Albany

The Capital Region is tops in the nation for per capita union membership, according to a new national survey.

An estimated 40 percent of working people in the greater Capital Region statistical area are covered by union contracts, according to the latest figures compiled by two economics professors in Georgia and Texas.

The "metropolitan statistical area" used in the data covers Albany, Schenectady, Rensselaer, Saratoga and Schoharie counties. The survey suggests roughly 169,000 people are covered under union contracts.

Moreover, New York state as a whole is the nation's most heavily unionized state, with almost 26 percent, or 2 million workers, covered by organized labor.

The reasons for the Capital Region's high rates is straightforward: As the number of traditionally unionized industrial jobs in the region and state continues to dwindle, organized public-sector workers make up a larger proportion of the workforce.

The data, available at UnionStats.com, shows 29 percent of the region's private-sector workers are unionized, while a whopping 77 percent of those in the public sector work under a labor contract.

"Our three biggest sectors are government, education and health care, and all of those three are heavily unionized," said Rocky Ferraro, executive director at the Capital District Regional Planning Commission.

Health care may play a growing role in the union movement, added Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of Labor Education Research and a senior lecturer at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

In contrast to the factories of yesteryear, many of today's union members, she said, work at relatively low-wage jobs such as health aides or janitors.

The survey is conducted by Trinity University's Prof. David Macpherson and Georgia State University's Prof. Barry T. Hirsch.

Their survey collects responses from U.S. Census data, including questions about whether people live in households with unionized employees. They then extrapolate those responses.

In an email, Hirsch cautioned that the Albany area has a lower population than major urban centers.

The survey began in 1986, and Macpherson said one could plot out trends in union membership nationwide since then. When the first set of data was compiled, 32 percent of the region's workforce was unionized.

Overall, nationwide union membership and unionization has fallen steadily since the 1970s.

The national workforce was roughly 12 percent unionized in 2014, compared to 27 percent in 1979.

The data reflects regional differences: Union participation is higher in the Northeast, upper Midwest and West Coast and lower in the South.

The Albany area's 40 percent is followed by Modesto, Calif., with 35 percent unionization, and Atlantic City, N.J., at 32 percent.

Locations like Charleston, S.C., and Waco, Texas, for example, reported having less than 1 percent of organized workers.

rkarlin@timesunion.com • 518-454-5758 • @RickKarlinTU