Thread by @baseballcrank

1. New York is on the verge of passing a law to pay union members to go on strike, saving unions a fortune. wsj.com/articles/new-y…

2. Public sector workers in New York are vastly more likely to be unionized than private sector workers. A single union, the New York State United Teachers union, represents more than 400,000 members, nearly a quarter of all unionized workers in NY state.

slu.cuny.edu/wp-content/upl…

3. New York has only recently been eclipsed by Hawaii as the most unionized state in the country, reflecting the political power behind such laws. bls.gov/regions/new-yo…

4. Reflecting the predominance of the teachers union, college graduates are more likely to be unionized in New York than people with no college education.

5. In Manhattan, the great engine of New York's economy, only 7% of private sector workers are unionized. In the Bronx, it's almost 5 times that. But public sector workers are orders of magnitude more likely to be unionized.

6. When you look at the economically stagnant Upstate, however, public sector workers make more money on average than private sector workers empirecenter.org/wp-content/upl…

7. Even with the government scrambling to shore them up, unions lost significant membership in NY in 2018 newsday.com/business/new-y…

8. In response, the state government is trying to keep workers from leaving unions, while encouraging union organizing crainsnewyork.com/article/201807…

9. For example, the 2018 amendments require employers to allow workers to meet with union reps on work time cseany.org/taylor-law-win

10. Meanwhile, public sector workers lack some of the protections from their own unions that private sector workers have: specifically, their unions aren't required to meet the same transparency standards empirecenter.org/publications/t…

11. For those curious about the revised statutory language on withdrawal from paying union dues twulocal100.org/sites/twulocal…