George Pyle of the Buffalo News writes - “A century ago, the suggestion that New York’s working men and women could band together to bargain for better wages and working conditions was considered a radical, even a revolutionary, idea.

Today, labor unions are an established part of the state’s economy and its politics, as settled as Wall Street or any government entity.

New Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers out this month show that New York State continues to lead the nation in the percentage of unionized workers, with 25.2 percent of employed workers paying union dues. Buffalo and other New York metro areas, with rates of unionization that also tend to run at about a quarter of employed people, are also near the top of the list of most unionized cities…

But it is the strain on the taxpayers that most concerns Michael Moran, spokesman for the Business Council of New York.

Moran notes that New York’s high rate of unionization is fueled by growing the government class at a time when the private sector is contracting. In New York, 72.4 percent of the government workers at the local, state and federal level are union members. In New York’s private sector, unions represent only 16.5 percent of the employed.

“You can’t maintain an economy based on government spending,” Moran said. “You have to have a vibrant private sector.”

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