Organized labor in New York Metropolis has been mightily energetic up to now this decade, and the primary half of 2026 was no exception. Nurses, public defenders, lodge staff and school school all walked off the job this summer time to historic impact, successful substantial contract enhancements.
However, whereas union advocates might have purpose to pat themselves on the again, the momentum has not been sufficient to reverse New York’s decades-long decline in total unionization charges, in keeping with the newest annual report by the CUNY Faculty of Labor and City Research.
The share of the unionized workforce within the metropolis has remained flat regardless of an uptick in what researchers describe as “extremely seen union exercise,” such because the historic nurses strike this previous winter.
However there are some vivid spots: New York ranks first in union density among the many nation’s largest states; it’s second total solely to Hawaii, which has a a lot smaller inhabitants. Between 2025 and 2026, public-sector union density in each New York Metropolis and State was roughly double the nationwide common.
In all, New York has extra union members — 1.81 million — than any state apart from California, the nation’s most populous.
Ruth Milkman, a co-author of the report and chair of CUNY’s graduate labor research division, stated in an interview that New York continues to be a stronghold of organized labor, and reiterated that latest organizing, profitable strikes and powerful public help for unions bode properly for the town’s labor motion.
However that exercise has not reached the dimensions wanted to reverse a longer-term decline within the share of staff who’re union members, the report discovered, echoing its findings from latest years.
The threats to staff throughout the nation and in New York are overwhelming, from synthetic intelligence and the consolidation of huge firms, to the Trump administration’s gutting of the federal workforce and its culling of the Nationwide Labor Relations Board.
“So the truth that New York’s numbers are staying flat, it’s truly an achievement,” stated Milkman.
Milkman’s analysis group completes its annual report utilizing Census information from the U.S. Present Inhabitants Survey of New York Metropolis residents. The New York Metropolis Central Labor Council, the town federation of unions, has disagreed with the report’s methodology and conclusions up to now, claiming that it doesn’t account for staff employed within the metropolis who dwell in its suburbs and in neighboring states.
Healthcare and schooling are two of probably the most unionized sectors in New York Metropolis, at 28% and 18.6% respectively, in keeping with the report. And this 12 months, staff in these sectors confirmed their may: A 39-day walkout this previous winter resulted in raises and improved nurse-to-patient ratios for 15,000 nurses throughout three personal hospital methods.
That strike by the New York State Nurses Affiliation was the most important and longest of its variety in New York Metropolis historical past. In the meantime, non-tenure observe school at New York College received their first-ever contract following a two-day strike in April, and greater than two years after they unionized with the United Auto Staff.
This 12 months’s report additionally zeroes in on Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s unprecedented deal with boosting employee organizing within the personal sector and his administration’s efforts to crack down on labor regulation violations. Final month, the town Division of Client and Employee Safety introduced a brand new partnership with the Manhattan District Lawyer’s workplace that can make it simpler for each places of work to research wage theft and different crimes.
Nevertheless, the researchers cautioned, Mamdani’s “greatest problem will come later in 2026, when the municipal labor contracts expire and new ones will likely be negotiated, affecting tons of of hundreds of staff.”
Town’s restricted management over its finances assets “will make this an particularly daunting process,” the report notes, including that Mamdani’s success will rely upon the power of his relationships with Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature.
