Activism and Willingness to Help in Union Organizing

Abstract

Member activism and willingness to help unions organize are arguably invaluable constructs for unions and union renewal. We investigated four antecedents to these variables: pro-union attitudes, perceptions of union instrumentality, collectivism beliefs, and ideological orientation, controlling for demographic and other influences. A member’s prounion attitude appeared to be the most crucial factor, with a relatively large effect size. There was some suggestion in the results that pro-union attitude may be more important for willingness to help organize than for more general activism, and more important than union instrumentality perceptions for both activism outcomes. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.