Working Paper: NBER ID: w24259
Authors: James Feigenbaum; Alexander Hertel-Fernandez; Vanessa Williamson
Abstract: Labor unions directly affect wages, employment, industrial structure, and inequality. But unions also influence the economy and labor market indirectly through their effects on politics, providing candidates with voters, volunteers, and contributions, and lobbying on public policy. We use the enactment of right-to-work laws---which weaken unions by removing agency shop protections---to estimate the effect of unions on politics and policy from 1980-2016. Comparing counties on either side of a state and right-to-work border to causally identify the effects of the state laws, we find that right-to-work laws reduce Democratic Presidential vote shares by 3.5 percentage points. We find similar effects in Senate, House, and Gubernatorial races, as well as on state legislative control. Turnout is also 2 percentage points lower in right-to-work counties after passage. Exploring the mechanisms, we find that right-to-work laws dampen organized labor contributions to Democrats and that potential Democratic voters are less likely to be contacted to vote. The weakening of unions also has large downstream effects: fewer working-class candidates serve in state legislatures and Congress, while state policy moves in a more conservative direction.\n\n
Keywords: Right-to-work laws; Labor unions; Political effects; Elections
JEL Codes: D7; J5
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Right-to-work (RTW) laws (J58) | organized labor contributions to democratic candidates (J59) |
| Right-to-work (RTW) laws (J58) | likelihood of potential democratic voters being contacted to vote (K16) |
| Weakening of unions (J51) | fewer working-class candidates in state legislatures and Congress (J79) |
| Decline in union political mobilization (J58) | diminished electoral influence of unions (J58) |
| Right-to-work (RTW) laws (J58) | democratic presidential vote shares (D79) |
| Right-to-work (RTW) laws (J58) | voter turnout (K16) |