New York has the highest number of government union workers, report finds
Fox News
New York has the country’s highest number of government union workers, according to a new report.
On Monday, the Commonwealth Foundation released a report titled “State of the Unions: Examining Union Membership in State Government,” which found that while union membership is declining across the country, public sector unions are thriving.
Those very unions, meanwhile, have thrown considerable amounts of cash behind Democratic causes in recent years.
“The report demonstrates that some state governments are even more beholden to unions than we thought,” David Osborne, the Commonwealth Foundation’s senior fellow of labor policy, told Fox News Digital.
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“Not only do unions play politics and lobby with union members’ money, but they also have members directly affecting public policy and driving political decisionmaking as state employees,” Osborne continued. “It’s a level of influence no other special interest group would be permitted to exercise.”
According to the report, New York has the highest number of workers represented by a government union (around 219,000) and the most state government dues-paying members (around 174,000).
The foundation, however, found that Connecticut had the highest “union density” rate due to its entire government workforce belonging to public unions. The “union density” rate refers to “the number of dues-paying union members compared to the total number of state employees,” which “gives a sense of the overall level of union entrenchment in state government,” according to the report.
Additionally, the foundation noted that the states with the five lowest union density rates – Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Colorado, and North Dakota – have labor laws “generally more friendly to workers than other states.”
“When coupled with the grades of the states with the highest union density rates, this data suggests that when a state’s legal environment does not blatantly favor government unions, state employees are more likely to decline unionization and union membership,” the group said.
The Commonwealth Foundation sought public records from all 50 states for its study but received information from just 27 of them. The group says California, Illinois and Missouri withheld the requested information using laws that exempt unions from such requests.
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The new report follows a previous analysis from the group that found the nation’s four largest government unions — the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), National Education Association (NEA), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — spent a staggering $708 million on politics to propel Democratic Party causes in the last election cycle.
The unions combined to pump the massive sum into lobbying and contributions to political organizations and candidates in federal, state, and local races during the 2022 midterm elections.
“Government unions use this power not only to advance leftist causes but also to elect political leaders who will protect their interests and influence,” Osborne previously said. “The result, unfortunately, is that federal, state and local governments are increasingly led by politicians who care more about union executives than union members or taxpayers.”
According to the report, unions spent more on what the Commonwealth Foundation deemed political activity than on categories closely aligned with membership support.
“Most of a union’s revenue comes from its membership, in the form of member dues. Given this fact, it may make sense for the unions to allocate most financial resources toward membership support,” that report states.
“However, this is not the case. The four largest government unions spent over $2.79 billion in 2021 and 2022, yet representational activities, the spending category most closely linked to membership support, only accounted for $554 million, or less than 20 percent of total expenditures.”
Among its notable political expenditures was a combined $157 million between the unions’ PACs at the federal level, including disbursements of $38 million to the Sen. Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC, $30 million to the NEA Advocacy Fund and $28 million to the SEIU Political Education and Action Fund/United We Can.
The union PACs also sent $8.34 million directly to candidates, with an overwhelming majority ($8.29 million) benefiting Democrats. Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia was the top recipient, and his campaign landed over $60,000 from the PACs.
Additionally, the Commonwealth Foundation discovered that around $145 million had made its way to the state and local levels throughout the 2022 election cycle.
The four unions did not respond to past Fox News Digital’s requests for comment on the previous report.