General Feelings Toward Unions and Employers as Predictors of Union Voting Intent Arthur D. Martinez & Jack Fiorito Published online: 8 July 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008 Abstract The union voting intention literature shows that many nonunion employees who indicate that they think unions are instrumental in increasing wages, benefits, and working conditions would vote against forming a union. Although American workers have often been characterized as pragmatic with regard to their support for unions, the “disconnect” between union beliefs and union voting intentions just described suggests that more subtle forces are at work. In this paper, it is shown empirically that union instrumentality is a limited predictor of union voting intentions for a recent national cross-section of workers. Rather, more general feelings toward unions and employers are primary. These accounted for a large portion of the variance in union voting intentions, with general feelings towards unions by far the most critical predictor. A concluding section discusses whether the results may reflect changes in union power and changes in employee views of unions. Areas for future research are discussed. Keywords Unions . Union voting . Attitudes . Feelings . Instrumentality In a 1977 poll, roughly three quarters of nonunion employees stated that unions are instrumental (i.e., believed that unions improve wages and working conditions), though only about one-third indicated intentions to vote for union representation if an election were held at their workplace (Kochan et al. 1986: 216–217). More recent polls indicate a similar “disconnect.” For example, a 2003 survey reported that 84% of workers attributed at least some effectiveness to unions in improving wages, benefits, and working conditions, but only 49% of nonmanagerial nonunion workers J Labor Res (2009) 30:120–134 DOI 10.1007/s12122-008-9053-2 A. D. Martinez : J. Fiorito (*) Florida State University, P.O. Box 3061110, Tallahassee, FL 323206-1110, USA e-mail: jfiorito@cob.fsu.edu J. Fiorito University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK