This paper investigates the effects of union membership on voting choice in Western Europe at the beginning of the 21th Century. Various changes call for reassessing the impact of this resource in the electoral arena. Over the last years, the relationship between trade unions and their traditional allies in the political sphere, the social democratic parties, has been under strain. It has not been uncommon to see the traditional allies diverge on some socio-economic issues – recently notably on austerity politics –, which contributed in some countries to the emergence or resurgence of new competitors on the left. On the other side of the political spectrum, radical right-wing parties have increasingly come to represent a threat to the labor movement by attracting working-class voters and by developing a rhetoric on the working class political representation. Using data from the European Social Survey 2002-2012, the paper investigates to what extent union membership impacts on voting behaviour. It argues that the effect of union membership depends on party competition, labor movement structure and union density. Results show that union membership decreases the support for right-wing extremism, especially among working-class voters, and that union members stick to social democratic parties particularly in the absence of a left-wing party competitor.
In a period characterised by economic insecurity and rising individualization, the paper sheds light on the capacities and limits of organized labor to influence electoral politics and to shape coalitions promoting redistributive policies.
