Students' Thoughts on the Labor Union System

In a study conducted at Kalamazoo College, the issue of current labor union knowledge and support was explored. Randomly selecting three classes and surveying all of the students in each class, 57 students were surveyed. The first part of the data was on a one to five scale and each participant was given a composite score of the questions portraying unions in a favorable light and a score of the questions of the questions unions in an unfavorable light (the high score being a 70, low score a 14). Men’s average score for positive questions was a 43.92 and the score for women was a 49.83. The second half of the essay had questions on demographics and other factors that could help test some of our hypotheses.

Based on the data collected, a few hypotheses were tested to find some influences on the composite scores. One test conducted was to find out if business majors were more inclined than social science majors to join a labor union when they enter the work force. There was no statistical significant evidence that business majors were anymore likely to join a union than social science majors. One factor that showed a significant influence to the positive question scores was the presence of a family member’s involvement in a union. The presence of a family member in a union added a significant amount of points the to the positive score. Many students were uninformed about the issue in general, especially the underclassmen. The more orientated an upperclassmen becomes with the work place, the more his or her opinions would be better formed in one-way or another.