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New York’s labor-union membership drops, but still among highest in nation

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

In 2019, 1.7 million wage and salary workers in New York state were union members, according to figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in February. That’s a decline from 1.9 million union members in 2018. The percentage of the state’s wage and salary workers in a union dropped from 22.3 percent in […]

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In 2019, 1.7 million wage and salary workers in New York state were union members, according to figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in February.

That’s a decline from 1.9 million union members in 2018. The percentage of the state’s wage and salary workers in a union dropped from 22.3 percent in 2018 to 21 percent in 2019.

Despite the drop, New York’s union membership rate remains the second-highest in the U.S., trailing only Hawaii (23.5 percent). The BLS reports that union membership nationwide was 10.3 percent in 2019.

New York is also second in the nation in terms of total number of union members, behind only California’s 2.5 million.

The BLS data also shows that 145,000 non-union members in New York had jobs represented by unions, so 22.7 percent of the state’s workers either belong to unions or are represented by them.

Vance Marriner