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I usually get it passed when there is a large movement for unemployment subs or something.

Yeah, when there's a large movement for either a political or social reform, I can get all the reforms passed by just continually passing the non-demanded reforms, making the movements more radical and ensuring they return in a few months.
 
Depending on what country you're playing you can get healthcare reforms before or during the Springtime of Nations. Simply refuse to make any liberal reforms and eventually the socialist ones will become available. You need to be prepared to deal with the consequences of rebellions though.
 
Is there a way to encourage a Socialist Upper House?

Using the events that make pops in favor whatever issues socialists support (planned economy, pacifism and so on). Setting Party Loyalty: Socialists as a NF works too, but I've not had much success with it.
 
Using the events that make pops in favor whatever issues socialists support (planned economy, pacifism and so on). Setting Party Loyalty: Socialists as a NF works too, but I've not had much success with it.

No I tried all that before, party loyalty NF for Socialists will simply mean that more POP's will vote for a Socialist party in elections, but it does not mean their ideology will change to Socialist, which is what you actually need. When your upper house is 50% Socialist, when it comes to elections you may find that most Socialist Aristocrats and Capitalists do not actually vote for Socialist parties at all. This is because when it comes to election POP's vote according to their Issues and ignore their political ideologies, in election campaign events you can only influence Issues of voters, not their ideology. The problem is that there is no obvious way to make the rich which make up the Upper House if it's Appointed change their ideology to Socialist so that you can pass reforms.
I guess there is no easy way, if you could get the health care or education reforms early on that would make a huge difference to the country you are playing.
 
When your upper house is 50% Socialist, when it comes to elections you may find that most Socialist Aristocrats and Capitalists do not actually vote for Socialist parties at all.

You could try expanding your upper house selection/suffrage so that lower classes can select the upper house. They're more likely to promote socialist ideas. Also the tool top for social unions mentions something along the lines of social reform desire. Getting those early could set you ahead for moving your population in that direction. High militancy does seem to be the most effective method. If you're lucky, you can get 1-2 chances during the late 1840 rebellions to work on a social reform.
 
i usually cheat a bit on this one (sorry...:S) just type in "event 18040" and choose to get 40% (or something) upper house socialists! type as much as you get more than 50% socialist upper house. works fine for me :)
 
You could try expanding your upper house selection/suffrage so that lower classes can select the upper house. They're more likely to promote socialist ideas. Also the tool top for social unions mentions something along the lines of social reform desire. Getting those early could set you ahead for moving your population in that direction. High militancy does seem to be the most effective method. If you're lucky, you can get 1-2 chances during the late 1840 rebellions to work on a social reform.

Actually in my experience I found it better to leave the Upper House to "Appointed", because usually the population is never more than 15% or 20% Socialist until very late in the game as the population tends to stick to Conservative or Liberal most of the time, while the rich can become over 40% Socialist much earlier. Because of that I never pass the "Based on population" Upper House reform, or leave it for very late when I already passed most social reforms. As for the trade unions reforms which increase desire for social reforms, I always pass these reforms first. I think passing the "Free press" reform after that helps too, but since it increases Consciousness among the literate POP's, you would have to pass every reform your people want.
Which social reforms do avoid though? I try to avoid or delay passing "14th hour workday" it's effects actually seem counterproductive. I also think twice about passing minimum wage reforms, as they give your POP's more cash to spend on goods, but then it lowers the profits of your factories too and some of them might bankrupt because of that.
Also, I still don't know what pension reforms actually do in the game and they affect your POPs apart from making them happier.
 
Capitalist doing well will tend to favor socialism.

Craftsman having high con will also tend to favor socialism. Passing the wages reforms can actually help you to promote socialism since your craftsman will be more likely to fullify their needs therefore increasing their con. Plus, it can help increasing your inner market demand since your craftsman will be able to buy more stuff. This is particularly effective late game when you swing in cash and you can subside any factories.

Pension reforms will give a little bit of cash to all your peoples helping mostly farmers, artisans and aristocrats. Personally, I find this reform ineffective since the amount of cash given is too small to have any impact on your pop.