The AFL-CIO, which commissioned the poll, said the union had never seen support levels that high.
As labor activity is surging across the country, polling has found that young people are saying they favor unions at overwhelmingly high levels — support that labor organizers say is “unprecedented.”
According to polling by GBAO conducted for the AFL-CIO, a whopping 88 percent of people under 30 say they approve of labor unions, while 90 percent say they approve of strikes. This is a far higher proportion of support than other groups, with 69 percent of those aged 30 to 49 supporting unions and 67 percent of those over 50 saying the same. Support for strikes is at 72 percent for both age groups.
This is an extraordinary show of support for the labor movement among young people, as the AFL-CIO noted. “Nearly 9 in 10 (88%) people under 30 view unions favorably,” the union wrote in a press release. “We’ve never seen a number that high, which is testament to the deep desire of young people to act collectively to demand respect and dignity on the job.”
Overall, the poll found that 71 percent of voters back unions. Approval cuts across party lines, with 91 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents and even a slim majority of Republicans, 52 percent, saying they back labor unions. Support for strikes is higher, at 75 percent overall.
The poll results were released as AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond delivered a State of the Unions address this week.
“The idea of a union may sound complicated, but in reality, unions are just a group of people coming together. They are about each of us becoming the most powerful version of ourselves that we possibly can,” Shuler said in her speech. “People in this country have been searching for their power for a long time now, young people especially.”
Indeed, people under 30 overwhelmingly agreed that it should be easier for people to form a union, at 70 percent, and that unions are needed now more than ever, at 77 percent. Seventy percent agreed with the statement that “society would be better with more people in a union.” Support for these statements was far lower among older voters, hovering around 50 percent.
“Every day, more and more working people are finding out that the labor movement is the solution to low wages and unsafe workplaces, to inequality and discrimination. That the labor movement is the only institution in America that has the infrastructure and reach to address and vanquish oppression in all its forms…. That life truly is better in a union,” said Redmond.
The polling comes as labor activity has reached a fever pitch. Workers at companies like Starbucks and Trader Joe’s have been unionizing locations across the U.S., while hundreds of thousands of workers have gone on strike or voted to authorize a strike this summer. Strikes by Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild contributed to July being one of the busiest months for strikes in several decades, one Washington Post analysis earlier this month found.
Meanwhile, thousands of workers may go on strike soon. Last week, 97 percent of workers at the Big Three automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — voted to strike if automakers can’t reach a deal with workers before their current contract expires on September 14. On Wednesday, flight attendants for American Airlines also voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, with over 99 percent approval.
This is interesting, but I’m not sure how much weight I’d give to a poll commissioned by the AFL-CIO (an organization that benefits immensely if the poll is pro-union) and run by a polling organization styling itself as the “Democratic pollster of the year.” Truthout has also failed fact checks on MBFC and has been noted to “publish misleading reports”, so I wonder how much rigor they put into vetting this poll.
This is not to say that unions are bad or supporting unions is bad. But if we’re going to call out biased sources and questionable approaches, we should do regardless of whether we like the conclusions.
Sources:
https://twitter.com/GBAOStrategies (for GBAO taglines)
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/truth-out/ truthout record (failed fact checks, bias, misleading reports)
It’s patently absurd to denigrate a poll because it was commissioned by someone with a vested interest in the results. That’s got to be at least 95% of all polls.
Questioning GBAO’s credentials is a fundamentally reasonable move, though. Let’s see what we can find out.
All in all I’m not seeing anything particularly sus here. They have above-average accuracy in calling races and are very popular among DNC PACs, both of which are routine statements for political pollsters.
It is absolutely reasonable to question the accuracy of the poll here, as it was commissioned for a particular purpose. It doesn’t mean the poll is inaccurate, necessarily. But looking at other. similar polls suggests that their sampling group was heavily skewed toward people who were already inclined to support unions.
The most reasonable take here would be “among those who are already inclined to respond to a DNC adjacent pollster, union support is high.” Which I think we already knew.
Edit: From the org itself - GBAO conducted a survey of 1,200 registered voters and oversamples of voters under 30, AAPI
voters, and union members.
If something is very popular amongst one specific group, there’s generally a reason for that. As a group bias towards certain topics.
Example. Taking away rights to abortion is popular amongst republicans. Does it mean their views/ predictions/ polls are accurate? No. Because generally a biased party trying to collect poll data will target the promotion of said polls to a demographic that is likely to agree with what they’re polling.
Studies and polls with vested interests are ALWAYS denigrated. Because they’re ALWAYS biased.
I STG if someone links me another mediabiasfactcheck 🫠
I am well aware of both the biases of the sources I read and the biases of the ones you read too
Calling out potential conflicts of interest and the risk of biased data is always important, whether we agree with the conclusions or not. Those who take offense to that fall into the “agenda before facts” category that a certain buffoon of an ex president so enjoyed occupying.
Edit: I’d be interested in hearing what you think “my” sources are. Might surprise you to find out that I strive to read stories from multiple perspectives, especially where the stories themselves are subject to spin.
Could you say what these conflicts of interest are? A poll conducted by a polling group, commissioned by a union federation to gauge people’s interests in unions. I don’t see a conflict there, and it’s not like the AFL is trying to hide the origins of their data
If I claimed “50% of Kbin users want to hang out with Melpomene” but my dataset is heavily skewed toward people who already expressed interest, that would be dishonest.
If I claimed “Green party candidate polling at record numbers” but my dataset oversampled climate activists and registered Green party voters, then the applicability of my poll to the general population would be suspect.
And yet you still post something you know could be misleading and inaccurate. Says more about you than the people trying to point these things out.
Even in shithole red state Oklahoma, we grow up learning that unions are good and Pinkertons are awful. It’s literally taught in schools.
Unionization is good, but some unions are terrible. The Dept of Vets Affairs union comes to mind, there.