Despite
all the attention that has been paid to the union-backed campaign for a $15
minimum wage, the national decline in organized labor has persisted. Still, for
three straight years, New York City, the birthplace of the Fight for $15
movement, has bucked that trend, according to a report that was to be released
on Monday.
Nationally,
fewer than one in nine workers is a union member, a share that has decreased
slowly and steadily for more than 15 years, the report says. But in New York
City, more than a quarter of workers are unionized, the highest proportion
since 2007, according to the report.
“New
York continues defying the law of gravity,” said Ruth Milkman, a co-author,
with Stephanie Luce, of the annual report, titled “The State of the Unions.”
Ms. Milkman and Ms. Luce are professors at the Murphy
Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at the City
University of New York.
The
share of New York City workers who belong to unions has risen for three
straight years — to 25.5 percent in the past year from 21.5 percent in 2012 —
the report says. That is more than double the 10.9 percent of workers
nationwide who are unionized. The report’s authors attribute the countertrend
in New York to the rebound of traditionally unionized industries weakened by
the recession, including construction and the hotel business.
And
it has come about despite limited success in organizing the employees of
fast-food restaurants and other workers who began the push for a $15 minimum
wage, Ms. Milkman said.
When
that campaign started in Manhattan in November 2012, its leaders called for two
profound changes: an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour and union
representation for the workers. At the time, neither demand seemed like
anything more than a sky-blue delusion.
But
with the help and financial backing of influential unions, the campaign won
converts. In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, at first balked at
supporting the full wage demand. But he eventually embraced it and wound up
racing Gov. Jerry Brown, a California Democrat, to sign legislation that would
raise the state minimum wage to $15.
The
minimum wage in California is scheduled to rise in steps to $15 by 2022. In New
York City, the minimum wage will reach $15 by 2018; for the rest of the
state, it will rise to at least $12.50 by 2021. Some cities outside those two
states, including Seattle and Washington, have also adopted plans to raise
their minimum wages to $15.
“The
other places that have passed the $15-an-hour measure are also union
strongholds,” Ms. Milkman said. So, she added, “there’s a decent possibility
that this will lead to greater union membership.”
But
there have also been periods of “fortress unionism” in American history, she
said, when unions grew stronger in some cities and certain industries are
“cemented by the political clout of organized labor,” while the labor movement
declined nationally. It is easier to predict that employers will continue to
“fight tooth and nail” against their employees’ attempts to organize, she said.
While
New York City and the state have higher rates of union membership than any
other city or state in the country, government employees account for most of
that “density,” the report says.
About
70 percent of public-sector workers in the city and the state are union
members, compared with just 19 percent of private-sector workers in the city
and 13 percent in the rest of the state. Still, both of those rates are much
higher than those of the nation, where less than 7 percent of private-sector
workers — or about one in 15 — belong to unions.
All
told, there are about 901,000 unionized workers living in New York City,
slightly less than half the state’s total of 1.99 million. Only California has
more — about 2.5 million in 2015, according to the federal Bureau of Labor
Statistics. But that total amounted to only about one in six workers in
California, compared with slightly less than one in four in New York State.
Source: The
New York Times
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