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@ISIDEWITHQuestionsEconomyStarted 12yrs agoActive 2yrs ago

Do you believe labor unions help or hurt the economy?

Do you believe trade unions help or hurt the economy?

Since 1996 Union membership in Australia has dropped from 40% of all workers to 15%. Unions bargain on behalf of workers over wages, benefits, working conditions for their membership. Larger unions also typically engage in lobbying activities and electioneering at the state and federal level.

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Answer Overview

Response rates from 36.6k Australia voters.

73%
Help
27%
Hurt
52%
Help
25%
Hurt
13%
Help, in theory but have recently become corrupt and should have their powers limited
2%
Hurt, I support some private unions but am strongly against public unions
8%
Help, but ban their ability to make political donations

Historical Support

Trend of support over time for each answer from 36.6k Australia voters.

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Historical Importance

Trend of how important this issue is for 36.6k Australia voters.

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Other Popular Answers

Unique answers from Australia voters whose views went beyond the provided options.

 @B2GPGNCfrom Guam  answered…1yr1Y

Help, but there must be regulations to prevent corruption and overreach. A union must only strive for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. Without helping the workers, there will be no economy at all.

 @BCXPZK5answered…2mos2MO

Trade unions were created to protect the moneyed class. They came out of the Fabians. And the Fabians came out of the aristocracy.

 @BBZG4BQanswered…3mos3MO

Help, by and large, but some have become over-powerful and corrupt, if not actually criminal, so should be investigated and laws applied. To balance this, lets look a bit more closely at white-collar crime too, eh?

 @B56FX4Qanswered…1yr1Y

Without them I fear Goverment is not courageous enough to stop big business turning working class into financial slaves

 @B3PCCBRanswered…1yr1Y

Help. Unions need to be democratized and need more say in government, private companies have much more say in government than unions do.

 @9353BBFanswered…4yrs4Y

Trade Unions help; trade unions establish a sense of unity for workers in a particular workforce, and enable said workers to unite as one voice to improve their working conditions/salary.

 @B493N5Panswered…1yr1Y

one can not judge all Unions on the behaviour of a few so we should ban all who are found legally guilty of crimes and they should not be allowed to make political donations and should be shut down while those doing what they where originally set up for should be left to do the good work they are doing

 @B493FQZanswered…1yr1Y

Trade Unions hurt the economy, because they create price floors, but help people within them. I still support them I just don't really care about the overall economy.

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 @ISIDEWITH submitted…2yrs2Y

Volkswagen Faces Explosive Strikes Over Plant Closures and Job Cuts

Tens of thousands of Volkswagen workers will participate Monday in strikes at plants across Germany, labor union IG Metall said, marking the largest walkouts at the carmaker’s domestic operations since 2018.The walkouts, which are planned to last several hours, follow weeks of collective bargaining negotiations during which VW refused to rule out mass layoffs and potential plant closures in its home market — drastic measures the company says are necessary to prop up its fortunes amid competition from China and weaker European demand.A so-called “peace obligation” between workers and the company, which prohibited industrial action, expired on Saturday, allowing strikes to take place from Sunday at virtually all of Volkswagen’s German factories.“If necessary, this will become the toughest wage dispute Volkswagen has ever seen,” IG Metall’s chief negotiator Thorsten Groeger said in a statement Sunday. “How long and intense this dispute will be is Volkswagen’s responsibility at the negotiating table.”“Volkswagen has set our collective bargaining agreements on fire, and instead of extinguishing this fire during three rounds of negotiations, the management board keeps throwing open barrels of gasoline onto it,” he added.The walkouts will be the first large-scale strikes that Volkswagen has faced since 2018, according to IG Metall, when 50,000 workers idled plants over pay. Although the work stoppages will last only a few hours, it is possible that 24-hour warning strikes could be called later this year. Indefinite strikes could also be called as a last resort, but only after members have been consulted again, IG Metall said.The strikes represent a fresh headache for Europe’s largest automaker, which saw operating profit for the first nine months of the year tumble by a fifth from the previous year, as its flagship brand struggled. Vehicle sales also slipped on particularly weak demand in China, where it is losing market share to Chinese electric vehicle brands.

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Active 4wks ago

 @ISIDEWITHDiscuss this answer...…2yrs2Y

Do you support the government calling for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza?

Yes

▲  1.4k6 replies5 disagree

About This Data

Based on 36.6k responses to this question.

These results come from iSideWith's ongoing political issues survey. We collect over a million responses per day, filter out duplicate and multiple submissions, and break the results down by political party, ideology, age, state, and census demographics (income, race, education, household).

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iSideWith. (2026). “Do you believe labor unions help or hurt the economy?” — Public Opinion Poll Results. Retrieved June 26, 2026, from https://australia.isidewith.com/polls/657250856

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