What is the link between trade union power and more inclusive socio-economic rights for foreign workers? In this paper, we use longitudinal data from 1960 to 2010 from 19 developed democracies and estimate two-way fixed effects models with panel corrected standard errors and rolling regressions to evaluate the relationship between the changing dynamics of two different trade union power resources characteristics, i.e., associational and institutional powers, and the extent to which they relate to the socio-economic rights policy for foreign workers. Our analyses show that trade unions can leverage stronger membership bases and their institutional embeddedness in the decision-making for better socio-economic rights outcomes for foreigners. Thus, in this way, our analyses are in line with the arguments developed in earlier case studies concerning the intersection of industrial relations and the politics of immigration. However, our findings diverge and provide a more complex picture of the influence of trade unions’ power, especially in the decades that follow the 1980s.
