HILL STAFF VIEWS: Democrat Staffers Want More Union Contracts for Aides
(QUICK READ) — This will not come as a surprise to most readers, but a huge majority of Democratic aides working on Capitol Hill told a recent CNCT Capitol Pulse survey that they would “support union contracts becoming more common on Capitol Hill.”
Fully 70 percent of the Democratic aides overall replied affirmatively, including 88 percent of the Democratic men and 83 percent of Democratic aides in operational jobs. At the opposite end of the responses, 69 percent of the Republican aides responding to the survey said they would oppose more union contracts for staffers.
Digging deeper into the data shows just how uniformly for and against aides working for lawmakers from both parties responded. On the GOP side, for example, only 13 percent of the Senate GOP aides back more union contracts, and only 11 percent of GOP male aides overall do so.
On the other side, only four percent of Democratic aides under the age of 30 said no, they would oppose more union contracts, as did 14 percent of the Democratic junior policy aides.
But it’s the size of the Unsure votes that really comes as a surprise because one fifth, 21 percent, of all the respondents wouldn’t or couldn’t say a definitive yes or no. And look at this — 21 percent of GOPers and 21 percent of the Dems overall said they were unsure.
These returns are interesting against the backdrop earlier in the 21st century when there was what appeared to be a strong movement among Democratic aides to push their bosses into clearing the way for union contracts covering all staffers.
That push has made few headlines more recently and just the last week the first personal office staff, that of Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), ratified a union contract covering all 18 aides.
“In May 2022, the House, then controlled by Democrats, voted 217-202 to adopt a resolution extending federal-service collective bargaining rights to House staff,” according to The Washington Times.
“The measure was led by then-Rep. Andy Levin, Michigan Democrat, whose office was the first to enter into a union contract later that year. However, the December 2022 ratification of the short-term contract was a mostly symbolic victory, as it came in the final weeks of Mr. Levin’s time in Congress.”
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