How Labor Votes
| Date | 01 March 1951 |
| Published date | 01 March 1951 |
| Author | George Gallup |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271625127400117 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
123
How
Labor
Votes
By
GEORGE
GALLUP
To
what
extent
are
labor
union
mem-
bers
influenced
by
union
leaders
in
their
choice
of
political
party
or
candi-
date ?
This
’question
has
aroused
intense
in-
terest
ever
since
the
unions,
in
the
early
days
of
the
New
Deal,
began
to
play
an
active
role
in
American
elections.
It
is
difficult,
perhaps
impossible,
to
measure
precisely
what
effect
the
endorsement
of
a
political
candidate
by
union
officials
will
have
on
the
political
thinking
of
the
membership.
But
some
evidence
is
at
hand
which,
while
far
from
conclusive,
suggests
that labor
union
members
do
not
necessarily
vote
in
blocs
in
response
to
appeals
by
the
union,
no
matter
how
much
they
may
respect
the
head
of
the
union
for
other
things
and
follow
his
lead
unquestioningly
in
union
affairs.
A
classic
example
was
the.
dramatic
effort
made
by
John
L.
Lewis
to
influ-
ence
the
members
of
the
Congress
of
In-
dustrial
Organizations
when
he
bolted
the
Democratic
ranks
in
1940.
At
that
time
Mr.
Lewis
was
head
of
the
CIO
which
he
had
founded
a
few
years
be-
fore.
In
the
1940
presidential
campaign
he
rejected
Franklin
D.
Roosevelt
and
supported
Wendell
Willkie,
the
Repub-
lican
candidate.
Toward
the
end
of
the
campaign,
Mr.
Lewis
announced
that
he
would
resign
from
the
CIO
if
President
Roosevelt
were
re-elected.
The
effect
of
this
bold
gesture
on
the
rank
and
file
of
CIO
members
appears
to
have
been
negligible.
After
the
election,
when
the
American
Institute
of
Public
Opinion
polled
CIO
members
asking
them
how
they
had
voted
in
the
election,
79
per
cent
said
they
had
cast
their
ballots
for
the
candidate
repudiated
by
their
own
union
leader.
Actually,
Mr.
Roosevelt
got
more
sup-
port
in
that
election
from
the
member-
ship
of
the
Congress
of
Industrial
Or-
ganizations
than
from
that
of
the
Ameri-
can
Federation
of
Labor,
whose
leaders
had
favored
the
Democratic
ticket
all
along.
Even
in
the
mining
areas
of
Pennsylvania,
seat
of
Mr.
Lewis’
power,
his
effort
to
switch
votes
to
Mr.
Willkie
bore
little
fruit.
Yet
in
union
matters,
the
miners
follow
Mr.
Lewis’
discipline
with
remarkable
unanimity.
As
SUPPOSED
INTEREST
DICTATES
There
are
no
doubt
times
when
leader
endorsement
of
a
candidate
or
party
does
change
the
votes
of
a
group.
It
depends
both
on
the
nature
of
the
group
and
on
the
particular
type
of
leader.
But
public
opinion
surveys
indicate
that
when
the
members
of
a
group
such
as
a
union,
a
farm
organization,
or
some
other
closely
knit
unit
make
up
their
minds
where
their
interests
lie,
they
will
vote
according
to
those
interests
whether
a
leader
of
the
group
urges
such
a
vote
or
opposes
it.
Manual
workers
in
general,
and
union
labor
in
particular,
have
for
at
least
the
past
sixteen
years
identified
their
inter-
ests
with
the
Democratic
party
in
na-
tional
elections
and
voted
accordingly.
Nonunion
labor
has
consistently
shown
less
preference
for
the
Democratic
party
than
has
union
labor.
The
accompany-
ing
table
covering
the
period
1936-48
illustrates
the
difference.
The
percent-
ages
are
based
on
surveys
by
the
Ameri-
can
Institute
of
Public
Opinion
at
the
time
of
each
election.
As
between
the
membership
of
the
CIO
and
that
of
the
AFL,
the
latter
has
always
shown
a
somewhat
smaller
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