{"id":194845,"date":"2025-09-02T19:08:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T19:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/194845\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T19:08:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T19:08:15","slug":"immigrant-labor-is-the-backbone-of-new-york-city-unions-new-report-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/194845\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigrant Labor is the Backbone of New York City Unions, New Report Shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

With New York City being renowned as both a union town<\/a> as well as the gateway for millions of immigrants, a new study shows that immigrant New Yorkers make up an essential portion of the city\u2019s unions. Researchers affiliated with the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies<\/a> discovered that immigrant New Yorkers make up the majority of union members in the five boroughs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The report, titled The State of the Unions 2025: A Profile of Organized Labor in New York City, New York State<\/a>, found that overall, the city\u2019s union membership rate is higher than the national average, with 20.5% of workers in the city belonging to a union in 2024\u201325, more than double the national average of 9.9% in 2024<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the researchers, the high rate of union membership among immigrant workers demonstrates how vital immigrant workers have been in sustaining the organized labor movement in the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Immigrant workers represented a slight majority of workers in unions, with a 22.3% membership rate in 2024\u201325, compared to 21.1% among U.S.-born workers. Naturalized U.S. citizens have higher rates of union membership than native born workers, with 26.7% compared to 20.4%.<\/p>\n

For immigrant workers, belonging in a union has contributed to higher incomes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The report found that immigrant union members earned a median hourly wage of $27.50 in 2024\u201325, compared to $22.50 for non-union immigrants \u2014 a 22% premium.<\/p>\n

\"\"Source: CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies<\/p>\n

The data also revealed that non-citizen immigrants lag behind other groups, with just 12.7% of them belonging to a union. According to the report, non-citizens are disproportionately recent arrivals who are more likely to be employed in informal sectors with extremely low unionization rates.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Union membership rates among immigrants aren\u2019t homogeneous across all geographic regions. Asian-born immigrants have relatively low unionization rates, at 12.6%, while Latin American immigrants\u2019 unionization rates are substantially larger, at 22.0%. Among unionized immigrant groups, African immigrants by far have the highest union density, 27.1%, compared to only 22.3% of U.S.-born New Yorkers belonging to a union.<\/p>\n

As the Trump administration continues its immigration crackdown, as well as gutting federal workplace protections<\/a> that disproportionately affect immigrant workers, the report warns that without public policy at the city, state, and national levels, ongoing federal anti-immigrant policies could further undermine the labor movement\u2019s gains.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere immigrants have stable access to formal employment, their unionization rates meet or exceed those of U.S.-born workers,\u201d report co-author\u202fRuth Milkman, Distinguished Professor at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies and the CUNY Graduate Center, said in a statement shared with Documented. \u201cThat strength is helping to sustain New York\u2019s union advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With New York City being renowned as both a union town as well as the gateway for millions…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":194846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,108553,36056,108551,606,45018,405,403,108552,5226,5225,5228,5227,39749,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-194845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-cuny","10":"tag-immigrant-labor","11":"tag-immigrant-workers","12":"tag-labor","13":"tag-labor-day","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-new-york-city-union-movement","17":"tag-newyork","18":"tag-newyorkcity","19":"tag-ny","20":"tag-nyc","21":"tag-unions","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115136279745629492","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}