Labor Unions and White Racial Politics

2020/06/29 by Paul Frymer, Jacob M. Grumbach · 2 voices · 8 citations
Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Employment and Welfare Studies #Labor Movements and Unions #Social Policy and Reform Studies

paper · doi:10.1111/ajps.12537

openalex publication_date 2020/06/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

Abstract Scholars and political observers point to declining labor unions, on the one hand, and rising white identity politics, on the other, as profound changes in American politics. However, there has been little attention given to the potential feedback between these forces. In this article, we investigate the role of union membership in shaping white racial attitudes. We draw upon research in history and American political development to generate a theory of interracial labor politics, in which union membership reduces racial resentment. Cross‐sectional analyses consistently show that white union members have lower racial resentment and greater support for policies that benefit African Americans. More importantly, our panel analysis suggests that gaining union membership between 2010 and 2016 reduced racial resentment among white workers. The findings highlight the important role of labor unions in mass politics and, more broadly, the importance of organizational membership for political attitudes and behavior.

Citations

• The Consequences of Public Policy for Democratic Citizenship: Bridging Policy Studies and Mass Politics
• How does intergroup contact reduce prejudice? Meta‐analytic tests of three mediators
• The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life
• Whites’ Racial Policy Attitudes in the Twenty-First Century: The Continuing Significance of Racial Resentment
• The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations.
• Nationally poor, locally rich: Income and local context in the 2016 presidential election

Cited by

• Good citizenship in an unequal society: the value of political organizing
• Direct Experience with Poor Working Conditions and Partisan Labor Policy Preferences
• Why Do Some Union Members Vote Republican? The Role of Workplace Political Discussion
• The political spillover of workplace democratization: How democratic efficacy at the workplace contributes to countering right-wing extremist attitudes in Germany
• The Null Impact of Parenthood on Technical Risk Preferences
• Who Benefits from Migrant and Female Labor? Connecting Wages to Demographic Changes in French Workplaces1
• Framing the Immigrant in Labor Unions and the Military in the United States
• Labor Unions and White Democratic Partisanship
• Trade union [wikipedia]

Discussions

• Obviously no group is immune to this, and groups themselves have obligations to improve their epistemic practices. But that’s not the hard problem- the hard problem is getting people to trust those gr [bsky, 1 points, 2 comments]
• To the former point, I think this 2020 AJPS piece by Frymer and Grumbach pretty directly speaks to the potential that reshaping the perceptions of cleavages and conflict in society away from race and [bsky, 0 points, 1 comments]

Related

• Do Unions Shape Political Ideologies at Work?
• Organized Labor as the New Undeserving Rich?: Mass Media, Class-Based Anti-Union Rhetoric and Public Support for Unions in the United States
• Racial Diversity and Union Organizing in the United States, 1999–2008
• What Do Workers and the Public Want? Unions’ Social Value
• Why Do Some Union Members Vote Republican? The Role of Workplace Political Discussion