Unions and Ethnic Diversity: The Israeli Case of East European Immigrants

This study examined the union activities and attitudes of 359 East European immigrants to Israel and compared them to those of 362 native-born Israelis. Two forms of union participation (formal and informal activities) and two attitudes (union commitment and union militancy) were examined. These variables were not only compared across the two subsamples, but three explanatory models of the variables were tested as well: the personal, the economic, and the socialization models. The findings showed immigrants to be more active than native-born Israelis in both formal and informal types of activities and more committed to the union. The three models explained more variance in the attitudes and behaviors of native-born Israelis and revealed some differences in the effects of various factors across the two subsamples. Implications for future research and possible strategies that unions could undertake to gain the support of minority workers were discussed.