The Effects of Union Organizational and Environmental Characteristics on Union Political Action

It is well known that organized labor is politically active. Few studies, however, have examined labor's political activities or assessed the extent of interunion differences in political action. This study partially fills these research gaps by empirically analyzing the involvement of individual unions in electoral and legislative activities over the years 1978-82. The results suggest that union-specific characteristics influence union political action and, tentatively, that unions make trade-offs between political activity and other activities, such as organizing.

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