Labour Politics: How does union membership impact political behaviour?
Is Pierre Poilievre winning over private sector union members?
In my last post, I explored three key groups of voters I termed “the switchers”. This analysis used a huge dataset my team at Abacus Data assembled from the five national surveys we have conducted since the start of the year (from January 3 to March 6).
On each of those surveys, we ask the same set of political and profiling questions. Aggregating those surveys together allows us to look at more specific subsets of the population, subsets that would be too small to explore on any single survey.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll share key insights from that bigger dataset.
Today, I explore the relationship between labour union membership and political opinions and behaviour.
In this dataset, I have a sample size of 1,123 private sector union members and 1,135 public sector union members. The size of these samples allows me to assess them with more confidence and to dig a bit deeper than usual.
Unionized Canadians represent about a quarter of the adult population in Canada. 12% are members of private sector unions and 12% are members of public sector unions.
Who are union members in Canada?
Union members are obviously employed Canadians and therefore younger than the population as a whole. But here’s what else we know about them compared with other working age Canadians (those who do not identify as retired):
Age: Private sector union members are the youngest of the three groups - 68% are under 45 years of age compared to 56% of public sector union members are under 45. Non-unionized working aged Canadians are somewhat older than these other two groups.
Gender: Private sector union members tend to be more male while public sector union members tend to be more female. 62% of private sector union members are male while 59% of public sector union members are female. Among non-unionized working aged Canadians the gender split is almost even - 50% female, 49% male, and 1% identifies as non-binary.
Education: Unionized workers are more likely to have higher levels of formal education. 46% of private sector union members and 42% of public sector union members have a university degree or higher compared with 31% among non-unionized working aged Canadians. Overall, 84% of those in a union have some form of post-secondary education.
Household Income: Unionized workers make more money than non-unionized workers. Over one in three (36%) of those in a union live in a household that earns $100,000 or more compared with 21% among non-unionized member households. Moreover, only 1 in 5 unionized workers live in a household that earns $50,000 or less compared with 39% of those who are non-unionized.
Racialized Identity: 28% of unionized workers identify as racialized compared with 22% of non-unionized working aged Canadians.
Homeownership: Unionized Canadians are more likely to own their homes than non-unionized Canadians. 64% of unionized workers own their home (69% public sector vs. 60% private sector) compared with 46% of non-unionized working aged Canadians.
The Political Behaviours and Intentions of Unionized Workers
Two key points about the above analysis are worth repeating before we explore how unionized Canadians think about their political choices and would vote if an election were held today. The first is that they are somewhat younger than Canadians in general and non-unionized working aged Canadians in particular. Second, and perhaps more important, private sector union members are more likely to be male while public sector union members are more likely to be female.
If an election were held at the time of the surveys, the Conservatives would win the popular vote of both private and public sector union members.