American Political Science Review
A Democratic Theory of Labor Unions
2026-07-30
Recently, political theorists have been increasingly concerned with the implications of democratic values for work. This article contributes to these debates by examining the main vehicle through which workers, historically, have sought democracy at work: the labor union. The article defends a vision of economic democracy that arises from the practice of labor unions. It then emphasizes the distinctive features of labor unions that make them potential vehicles for democracy in other domains. Labor unions are particularly important means of advancing democratic values for three reasons: (1) their ability to appeal to the short- and mid-term self-interest of their members; (2) their anchor in the material reproduction of society; and (3) that they rely on attitudes of cooperation and solidarity among their members. Yet these three features also point to potential limitations of labor unions as laboratories of democracy.