What the research says
Clean data is not a chore. It is how strong campaigns win. Decades of union-organizing research point to the same five conditions of campaign durability — and each one is measured against a column in your roster.
Here are the four headline findings the rest of the course operationalizes.
Housecall coverage
Higher NLRB win rate when at least half the unit is housecalled. Bronfenbrenner (1997).
Representative committee
Higher win rate with an organizing committee that reflects the unit’s demographics. Bronfenbrenner (1997).
Adjunct campaigns
NLRB win rate for adjunct faculty campaigns, 2013–2016. University Business.
Starbucks Workers United
NLRB win rate across 600+ Starbucks elections. Restaurant Dive, 2025.
The five conditions strong campaigns share
Across the studies above, five recurring conditions predict campaign durability. Each one maps to a column you can clean and an indicator you can calculate.
| Condition | What it measures | Roster column it depends on |
|---|---|---|
| Person-to-person organizing | Housecall coverage in a given window. | Housecall date |
| Representative committee | Whether the committee reflects the unit. | Committee role + demographics |
| Resonant issue framing | Survey response codes that match the workers’ own language. | Survey code |
| Sustained momentum | Days since the last contact event. | Last contact date |
| Embedded structures | Structure-test participation rate. | Structure-test status |
Why this matters for data hygiene: if the date column is text instead of a real date, you cannot calculate “days since.” If (000) - sits in the phone column, your card-support percentage lies by 13 points. Every formula in this course removes one obstacle between dirty data and a defensible number.
Where the research lives
The sidebar at the bottom of every lesson page lists the full citations. The two most cited studies in this course are Bronfenbrenner (1997) and Badigannavar & Kelly (2005).
Action: Mark this page complete when you have finished the activity above.