Unions don’t just channel the political preferences of their workers, they influence them as well.

Despite their decline in recent years, unions still play a major role in state and national politics. But are unions able to influence the views of their members, or do those who join unions simply have differing views compared to non-members? In new research surveying more than 4,000 workers across 12 industries, Sung Eun Kim and Yotam Margalit find that unions serve as information providers for the members, and that when it comes to trade policy, they do have a clear influence on their members’ views.