china

perspectives

Special Feature

Who Cares for Unions?
P u b l i c A t t i t u d e s t owa rd U n i o n Powe r i n Ta iwa n , 1 9 9 0 - 2 0 0 5

CHIN-FEN CHANG AND HENG-HAO CHANG
This paper studies how the general public in Taiwan evaluates the power of unions and which groups of the
population support stronger unionisation. We intend to compare changes in attitudes toward union strength in two
ways. First, we examine whether macro-economic or political dynamics created changes in attitudes. Secondly, we
analyse the direct effects of four types of independent variables on attitudes toward unions (individual or collective
level, short-term or long-term), including gender, age, ethnicity, and education. Using four waves of the Taiwan Social
Change Survey conducted between 1990 and 2005, we find that support for stronger unions rose markedly between
2000 and 2005, expressing a higher awareness of the role of unions in labour relations, especially in the context of
economic crisis or lower economic growth.

“According to Article 26 of the Labour Union Act, if
a strike would damage public interests, [the state] candemand compulsory mediation. [...] Taiwan Railway
Labour Union broke the intention and spirit of Article 26 of the Labour Union Act, using the holding ofa meeting as a disguised means of going on a strike;this kind of law-skirting strike would hurt the image ofthe union and the labourers.” (1)Those who witnessed the rule of Taiwan by the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, KMT) for over five
decades before 2000 would not have felt surprised
to hear the words quoted above, had they come from the
KMT—it had been hostile to labour unions and had prohibited all labour movements until Martial Law was lifted in
1987. However the above-quoted newsletter was in fact distributed to the press by the Central Office of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 2003, when it was theruling party in Taiwan. The cited remark came from theparty’s Deputy Secretary General, who was criticising theintended strike by locomotive drivers of the Taiwan Railway
during the Mid-Autumn Festival holidays, as called by the
Taiwan Railway Labour Union (Taitie gonghui). The
deputy Secretary General became the Director of theLabour Affairs Council in a later cabinet reshuffling under
the DPP regime. The fact that once in power the DPP’s reaction to a potential strike was indistinguishable from
KMT’s shows the shared mentality of the ruling elites. To
call off the potential strike, the ruling regime would on the
one hand assert the illegality of the strike, and on the other
hand use a self-assumed public disapproval to show the unpopularity of the movement. However, no one ever studied
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the actual reactions of the general public toward labour
unions, labour movements, or other related issues.
The first Labour Union Law was implemented in Taiwan in1929 during the Japanese colonial period. On the surface,
the Act seems to acknowledge and protect the rights ofunionisation and labour movements by workers. However,the Act was actually meant to regulate strike activities morethan to facilitate labour’s interests. After 1945, particularly
due to the enactment of Martial Law, the rights of labour
movements were prohibited for four decades until 1987.
Under the Leninist state corporatism practiced by the KMT,
nation-wide unions as well as those in state-owned enterprises were tightly controlled and supervised by either the
Party itself or ethics offices (zhengfengshi) in firms or companies. These puppet unions effectively monitored workers’
activities, promoted candidates of the KMT in political elections, and served as the propaganda machine of the Party or
the capitalists—everything, in fact, but promoting the interests of their own members on matters such as wages or working conditions. It was only with the liberalisation of theregime at the end of the 1980s that workers were able toparticipate in various kinds of social movements, and thegeneral public became aware, through the mass media, of
the function of independent unions.
The enactment of the Labour Standard Law in 1984 andgradual changes in political culture contributed to the emergence of independent labour unions from the 1980s onward.
After the lifting of Martial Law in 1987, labour activism
reached its high point in 1988 and 1989 with numerous
1.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), “Zhichi laodong sanquan, fandui youzou falübianyuan de bagong” (Advocating three fundamental labour rights, opposing any strikeon the edge of law), DPP Newsletter, 10 September 2003.

Union members from a state-owned-enterprise raise
their fists and shout slogans during a demonstration in
the streets of Taipei on 1 May 2009 to protest thedeteriorating job market.

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strikes, petitions, sit-ins, and street demonstrations for various causes, including overtime pay, year-end bonuses, andworking conditions. Many new independent unions were established, and some existing KMT or management-controlled unions turned into independent organisations. Soon
afterward, however, the KMT started to repress independent unions by indicting union activists and blocking workers’
strikes when then President Lee Teng-hui, under pressure
from the conservative wing of the KMT, appointed retired
military general Hau Pei-tsun as Premier. In addition, theTaiwanese economy’s restructuring and an increasingly flexible labour market created new challenges for the Taiwaneselabour movement.
The sudden lifting of Martial Law in 1987 opened up political space for Taiwan’s civil society. Looking closely at thedevelopment of labour unions in Taiwan, however, evenafter the end of Martial Law, many labour unions in the public sector were still controlled by the KMT. Workers in the
public sector enjoyed relatively good labour conditions, including job security, reasonable working hours, and retirement benefits. Class-consciousness was therefore relatively
weak in public sector unions, and many unions took the road
to autonomy only when they began facing the challenge of
public sector privatisation in the 1990s. (2)At the turn of the 1990s, the protests of unions in stateowned-enterprises became a major force in Taiwan’s labour
movement. For instance, in November 1989, a group ofunions from public enterprises organised an “anti-privatisation” street demonstration. In May 1993, more than 10,000
workers from 14 public enterprises participated in demonstrations for “saving public enterprises and the common
good of all citizens.” In 1996, public enterprises launched a“Mayday for work” demonstration.
After the DPP became the ruling party in 2000, the labour
movement succeeded in obtaining some legal reforms that,for example, allowed for more than one national federationof unions, the passage of the Protection for Workers Incurring Occupational Accidents Act, the Gender Equality in
Employment Act, and the Protective Act for Mass Redundancy of Employees. But even though the DPP had long
been friendly to unions and a few activists were recruited
into the new governmental body, the business lobby managed to limit union efforts and increase its own influence on
the new administration. As a result, the labour movement
failed to promote substantial liberal legal reform under the
DPP government. (3)If the recognised role of the labour movement or unionisation is to promote the economic or political interests of indi-perspectives© AFP PHOTO / Sam YEH

vidual unions or workers, union and working class consciousness remains an abstraction until it is embodied by workers’
actions. Unionisation or collective action also reflects the degree of respect and tolerance of a democratic society toward
voluntary resistance activities of civil society against the stateor the capitalists. On many occasions, labour unions also
participate in other social movements to express their concern and support for other civil and social rights, such as
women’s or environmental rights. This study therefore aims
to consider what the general public thinks of labour unionsin Taiwan, and who supports unionisation. Using four wavesof the Taiwan Social Change Survey (Taiwan shehui bianqian qiben diaocha), we will study how Taiwanese haveviewed unions during the various phases of the liberalisationand democratisation era since 1987. Many factors may be associated with the public reaction toward unions, including a
respondent’s family background, social and economic status,and political orientation. Using data from different time
points, we examine whether those individual factors provide
consistent effects within different political and/or economic
contexts.

Li te ra tur e re v ie w andt heo re tic al f r am e wor k
Public opinion not only reflects public attitudes toward certain issues, but also provides inspiration for academic debate
2.

Chin-fen Chang, Taiwan gongying shiye minyinghua: jingji misi de pipan (The privatization of state-owned enterprises in Taiwan: A critique of the economic myth), Taipei,
Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, 2001.

3.

Ming-sho Ho, “Neo-Centrist Labour Policy in Practice: The DPP and Taiwanese Working
Class,” in Dafydd Fell et al., What Has Changed? Taiwan Before and After the Change in
Ruling Party, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 2006, pp. 129-146.

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Special Featureand suggestions for public policies, whether conservative or
liberal, progressive or abiding by the status quo. (4) Social organisations may thus be able to use the results of opinion surveys to push for the reform of public policies. The state apparatus has frequently posited as an absolute that labour
strikes disrupt social order, and that union activities impede
normal business operations and general economic development, but few studies have analysed public attitudes toward
labour unions and possible changes in Taiwan. In the following, we briefly review the findings of previous studies concerning this topic in the Western World.
In a trend study on the eve of a crucial episode in the postwar history of labour unions in Western Europe, Roiser andLittle show that British polls consistently showed strong public support for trade unions, but that more than half of union
members themselves believed that trade unions were “toopowerful.” (5) In 1981, the proportion of union support was
61 percent, which was even higher than the rate a decade
earlier (51 percent), and a high percentage of respondents
still agreed that having trade unions was “a good thing in
Britain.” (6) The British public therefore seemed to support
the existence of labour unions but not the over-expansion ofunion power. This opinion poll may explain why Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher could bring about privatisation in
the public sector—as in the case of British Telecom—andclose coal mines despite fierce resistance and a long strike(1984-1985), and thus undermine the unions that were an
important support for the Labour Party.
In the US, Tracy Chang used the 1991 General Social Survey to analyse the impact of various demographic factors andoccupational characteristics on social attitudes toward labour
unions. (7) Her study pointed out that ethnic minorities, theworking or self-employed class, those holding lower socioeconomic status, the unemployed and those experiencing career demotions tended to expect stronger influence fromlabour unions. She also found that neither educational
achievement nor gender showed any significant effect on attitudes toward labour unions.
We shall use the findings from these previous studies as thebasic guidelines for our analysis. However, public attitudes
are not solely determined by individual and objective factors.
Changes at the societal level and collective ideology play animportant role in people’s perception as well. To examine
the various causes of political attitudes, we will refer to thesocio-psychological concept of “public mood” as defined byRahn, Kroeger, and Kite. (8) They suggest a two-by-two typology to study the subject (short-term/long-term; individual/collective), and then classify the causes of public mood66
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into four categories. (9) For individual and short-term causes,
they include personal experience and private mood. Individual experience consists of involvement in political activities,
economic conditions, past dealings with government agencies, and criminal records. There are also long-term factors
at the individual level, including personal socio-demographic
characteristics such as age, sex, race/ethnicity, educational
background, and class position. The authors also suggestthat psychological reactions may have enduring effects on
personal political attitudes. (10) The factors in this category include personality and satisfaction with life.
Public mood is also affected by aggregate factors, including
macro-economic performance and evaluations of politicians.
These factors have short-term effects and might change
when an economic recession ends or other leaders come to
power. There are other collective elements with long-termand consistent effects on public attitudes, including national
identity, patriotism, party orientation, and ideology. Their
empirical findings generally support the hypotheses.
The merit of this typology is that it takes psychological factors into account simultaneously with personal and collective
factors. As public attitudes represent subjective evaluations
by individuals, their personal mood and feelings should beconsidered in the analysis. Another merit of the typology isthat it considers both short-term and long-term factors. The
short-term factors represent temporary conditions or experiences, which change when individuals take new positions orafter political leaders step down. However, the distinction
between short-term and long-term factors may not be as
clear-cut as the typology shows. For instance, attitudes toward political leaders (a short-term factor) may actually be
related to ideology regarding the power of the state (a longterm factor), and individual class position (a short-term factor) may also change with improvement or deterioration in
the labour market. Mainly based on Rahn et al., our typology for the present study is listed in Figure 1. But unlike
those authors, our paper will study changes in political atti4.

Adam Swift et al., “Distributive Justice: Does It Matter What the People Think?”, inJames R. Kluegel et al., Social Justice and Political Change: Public Opinion in Capitalist
and Post-Communist States, New York, de Gruyter, 1995, pp. 15-48.

5.

Martin Roiser, Tim Little, “Public Opinion, Trade Unions and Industrial Relations,” Journalof Occupational Psychology, vol. 59, 1986, pp. 259-272.

6.

Ibid, p. 262.

7.

Tracy F. H. Chang, “A Structural Model of Race, Gender, Class, and Attitudes toward
Labour Unions,” The Social Science Journal, vol. 40, 2003, pp. 189-200.

8.

Wendy Rahn, Brian Kroeger, and Cynthia Kite, “A Framework for the Study of Public
Mood,” Political Psychology, vol. 17, no. 1, 1996, pp. 29-58.

9.

Ibid., p. 38.

10. Ibid., p. 6.

chinaperspectives

Who Cares for Unions?

Figure 1. Causes Affecting Public Attitudes toward Union Power

Short-termLong-term

Individual
Causes• Objective economic situations: occupational categories, and classpositions.
• Individual identity: class identity.

• Social-demographic characteristics:
gender, ethnicity, age, and education.

Collective
Causes• Economic conditions: unemployment rate.
• Political conditions: Martial Law lifting, direct presidential election,
turnover of the ruling party.
• Emergence of labor movement.

• Ideology: attitude toward social welfare
policy.
• Party orientation.

tudes and their causes to provide a more time-reliable explanatory model. We will also examine interactions between
years and some key factors to resolve ambiguities in the lasting effects of short-term or long-term causes.

Attitudes toward labour unions:Individual fact ors
We will first discuss factors at the individual level, followedby political and economic changes over a period of 20 years
in Taiwan.
Individual short-term factors mainly pertain to job status, theindicators of which include achievements (such as earnings
or prestige) and job requirements (such as skills, expertise,or authority). Different jobs also imply different work cultures shaping their self-identification and ideology. (11) These
characteristics as a whole might be represented by broad categories—that is, occupation or class.
Classifying the occupational structure into the blue-collar(manual) and white-collar (non-manual) dichotomy has been
a common usage in cross-national studies of occupational segregation. (12) While blue-collar employees work primarily inmanual labour, white-collar employees mainly deal with clientsor customers. According to Taiwanese official statistics, morethan half of union members are in the mining and manufacturing industries. (13) Thus it is reasonable to expect that bluecollar workers would be more likely to support stronger unions
than those holding white-collar jobs. There are also differences within white-collar jobs. Higher-level white collar jobs
require more human capital and have more autonomy, andwork performance is not judged by quantity or on a short-termbasis. Lower-level white collar workers, on the other hand, aremostly hired in service or routine jobs that couple low pay
with long working hours and pressure. Professionals and otherhigher-ranking white collar workers rely more on their own
qualifications in labour markets, while lower-level workers
have to rely on a collective voice to improve work conditions.

The latter would therefore more likely support a stronger
union than the more privileged white-collar workers.
In addition to the polarised classes—the bourgeoisie (employers) and the proletariat (the employed) used by Marx tocharacterise class relations under capitalism—we add the petite bourgeoisie because of the importance of this category
in Taiwan’s economic regime. Theoretically we would expect the working class to show stronger support for union
power than the other classes. However, reviewing the economic development and the lives of the working class in Taiwan, one researcher observed in the 1980s that there is considerable mobility between workers, the petite bourgeoisie,
and those working in family businesses. (14) Following her argument, we could expect an equivalent level of support forstrong labour unions among the petite bourgeoisie and employed workers. In contrast, Chu has concluded that becauseof the possibilities of moving upward in their careers, theTaiwanese working class lacks class consciousness and shows
little commitment to unions and their actions. (15) However,even if some workers do have the chance to become a bossor self-employed, their economic welfare may not significantly improve because of the meagre profits earned in ahighly competitive market. (16) We therefore expect that relative to employers, the working class and the self-employedshould support strong unions.
In a departure from previous works, this paper also studies
the attitudes of those who are not in the labour market, such
11. Michèle Lamont, The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race,
Class, and Immigration, New York, Russell Sage Foundation, 2000.
12. Maria Charles, David B. Grusky, Occupational Ghettos: The Worldwide Segregation of
Women and Men, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2004.
13. Data source: Council of Labour Affairs, Executive Yuan, Taiwan (http://statdb.cla.gov.tw/
statis/webproxy.aspx?sys=100; access date: 5 February 2010).
14. Hill Gates, Chinese Working-Class Lives: Getting by in Taiwan, Ithaca, NY, Cornell
University Press, 1987, pp. 73-79.
15. Yin-wah Chu, “Democracy and Organized Labour in Taiwan: The 1986 Transition,” Asian
Survey, vol. 36, no. 5, 1996, pp. 495-510.
16. H. Gates, Chinese Working-Class Lives: Getting by in Taiwan, op. cit., p. 9.

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as homemakers, the unemployed, and adult students. As thisgroup is rather heterogeneous, we do not have a specific hypothesis concerning the attitudes of homemakers or students
toward union power. However, as stressed by Chang, respondents who are unemployed significantly support
unions. (17) As they find themselves in a weak position in thelabour market, they can be expected to side against businessand support strong unions.
Subjective class identity reflects the psychological mood ofpeople, which is not solely decided by objective class position. Lamont and Hodson both find that the working classindividuals they interviewed possessed strong self-respect
and pride in working to make a living. (18) Skeggs, who hasstudied British women in the service industry, found that
because of the nature of their jobs, many identified themselves with the working class while also accepting the life
orientations of the middle class. (19) Based on these results,
we expect that people identifying themselves as working
class would more likely support labour unions becomingstronger.
Individual long-term factors mainly relate to ascribed characteristics, including demographic factors such as age andsex, and those representing family background, such as father’s ethnicity. In the context of Taiwan, people who experienced rule under Martial Law might be less likely to support collective action to avoid unrest. In addition to this historical factor, life-course development may also play a role.
As job stability and earnings are in general positively correlated with seniority, older workers are expected to be lessenthusiastic about stronger unions than their younger counterparts.
As the previous study indicates, it is not easy to identify the
relationship between gender and attitude toward unions, (20)which might be a result of occupational characteristics.
Blue-collar workers are primarily male, with women heavily
concentrated in the service industries. There is another explanation for the possible difference in attitudes between
women and men. A study by Ho Ming-sho suggests that the
masculinity underlining the process of union solidarity formation might make female workers feel uneasy and discriminated against in unions. (21) Thus, we hypothesise thatwomen may react less positively to the function of unions
and offer less support to unions than men.
In Taiwan, ethnicity is another important factor contributing
to political behaviour and attitudes. (22) On the one hand,
ethnicity is significantly related to job location. For historical and political reasons, mainlanders (waishengren) are
more likely to work in the public sector (governmental agen-68
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cies or state-owned enterprises) than Taiwanese, (23) while
Hokkiens (or Hoklo [fulao], Minnanren) and Hakkas(kejia) are disproportionately represented in the manufacturing and primary industries and commerce as well as
among the self-employed. Historical experience might also
be an important factor affecting attitudes toward public issues in Taiwan’s case. The long-term one-party rule of the
KMT resulted in a high percentage of mainlanders in highranking official positions, particularly in central government.
Because unions usually challenged state policy, mainlanders
should be less likely to support unions, especially before theregime transition in 2000.
As to the association between education and attitudes toward unionisation, we expect that the more people are educated, the better they can appreciate the social power of civilsociety and sympathise with the position of the disadvantaged in the labour markets. Thus higher educational
achievement should be positively associated with support forstronger union power.

Attit udes toward labour unions:Collective factors
Based on the scheme of Rahn et al., (24) we treat aggregate
economic and political contexts as short-term factors, andideology and partisanship as long-term factors. Taiwan has
experienced unprecedented political and social transformation since the second half of the 1980s, including the liftingof Martial Law, democratic transition, the presidential directelection, and party alternation in power. We provide a brief
review of these changes below.
In general, Taiwan’s democratic transition can be roughly divided into four periods: liberalisation (late 1980 to June
1987), a period of uncertainty (July 1987 to July 1988),
17. T. Chang, “A Structural Model of Race, Gender, Class, and Attitudes toward Labour
Unions,” art.. cit.
18. M. Lamont, op. cit., p. 8; Randy Hodson, Dignity at Work, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 2001.
19. Beverley Skeggs, Formation of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable, London, Sage,
1997.
20. T. Chang, “A Structural Model of Race, Gender, Class, and Attitudes toward Labour
Unions,” art. cit., p. 6.
21. Ming-sho Ho, “Masculinity in Taiwan’s Labour Union Movement,” Taiwanese Journal of
Sociology, vol. 36, 2006, pp. 65-108.
22. David D. Yang, “Class, Ethnicity, and the Mass Politics of Taiwan’s Democratic
Transition,” World Politics, vol. 59, no. 4, 2007, pp. 503-538.
23. Yun Fan, Chin-fen Chang, “The Effects of Social Structural Positions on Ethnic
Differences of Educational Achievements in Taiwan,” Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in
Social Studies, 2010 (forthcoming).
24. W. Rahn et al., “A Framework for the Study of Public Mood,” art. cit., p. 6.

likely to support strong labour union power. When the DPP
was in power in 2000, some former labour activists had thechance to become government officials and influence thestate apparatus from within. But their attitudes toward union
organisations and labour actions may have changed becauseof their new political positions in the regime. Thus, we expect that supporters of the DPP or other pro-Taiwan-independence parties were mostly likely to support unions when
the KMT was in power, but that they might have been reluctant to support unions when the DPP was in power.
Not everyone has consistent views regarding policies or social events, but some do hold ideological opinions about governmental policies. Opinions regarding the welfare system
might be a good case in point. In general, individuals who
oppose excessive state spending on family, health, or unemployment subsidies are labelled as conservatives. These people are also inclined to believe in a laisser-faire economy andfree competition in labour markets. In contrast, people who
hold liberal viewpoints are likely to attribute personal misfortunes to structural factors and support a larger share of thebudget for those in need. Following this logic, we would expect that people who support a welfare system would likely
support stronger unions, while people who believe that welfare policies reduce the drive for success would give little
support to a stronger collective voice (viewed as a threat to“normal” business operations).

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democratic transition (July 1988 to December 1994), anddemocratic consolidation (1995 and beyond). (25) During theend of the first phase, thousands of street demonstrations
were held by various social groups, including environmentalists, women’s movement activists, aboriginals, farmers, andteachers. (26) Labor movements started in 1988 and soon
reached a peak within a few months. The former Directorof the Council of Labour Affairs publicly remarked that hewas shocked by the series of labour strikes occurring in thelate 1980s, a development unthinkable under the control of
the KMT corporatist regime previously. (27)On the one hand, as mentioned above concerning the UK,
if labour strikes against privatisation do not attract public support, we would expect that at the peak of protests against privatisation (especially in the mid 2000s), the public would
show less support for union power. On the other hand, badeconomic conditions create tight job markets for workers.
Earnings, upward mobility, and job vacancies are all reducedor held back when a recession or slack business occurs.
Many workers may even lose their jobs after downsizing orplant closures. It is therefore reasonable to expect that public support for union power would be stronger in a period of
economic downturn than in times of economic prosperity.
According to Rahn et al., public attitudes of individual respondents do not vary only with objective factors or individual characteristics. (28) There are also collective mentalities
that create consistent attitudes toward certain parties, policies, or beliefs. Party orientation is one of them, as is ideology. Therefore we will first discuss the impact of party orientation.
The first presidential direct election in Taiwan was held in
1996, and Lee Teng-hui, the KMT candidate, won the election. Although there were uncertainties and even backlashes
in the early 1990s, this period opened up an era of democratic consolidation by being more liberal, socially and politically speaking. In the 2000 election, Chen Shui-bian, theDPP candidate, won the presidential election, defeating the
KMT, which had been the ruling party since the end ofWorld War II.
The KMT had suppressed and controlled civic organisations, including labour unions, until the end of Martial Law
in 1987, leading to strong criticism of the regime among
workers. Some labour activists, such as members of the Taiwan Labour Front, had close relations with the DPP in theprocess of democratic transition. We would therefore expectthat when the KMT was in power, supporters of the KMTor other parties relatively favourable to unification with
China or disinclined toward independence would be lessperspectives

Who Cares for Unions?

Interactions bet ween collective andindividual factors
Theoretically, public attitudes toward political issues, leaders, or certain policies would be likely to change under various external political or economic conditions. In the case ofopinions regarding union power in particular, we expect thatthe effect of personal job position and party orientation
would be contingent on political and/or social conditions. In
Figure 2 we list changes in economic and political conditions
for the past 28 years. There are four dots specified on the
X axis in Figure 2, which respectively represent the year of
25. Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, Hagen Koo, “The Middle Classes and Democratization,” inLarry Diamond et al., Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies: Themes andPerspective, Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997, pp. 312-333.
26. Mau-Kuei Chang, Shehui yundong yu zhengzhi zhuanhua (Social movements and political transformation), Taipei, Guojia zhengce yanjiu ziliao zhongxin (Data Center of
National Policy Research, Chang Yung-Fa Foundation, 1989.
27. Ming-sho Ho, “A Working-Class Movement without Class Identity: Taiwan’s Independent
Labour Union Movement and the Limit of Brotherhood,” Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in
Social Studies, no. 72, 2008, pp. 49-91.
28. W. Rahn et al., “A Framework for the Study of Public Mood,” art. cit., p. 6.

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Special Feature

45,00014

40,00012

35,00010

30,0008

25,000

6

20,0004

15,0002

1,0000Real average monthly earnings
Economic growth rate

5,000
0

Unemployment rate

‘80 ‘81 ‘82 ‘83 ‘84 ‘85 ‘86 ‘87 ‘88 ‘89 ‘90 ‘91 ‘92 ‘93 ‘94 ‘95 ‘96 ‘97 ‘98 ‘99 ‘00 ‘01 ‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘07

Unit: %

Unit: New Taiwan Dollar (NT$)

Figure 2. Trends of Political Transition, Economic Performance
Graph 2. and Labor Compensations in Taiwan, 1980-2007

0
-2
-4

Year
Source: National Accounts Yearbook, 2008; Price Statistics Monthly, No. 408, 444; On-line Database of Earnings and Productivity Statistics(http://www.dgbas.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=1135&ctNode=3253; access date: 6 November 2008); and Yearbook of Manpower Survey Results, 2008.
Note: The DPP took the place of the KMT as the ruling party in 2000 to 2008, which is marked in grey.

the survey data (see the next section) used in the analysis.
Although there was no lack of turmoil, the economy grew
very rapidly before 1990, but the growth rate has remained
below 8 percent since then, and has averaged below 6 percent since 1998. Generally speaking, real earnings steadily
increased during this period up until 2000, when they
started to stagnate. However, workers also experienced increased unemployment after the mid-1990s, and the situation deteriorated further after 2000. Taiwanese export-led
economic development has been heavily affected by global
economic and political events during this period.
The year 1990 marked the transition to political democracy
in Taiwan, and also a global economic recession due to theabrupt rise in oil prices during the first Gulf War. Taiwanese
witnessed much better economic conditions in 1995 in termsof CPI (consumer price index)-adjusted earnings and relatively stable economic growth, but also experienced an increasing unemployment rate. In 2000, the DPP made history in Taiwanese politics by winning the presidential election. Unfortunately this year was also the beginning of ashort period of recession due to the bursting of the dot-com
bubble in the US, and unemployment rapidly increased in70
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Taiwan. While the general economic performance was goodin 2005, real earnings for workers remained unchanged.
Turning to the interactions, we expect the impact of occupationon personal attitudes toward unions to vary in different survey
years. We expect that lower-ranking workers, blue-collar, or
lower white-collar workers, would strongly support an increasein union influence in years of poor economic performance suchas 2000 and 2005. We would not expect the attitudes ofhigher-level white-collar workers to change over time, as they
are less likely to rely on unions to improve their benefits.
As to the interactions between class position and time period, we have two contradictory hypotheses. From the political side, we expect to find significant class differences in attitudes toward unions in 1990 and 1995, but these would
probably diminish in 2000 and 2005. The main reason is
the traditionally higher support for the DPP or other proTaiwan-independence parties among the petite bourgeoisie
and the working class. As the DPP became the ruling party
in 2000 and remained in this position after the subsequent
election, these two classes would reduce their support forstronger unionisation. However, on the economic side we
expect the working class to continue to support stronger

D a ta, a na lyt ica l ap p roa che sa nd va ri ab le s
The data used in the analyses come from four waves of the
Taiwan Social Change Survey (TSCS) conducted in 1990
(with a sample size of 2,531 respondents), 1995 (2,093),
2000 (1,960), and 2005 (2,171). TSCS started the nationwide sampling survey in 1984. In the four surveys, participants were asked to consider whether the power and influence of workers’ unions should be greater or less. (29) Since
respondents were sampled differently in each survey, thecombined data is suitable for comparing changes in attitude
over time. (30) By including the age groups in the analytic
models for each year we can test both age and cohort effects. (31)This paper intends to compare changes in attitude toward
union strength in two ways. We first examine whether
macro-economic or political dynamics created changes in attitudes. The year 1990 is considered a period of democratictransformation. Political democracy increased in 1995 andfurther consolidated in 2000 when the DPP replaced the
KMT as the ruling party. The DPP was still the ruling party
in 2005 and experienced strong anti-privatisation movements
the year before. We expect the general supportive attitude
toward labour unions to have reached a peak in 1990 and tohave diminished over the years.
The second approach focuses on the direct effect of independent variables on attitudes toward the influence ofunions. Following the typology of Rahn et al., we consider
four types of variables in the analysis (individual or collective level, short-term or long-term) and for individual, longterm variables we include gender, age, ethnicity, and education. Respondents are classified into three categories of ethnicity based on father’s ethnic background: Hakka,

Hokkien, and mainlander. Educational achievements consistof four categories: primary school or less, attended or finished junior high school, attended or graduated from seniorhigh school, and attended or graduated from college or university or a higher degree.
As to individual short-term factors, we include occupationaland class position and subjective class identification. There
are three categories to represent occupational structure:higher-status white-collar jobs, lower-status white collar, andblue-collar. Concerning class structure, there are four groups:
employers, petite bourgeoisie, the working class, and nonemployed (the unemployed, students, and full-time homemakers). Subjective class identification also has four types:
lower class, working class, lower-middle/middle, and uppermiddle/upper.
For collective, long-term factors, we include partisanship andideology in the models. The KMT and DPP are the two
major parties in Taiwan. Over the last 20 years there haveemerged a few smaller parties, e.g., the New Party, the People-First Party, and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU). The
political ideology of the first two is close to that of the KMT,
while the TSU has allied with the DPP. We thus combine
supporters of the KMT, New Party, and People-First Party as
Pan-Blue (fanlan), and those voting DPP, TSUP or otherpro-Taiwan-independence parties as Pan-Green (fanlü). The
third category includes respondents who did not identify witheither the Pan-Blue or the Pan-Green.
The other aggregate and fixed factor deals with ideology andopinions regarding the welfare system. In all four surveys the
respondents were asked to comment on the following assumption: If there is good social security, people will work less hard.
We include one variable to represent macro and short-term
factors. Since there are only four time points in the analysis,using the national unemployment rate for each year will not

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union power during the economic downturns—that is, in2000 and 2005.
The third item of interaction is between year and party preference. As we discuss above, in addition to pro-democracy
movements, the DPP had been a major force in labour movements during the Martial Law era. Compared with the
KMT, the DPP had strong ties with union organisations andindustrial labour unions in several state-owned enterprises.
Supporters of the DPP are expected to have wished to see
greater union power during the rule of the KMT. However,when the DPP won the elections in 2000 and re-elections in
2004, its voters are likely to have shown support for the new
regime and are less likely to have supported strong unions.

perspectives

Who Cares for Unions?

29. There are more members in occupational unions than in industrial unions in Taiwan. The
main purpose of occupational unions is to handle labour and health insurance for members. However, we do not think the difference in union membership should affect thevalidity of this question and the analytical results for two reasons. First, most respondents were not members of either occupational or industrial unions, according to theresults of the Taiwan Social Change Survey in 2005 (Ying-Hwa Chang, Yang-Chih Fu[eds.], Taiwan Social Change Survey Report, No. 5-1, Taipei, Institute of Sociology,
Academia Sinica, 2006: 332). Secondly, except for the survey in 2005, all earlier surveys
put this question in a cluster of questions concerning the respondents’ general socialand economic attitudes, such as their opinions regarding the welfare system or toward
the government’s intervention in economic affairs. The respondents were expected toexpress a general view regarding the strength of unions but not regarding the unions
they belonged to. We thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing this issue to our attention.
30. Glenn Firebaugh, Seven Rules for Social Research, Princeton, Princeton University Press,
2008, p.181.
31. For readers unfamiliar with statistics, the cohort effect is equal to adding the effects ofage to period effects.

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Figure 3. Public Attitudes toward Union Power in 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005
60

1990
1995

50.6

49.9

50

45.2
41.6

40

31.9

% 30

13.312.9

029.330.2

20.5

20
10

2000
2005

5.7

3.9 4.7

7.3

5.3

Much greater

15.1

Slightly greater

Same as now

4.5

7.5

9.5

6.7

Slightly less

0.8 0.7 1.1 1.7

Much less

No comment

In our society, should the influence of workers’ unions be greater or less?
Source: Taiwan Social Change Survey.

show much variation. Instead, the paper uses the regional
unemployment rate to measure changes in economic conditions over time and in different areas. The variable is constructed by identifying the registered address of respondents
and matching it with the regional (city or county) unemployment rate. (32) The same method is applied to all four surveys.
Referring to Tracy Chang’s findings that the unemployedsignificantly support union power in the US, (33) we expectedsimilar trends in Taiwan.
The second and third approaches share the same multinomial logistic model in the analysis. For the second approach
we are interested in the direct effect of respective independent variables and will examine the odds ratios of respective
variables only. The third approach focuses on the interaction
between year and individual job position and party preference (explained below). We compare the odds ratios of interaction effects together with main effects.

unions’ influence should be stronger. In comparison, a far
lower percentage of respondents supported less or much lessinfluence for unions; even at its peak in 2000, this percentage was only 10.6 percent. This result should be very encouraging for union members or labour movement activists,even if another substantial proportion of respondents indicated either ignorance of or indifference to this issue bychoosing “no comment” (in any case, this item decreased
from 31.9 percent in 1990 to 20.5 percent in 2005). Public
support for stronger unions peaked in 2005, reaching a leveleven higher than in 1990, just three years after society had
been relieved of the authoritarian rule of the KMT.

Multinomial logistic analysis: Main
effects of independent variables
Table 1 lists descriptive statistics of independent variables
used in the multivariate analysis. Since most results can be

Fi nd i ng s
Frequency distribut ion of attit udes tow ard
unionisation over time
As to the question of attitudes regarding union power, Figure 3 shows that Taiwanese consistently agreed that labour72
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32. We are aware that respondents may not live in the same place as where they registeredfor voting or other purposes. According to a previous study, various studies have foundthe mismatch varying from 10 to 12 percent (Hsing-Yi Chang et al., “Comparisonsamong the Household Registry, Stay, and Migrated Populations in Taiwan: Evidence fromthe Data of 2001 Taiwan National Health Interview Survey,” Survey Research, vol. 14,
2003, pp. 5-29).
33. T. Chang, “A Structural Model of Race, Gender, Class, and Attitudes toward Labour
Unions,” art. cit., p. 6.

Average
Number of respondents
Independent variables
GenderFemaleMale
Age (mean; S.D.)
Ethnicities
Hokkien of Taiwan
Hakka of Taiwan
Mainlander
Education
Primary school or less
Junior high school
Senior high school
College or higher
Occupations
Higher white-collar
Lower white-collar
Blue-collar
Non-employed
Classes
Employer
Petite bourgeoisie
Labor
Non-employed
Subjective class identification
Lower classWorking class
Lower-middle or middle class
Upper-middle or upper class
Party orientation
Pan-Blue
Pan-Green
Others

1990

1995

2000

2005

2,115

1,597

1,573

1,757

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Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of Independent Variables

perspectives

Who Cares for Unions?

50.2
49.8
49.5
50.2
51.5
49.8
50.2
50.5
49.8
48.5
39.9 (13.2) 36.9 (11.1) 40.4 (12.5) 42.0 (13.8) 41.3 (14.9)
74.0
13.1
13.0

74.2
13.6
12.2

70.5
15.1
14.4

78.9
9.1
12.0

72.4
14.2
13.4

26.3
14.8
36.1
22.8

30.4
16.8
36.3
16.5

26.7
16.0
37.7
19.7

28.5
14.4
35.0
22.1

18.8
11.7
35.5
33.9

12.6
31.8
27.8
27.9

11.6
29.1
26.6
32.7

12.2
31.1
30.6
26.1

14.2
29.4
30.3
26.1

12.6
37.9
24.3
25.2

9.3
11.5
51.3
27.9

8.7
14.9
43.6
32.7

14.8
9.1
50.0
26.1

8.3
12.6
53.1
26.1

5.9
8.7
60.3
25.2

8.0
20.2
58.2
13.7

9.2
27.7
52.5
10.6

8.9
17.4
62.4
11.4

8.3
20.2
60.3
11.2

5.3
13.8
59.4
21.5

35.3
17.4
47.4

36.8
6.1
57.1

54.5
16.5
29.0

30.7
35.0
34.3

19.9
16.1
64.0

25.5
5.2
69.3
2.6 (1.1)

14.6
7.5
77.9
1.7 (.4)

21.8
5.7
72.5
1.9 (.4)

30.3
3.8
65.9
3.0 (.7)

37.6
3.4
59.1
4.1 (.1)

Whether in agreement with the saying:“People will be less willing to work hard if there is good social
welfare.”Agree
No comment
Disagree
Unemployment rate (mean [%]; S.D.)
Unit: persons; %S.D. : Standard Deviation73
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Figure 4. Added Odds Ratios of Main and Interaction Effects of the
Figure 4. Support for Stronger Union Power by Occupation, Class, andFigure 4. Party Inclination in 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005
5.0(a) Interactions between Occupation and Year

4.5

Higher-white collar
Lower-white collar
Blue collar
Non-employed

4.0

Odds Ratio

3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
Year

4.0

1990

1995

2000

2005

2000

2005

(b) Interactions between Class and Year

3.5

Employer
Petite bourgeoisie
Labor

3.0
2.5
Odds Ratio

easily interpreted, we discuss selective findings only. As we would expect, the average
education level has increased over the last 20
years in Taiwan. Consistent with the transformation of the employment structure in Taiwan, the proportion of white-collar workers increased over the years, especially among thelower-ranking category. The proportion of
blue-collar workers remained an average of 28
percent of total employed persons during thisperiod. As to distribution among different
classes, the proportion of capitalists or petitebourgeoisie decreased, while the greatest employment is found in the private sector. Table
1 also shows that the KMT or Pan-Blue has
lost supporters over years, while Pan-Green or
DPP supporters increased in terms of percentage. However even the Pan-Greens experienced a shrinkage of membership in 2005.
The multinomial logistic analysis combines
the data from the surveys conducted in
1990, 1995, 2000, and 2005. The dependent variable is the public attitude toward theinfluence of labour unions. We simplified
the original five items into three (should thisinfluence be greater, less, or remain thesame, and no comment), and we used thesecond item as the comparison group. Thus,
when the coefficients of independent variables are positive (or negative), it meansthat the respondents with those characteristics are inclined to support greater (or less)union power.
According to Table 2, men, older people,
and those who believe that good social welfare makes people lazy all have lower probabilities of supporting strong unions. The working class and Pan-Green supporters are more
likely to favour powerful unions than their opposites (upper-middle/upper class, and PanBlue supporters). As to the time effect, after
controlling for other variables, Taiwanese
seemed less likely to support strong union
power in 2000 and 2005 than in 1990.
As to who is more or less likely to show indifference or unfamiliarity with the issue,
the results in Table 2 show that older people, those with little formal education, those

2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
Year

3.5

1990

1995

(c) Interactions between Party Inclination and Year

3.0
2.5
Odds Ratio

chinaperspectives

Special Feature

2.0
1.5
1.0

Pan-Blue
OthersPan-Green

0.5
0.0
Year

1990

Source: Taiwan Social Change Survey.

1995

2000

2005

Interaction between year, job, class, andparty preference
In this part we discuss the results of the second half of Table
2. Concerning support for union power, most of the interaction appears between party preference and year. The “nocomment” (vs. less power) item was not significant, meaningthat at the very least there was not any growing indifference
over time. Transforming the sum of odds ratios into graphs
provides a better representation of support for greater vs. lessunion power. (34)
Figure 4 presents graphs showing the interaction between year
and occupational categories, class, and party orientations. The
added odds ratios (statistics on the Y axis) are the sum of themain effects of year and the predicting variables and the interaction effects between them. Thus the graphs represent thelikelihood of supporting more union power as opposed to lesspower, considering both direct and interaction effects.
In Graph A, the higher white-collar workers are used as thecompared group. (35) For those currently not in the labour markets, the odds for supporting stronger unions increase over time.
The added odds are three times higher than for upper non-manual workers in 2005. The unemployment rate reached 4 percent
in that year, higher than in the previous three survey years (seeTable 1 and Figure 2). Bad job market conditions may havecontributed to greater support for unions in the less privileged
group. Both blue-collar and lower white-collar workers were also
more likely than higher white-collar workers to approve of more
powerful unions in any survey year, except in 1990.
Graph B shows the results of interaction between year andclass position. The disparity of added odds ratios between
the reference and other groups is much larger than in Graph
A. The effect of class is more obvious than that of occupation. Clearly, compared with employers, the petite bourgeoisie have much larger added odds of supporting greater
union power in all years. The total odds of the working classare even higher. The results seem to be consistent withGates’s observation (36) that the inter-mobility between workers and self-employed/small owners makes the two groups
equally sympathetic to unions.

The last graph in Figure 4 shows the results of interaction
between year and party orientation. The results are rather
distinct, as the three lines are almost parallel with one another. Respondents voting for other parties have odds lessthan two times higher for supporting stronger union power
than those voting Pan-Blue. The odds for the Pan-Greensupporters are even higher. However the added odds ofsupporting stronger unionisation decreased for both DPP
voters and voters with fixed party preference since 2000.
We shall discuss the implications of these results in the final
section.

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not belonging to the upper-middle/upper class, or those who
do not favour any major political parties are more likely to
express no comment for this question than their counterparts. People in socially disadvantaged positions seem to be
more reserved or feel less interested in revealing their attitudes on this matter. In contrast, men and relatively conservative respondents are less likely to answer “no comment.”

perspectives

Who Cares for Unions?

Co nclus ion and d isc ussio n
Many studies have focused on how economic and politicaltransformation affects unionisation and labour movements in
newly-industrialised societies such as East Asia. (37) Amongthese, Taiwan has gradually moved from Martial Law todemocracy. However, an institutionalised electoral politicalsystem and individual political freedom do not guarantee distributional justice in the economy and the protection of social rights. This is where labour unions and their activities
become so important in obtaining justice and improving welfare for members. At the beginning of this paper we quoteda remark by a high-ranking DPP official to illustrate the hostility of any ruling party toward labour strikes. It is ironic,
since the DPP had been a major force advocating autonomous unions and the right to labour actions when it was
the opposition party before 2000. While politicians tend tocite public attitudes in denouncing union movements, thispaper uses empirical data to show how people really think.
According to the results of the frequency distribution, themajority of respondents wished unions to be more influential
in all four survey years. Even though the figures are lower
than those in Britain (51 percent in 1981 (38)) or in the US(70 percent approval rate between the mid-1980s and
34. The odds ratio compares whether the probability of a certain event is the same for thereference (or experimental) group and the compared group (the omitted one). An odds
ratio of 1 means that the probability of an event occurring is equal for both groups. An
odds ratio greater than 1 implies that the event is more likely to occur for the referencegroup. Since we add the odds ratios of main effects and interactions together, the added
result might be over 1. Still, the larger the sum of odds ratios, the higher the likelihoodof the event occurring for the reference group.
35. The readers will notice that in all three graphs in Figure 4, the odds ratios for the compared group are the same. By definition, the value for the compared group will always
be zero and only the odds for different years will be left after we add interactions andmain effects.
36. H. Gates, Chinese Working-Class Lives: Getting by in Taiwan, op. cit., p. 9.
37. For a seminal example, see Frederic Deyo, Beneath the Miracle: Labour Subordinationin the New Asian Industrialism, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989.
38. M. Roiser, T. Little, “Public Opinion, Trade Unions and Industrial Relations,” art. cit., p. 5.

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Table 2. Multinomial Logistic Analysis of Public Attitude toward the Influence of Labor Unions
Table 2. (Coding of Dependent Variables: Less=0, Greater=1, No comment=2)
Independent variables

Greater vs. Less
Coefficient (S.E.)
Odds Ratio

Male-.14 (.07) +Age-.01 (.00) ***.87

No Comment vs. Less
Coefficient (S.E.)
Odds Ratio-.44 (.09) ***.64.01 (.00) ***Ethnicities (Mainlander=0)
Hokkien of Taiwan.02 (.10)

1.02.06 (.12)

1.06

Hakka of Taiwan.05 (.12)

1.05.05 (.15)

1.05

Primary school or less-.10 (.13).91.55 (.15) ***1.74

Junior high school-.09 (.12).92.14 (.15)

1.15

Senior high school-.03 (.09).97-.03 (.12).97

Lower white-collar-.05 (.23).95.17 (.28)

1.19

Blue-collar-.18 (.24).83-.03 (.29).97

Non-employed-.33 (.30).72.15 (.36)

1.16

Petite bourgeoisie.14 (.29)

1.15.42 (.32)

1.52

Labor

.03 (.24)

1.03-.02 (.28).98

Education (College or higher=0)

Occupations (Higher white-collar=0)

Classes (Employer=0)

Non-employed(dropped)(dropped)

Subjective class identification:(Upper-middle or upper class=0)
Lower class.06 (.15)

1.06.68 (.18) ***1.98

Working class.31 (.12) **1.37.62 (.15) ***1.86

Lower-middle or middle class.10 (.09)

1.11.44 (.12) ***1.56

Pan-Green.59 (.31) +1.81-.15 (.39).86

Others.19 (.14)

1.20.65 (.16) ***1.92-.24 (.07) **.78-.22 (.09) *.80.09 (.15)

1.09.06 (.18)

1.06

Party orientation (Pan-Blue=0)

Whether in agreement with the saying:“People will be less willing to work hard ifthere is good social welfare.” (Disagree=0)Agree
No comment
Regional unemployment rate (%)-.1E-2 (.07)-.08 (.08)

Survey year (1990=0)
1995-.36 (.38).70.17 (.47)

1.19

2000

-1.02 (.39) **.36-.77 (.48)

.46

2005

-1.00 (.43) *.37-.90 (.57).41(To be continued)76
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Greater vs. Less
Coefficient (S.E.)
Odds Ratio

No Comment vs. Less
Coefficient (S.E.)
Odds Ratio

Interaction terms:

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Independent variables

perspectives

Who Cares for Unions?

Survey year × Occupation(1990 & Higher white-collar=0)
1995 & Lower white-collar-.37 (.31).69-.64 (.40).531995 & Blue-collar-.14 (.32).87-.11 (.40).901995 & Non-employed.09 (.41)

1.10-.44 (.49).642000 & Lower white-collar.30 (.30)

1.35-.16 (.38).862000 & Blue-collar.07 (.31)

1.07.30 (.38)

1.35

2000 & Non-employed.55 (.40)

1.73.34 (.48)

1.41

2005 & Lower white-collar-.07 (.29).93-.62 (.39).542005 & Blue-collar.20 (.31)

1.22-.14 (.40).872005 & Non-employed1.24 (.41) **3.47.61 (.53)

1.85

1995 & Petite bourgeoisie-.48 (.39).62-.71 (.44).491995 & Labor.15 (.31)

1.16-.33 (.36)

Survey year × Class(1990 & Employer=0)

1995 & Non-employed(dropped).72(dropped)2000 & Petite bourgeoisie.25 (.40)

1.28-.06 (.46).942000 & Labor.34 (.33)

1.40.04 (.39)

1.04

2000 & Non-employed(dropped)(dropped)2005 & Petite bourgeoisie.51 (.41)

1.66.19 (.51)

1.21

2005 & Labor.81 (.33) *2.25.55 (.43)

1.74

2005 & Non-employed(dropped)(dropped)

Survey year × Party orientation(1990 & Pan-Blue=0)
1995 & Pan-Green-.48 (.35).62.07 (.45)

1995 & Others-.05 (.21).96-.11 (.23).892000 & Pan-Green-.58 (.34) +.56.46 (.43)

1.58

2000 & Others-.23 (.21).79.28 (.25)

1.32

2005 & Pan-Green-.99 (.36) **.37.05 (.48)

1.05-.39 (.21) +.68-.18 (.27).83

1.96 (.35) ***---.64 (.42)--

2005 & Others
Constant term
Sample size

1.07

7,042

+ p<.1, * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001. Source: Taiwan Social Change Survey, 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005.
Note: The category of non-employed is dropped in some variables because of the multi-collinearity.

2000 (39)), the results are impressive considering the short We speculate that support for influential unions means nothistory of political democracy and relatively free unionisation
I. Palley, Robert M. Lajeunesse, “Social Attitudes, Labour Law, and Union
in Taiwan. Majority support held true even with the rather 39. Thomas
Organizing: Toward a New Economics of Union Density,” Journal of Economic Behavior
large proportion of respondents answering “no comment.”& Organizations, vol. 62, no.2, 2007, pp. 237-254.
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only organising efforts but also legitimate action taken to protect labour rights. These results should help refute claims bypoliticians of public resentment of labour activities and lendsome encouragement to labour activists, unions, and theirmembers. With economic conditions deteriorating in thetwenty-first century, calls for stronger unions became evenlouder in 2005 than the previous three surveys.
This paper also examines who supports stronger unions. The
results of multivariate analyses show that opinions regarding
strong unions significantly differ among classes. Strong unions
are consistently support by the working class and the petitebourgeoisie, regardless of political and economic changes.
Even so, the history of political development made party
preference another important factor in explaining public attitudes toward union support in Taiwan. Regardless of whichyear we studied, voters for Pan-Green parties were more
likely to desire more influential unions than Pan-Blue votersor those with other political preferences. However, the odds
decreased in 2000 and 2005. Thus, compared with PanBlue voters, those who voted Pan-Green still supported
stronger unions, but with a declining trend after the DPP
became the ruling party. As we indicate above, some people
supported labour actions as another way to resist the rule ofthe KMT. DPP supporters became less enthusiastic when
the KMT was ousted in the 2000 presidential election.
We acknowledge certain limitations in the paper. First, theterm “labour union“ used in the questionnaire is vague. It
might refer to all unions or to the union the respondent belongs to. Although we believe respondents were instructed togive a general view regarding union strength, the answers
would be more valid if future research clearly defines“labour unions” in the questionnaire.
Secondly, the factors used to explain attitudes toward unions
are mainly the demographic characteristics and socio-economic achievements of respondents. We do not have information on why they support unions. Future research would
be able to assess whether support for unions is based on personal experience or is purely support for workers’ power inissues of rights or economic interests.
Finally, besides asking the degree of support for influential
unions, it would be more informative to know specific aspects of union activity that members of the public support.
For instance, respondents may accept union organising but
not militant action against employers. The current study does
not differentiate between support for activities and for the organisation per se. Thus we do not know if the public reallyhas negative feelings regarding workers’ strikes or protests, as
politicians have claimed.

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Although unionisation has enjoyed strong endorsement fromthe public over an extended period (1990 to 2005), the organisation rate of industrial unions has remained low and haseven been gradually decreasing in Taiwan. About two thirdsof Taiwan’s employed labour force is engaged in the tertiary
sector, but this sector, with a high proportion of women, hasbeen historically under-organised. While 37 percent of thework force in the telecommunications and transportation sectors and 15.7 percent of those in manufacturing were union
members by the end of the 1990s, the proportion for theservice sector was only in the single digits. (40) The unbalanced recruiting of white-collar workers is not an issue
unique to Taiwan; organising efforts among workers in the
US service sector are also weak. (41) Taiwanese industrial
unions have been concentrated in the traditional industries,
and most of their employees are men. Only a few banks andgovernmental agencies have begun to establish independent
unions. Our findings suggest that mobilising workers fromthe service sector should be crucial to building up genuine
union power in Taiwan. •Glossary
Fanlan 泛藍 Fanlü 泛綠 Fulao 福佬
Hau Pei-tsun 郝柏村 Kejia 客家
Lee Teng-hui 李登輝 Minnanren 閩南人
Taitie gonghui 台鐵工會
Taiwan shehui bianqian qiben diaocha 台灣社會變遷基本調查Waishengren 外省人 Zhengfengshi 政風室

40. Web news of Taiwan Labour Front (http://labour.ngo.org.tw/labour-rightsreport/20report/ 1-organizing.htm; access date: 10 February 2010).
41. Rick Fantasia, Kim Voss, Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement, Berkeley,
CA, University of California Press, 2004.