State Economic Development and Anti-Unionism: Examining State Union Policy
Open Access
- Author:
- Oleynik, Hannah
- Area of Honors:
- Political Science
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Michael Barth Berkman, Thesis Supervisor
Matthew Richard Golder, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- unions
state policy
interest groups
economic development
partisanship
policy diffusion - Abstract:
- Variance in state-level restrictions against unions has been studied by researchers for many years, but there has been little research into the economic roots of recent pushes for restrictive legislation, or the roles of bordering states in diffusing restrictive policy. This thesis seeks to explain variance in state union restrictiveness by focusing on the political, economic, and demographic factors that cause a state to be more restrictive or less restrictive to unions. Additionally, my research aims to identify if recent restrictive legislation is a part of larger trend in union restrictiveness that began in 2010. I used American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model legislation to identify ten state-level policies that are restrictive to unions, and my analysis focused on three policies (Right to Work, Project Labor Agreement Preemption, and Prevailing Wage Preemption) to measure state restrictiveness. This study finds evidence that the greater restrictiveness of a state’s neighbors makes it more likely that a state will be restrictive to unions, and that increased unemployment reduces the likelihood that a state will be restrictive to unions. In addition, while state union restrictiveness was more prevalent before 2010, the restrictiveness of a state became more dependent on unified Republican control of state government after that year.