1970–82. Relevant descriptive variables include location, scale, sector, state right-to-work legislation, and local economic variables. Two arguments are advanced. First, there are parallels between the electoral performance of US unions, and the partisan political process. Forces of electoral fragmentation evident in the partisan political process are mediated, however, by institutional factors relating to the organizing strategies of unions. Second, it is observed that there are significant differences between the unions, especially with respect to the patterns of their electoral successes and failures. These patterns, and their associations with local economic factors, are illustrated through a series of multivariate analyses of variance. Definitive tests of hypothesized causal relationships are left to a subsequent paper.