Public-sector workers had a union membership rate (35.7 percent), more than five times higher than that of private-sector workers (6.6 percent).What you see reflects the great advantage public sector unions provide as their political contributions "buy" the support of legislators, private sector unions confer no such advantage. Second, occupations with the highest participation rates tend to be government jobs.
Workers in education, training, and library occupations and in protective service occupations had the highest unionization rate, at 35.3 percent for each occupation group.
Black workers were more likely to be union members than were white, Asian, or Hispanic workers.
Third, government has made a concerted effort to hire black workers, while Hispanics whose immigration status, or that of family members, may be less-than-pristine have tended to avoid government jobs. These three apparently independent data points are in fact highly interrelated.
