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Importance of unions

27 Oct 2015

Q. How important are unions for Australian working people today?

Total

Vote Labor

Vote Lib/Nat

Vote Greens

Vote other

Work full time

Work part time

Mar 2012

Sep 2012

May 2013

Dec 2013

Feb 2014

Total important

62%

83%

47%

74%

60%

59%

71%

56%

52%

56%

57%

61%

Total not Important

28%

10%

49%

16%

25%

32%

17%

35%

38%

36%

34%

30%

Very important

26%

46%

11%

41%

19%

26%

26%

19%

16%

21%

22%

27%

Quite important

36%

37%

36%

33%

41%

33%

45%

37%

36%

35%

35%

34%

Not very important

21%

8%

37%

14%

14%

22%

14%

27%

28%

24%

22%

21%

Not at all important

7%

2%

12%

2%

11%

10%

3%

8%

10%

12%

12%

9%

Don’t know

11%

7%

5%

10%

16%

8%

12%

9%

10%

8%

9%

8%

The majority of respondents regarded unions to be important for Australian working people today (62%), whilst 28% believe that they were not important. These results represent an increase in importance of unions since this question was asked in February last year – from net +31 to +34, the most positive result for unions over the past 4 years.

83% of Labor voters and 74% of Greens voters believed that unions were important for Australian working people today, while Coalition voters were the most likely to regard unions as not important (49%).

The majority of full time workers (59%) and part time workers (71%) regarded unions as important for Australian working people today.

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