These days it’s rare to read a story where New York takes the No. 1 spot.
But recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics help confirm New York’s leadership in two categories. The first is the percentage of its workforce that is unionized — 23.2 percent. The other is the percentage of its public-sector workforce that is unionized. Other studies put that number at 73.3 percent, double the national rate.
For most Americans, the word “union” conjures up iconic images of muscled men assembling cars, fitting pipes or constructing buildings. But that hasn’t been the reality since 2009, when the number of unionized government workers first surpassed unionized private-sector workers.
That, plus hard economic times, highlights an increasing conflict within Big Labor: between the brotherhood of the public sector and the brotherhood of the private sector.
Say what you will about the high costs imposed by private-sector unions. These unions are at least tethered to reality — i.e., to the private sector — in some way. If their company or industry goes down, they know they will take a hit (just ask the bakers at Hostess).
By contrast, when public-sector unions are told there isn’t enough money for all they want, their answer is, simply, “raise taxes.” And often the politicians oblige.
In recent years, some in the private-sector unions have begun to realize that they are paying the price. They pay most directly as taxpayers, of course. It’s dawning on the out-of-work drywaller or cement worker that it’s his tax dollars subsidizing the local teacher who pays next to nothing for his or her health care.
But these private-sector workers are also paying the price in terms of diminished job opportunities. Look around at the building trades — the steamfitters, the drywallers, the carpenters. For many of these unions, unemployment has been several times as high as the national rate of 7.8 percent.
We suspect that’s one reason that in New Jersey, Senate President Stephen Sweeney supported Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s reform of pensions and benefits for state workers. Sweeney may be a Democrat, but he’s also a leader in the ironworkers union, and he understands there won’t be any jobs for ironworkers if New Jersey doesn’t clean up its fiscal house and get its economy back on track.
In other words, it’s not only business that pays a price for a highly unionized government work force. Other workers pay, too.