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.