NYC Union Density Remains High as Private Sector Lags: Report
New York City remains one of the most heavily unionized places in the country, but the steady decline of private-sector labor organizing presents a formidable challenge for Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pro-labor bona fides, according to a new report by sociologists Ruth Milkman and Joseph van der Naald.
About 20.5 percent of workers living in the five boroughs were union members in 2025-26, more than twice the national rate of 10 percent, according to their report, titled The State of the Unions 2026. New York State’s unionization rate was 20.9 percent, second only to Hawaii.
But the city’s union strength is concentrated in the public sector, where 65.1 percent of workers were unionized, compared with 14.3 percent in the private sector. Nationally, public-sector union density was 32.7 percent, compared with 6 percent in the private sector.
Mamdani’s stance a ‘shift in the right direction’
Milkman, a professor of sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center, said the early months of the Mamdani administration represent a significant change in the city’s political environment for organized labor — but not necessarily a reversal of the forces that have weakened unions for decades. Federal labor law, employer resistance and the state’s control over Medicaid funding and other resources remain outside the mayor’s control.
Despite these limits, Milkman said in an interview Monday, that Mamdani's posture is a "definite shift in the right direction, what we’ve seen so far."
Mamdani, who took office in January, has appointed former President Joe Biden's acting Labor Secretary Julie Su as deputy mayor for economic justice, created an Office of Street Vendor Services and stood with unionized nurses on their picket lines. He has also issued an executive order protecting outdoor workers from excessive heat, backed legislation that would require delivery companies such as Amazon and FedEx to directly employ drivers and pursued settlements with employers accused of violating workplace laws.
Most recently, the mayor also announced the creation of the Office of Worker Power, to be led by Tony Perlstein – a former longshoreman and United Auto Workers organizing director, which will help workers get “connected and organized.”
“The Mayor’s Office of Worker Power will make sure workers have a seat at the table before exploitation becomes a crisis and violations become routine,” Mamdani said in announcing the new office. “We’re connecting workers to their rights, to each other and to the organizations ready to stand with them. Because when workers have power, this city works better for everyone.”
Collective bargaining will be Mamdani’s biggest challenge
Despite these ostensibly pro-labor moves, Milkman said the administration faces a much more difficult test in negotiating new contracts with the city’s public-sector unions.
“What we don’t know yet is whether he’ll be able to handle the public-sector collective bargaining contracts,” she said.
That challenge is complicated by the city’s limited control over its finances. The report notes that much will depend on Mamdani’s relationship with Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
NYC’s overall unionization rate has fallen from roughly 24 percent in the mid-2010s, with the losses mostly concentrated in the private sector.
Employee resistance key to labor's decline
According to Milkman, employer resistance remains the central obstacle to rebuilding private-sector union density.
“That is the single biggest factor in shaping the decline that we’ve seen over the decades,” she said.
The report finds that the city’s private-sector unionization rate was 25.3 percent in 1986, compared with 14.3 percent today. New York State’s private-sector rate was about 24 percent in 1983 and now stands at 12.5 percent.
She pointed to the Amazon Labor Union’s successful organizing campaign at the company’s Staten Island warehouse as an example. Workers won their union election, but Amazon avoided negotiating a first contract, despite the campaign’s national attention.
Reversing the broader decline, she said, would require changes to federal labor law — something beyond the authority of City Hall.
Age gap trend narrows
Young workers have attracted considerable attention for recent organizing campaigns, but the report finds that unionization remains substantially higher among workers 35 and older. Milkman said that apparent contradiction is largely explained by where younger workers are employed.
“The biggest determinant of that is where someone is employed,” she said.
A young worker can strongly support unions while working for a nonunion employer, she noted, while someone with little interest in organized labor may become a union member simply by taking a job at a unionized institution.
Nonetheless, Milkman said the gap between younger and older workers has begun to narrow.
“It’s beginning to change,” she said. “The age gap has narrowed because of new organizing. But it’s going to take a lot more of it to really close that gap.”