----- Original Message ----- From: "Wojtek Sokolowski" <sokol at jhu.edu>
Doug quoted Teixeira: -If I read it correctly, this means that union membership is an intervening -(if not spurious) variable i.e. political preferences make people more -likely to be union members, and that also affects their voting behavior. If -my interpretation is correct, this is essentially a "cherry picking" -argument i.e. union membership is merely an identifier of a subset of the -population with certain inclinations rather than the cause of these -inclinations.
Except that is at odds with the other studies I cited, which show relatively little difference in political attitudes between union members and non-union members.
Here's a Pew research study from 2003 on the same subject: http://www.upenn.edu/researchatpenn/article.php?735&soc
I wrote a longer piece on this in 2003 as well looking at the data: http://www.nathannewman.org/archives/003165.shtml
Of course, even if there are some differences in political attitudes, it could also ignore the fact that the very act of unionizing and being involved in a union changes peoples politics. In that case "political preferences" is the spurious variable and unionization, including experiencing job security and rights eight hours a day, might make one more sympathetic to other peoples claims for rights in their lives.
Nathan Newman