"Study states" looks at various rankings and scorecards judging geographical areas while keeping in mind these grades are best viewed as a mix of artistic analysis and data.

Buzz: The Los Angeles Unified School District strike comes as California government employees fuel nationwide development in union members.

Source: My dependable spreadsheet took a look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics' yearly study of union membership and analysis of that data by UnionStats.

Topline

California's task market is different than much of the nation, and union membership is a prime example.

California added 149,000 union members in 2015-- 54% of organized labor's overall 273,000 U.S. gain.

Last year, California governments hurried to refill tasks that were pruned during the pandemic era's lockdowns. That working with spree assisted organized labor as 54% of California federal government employees are union members.

Related: Riverside, San Bernardino counties are US job-creation leader

Consider that in 2022, state and local governments added 111,000 California union jobs. So 75% of union growth statewide in 2022 was federal government employees like those on LA's school picket lines.

Or take a look at 2022 union development this bigger-picture way: 40% of the nation's new union members were California government employees.

Information

California is quickly the nation's No. 1 union hotspot with 2.62 million members-- 18.3% of the U.S. overall. Next comes New York at 1.68 million, Illinois at 735,000, Pennsylvania at 715,000, and Ohio at 641,000.

And its leadership in new union workers for 2022 growth was followed by Texas, up 64,000, then Michigan at 49,000, Ohio at 45,000, and Alabama at 34,000.

18 states lost union members last year. New york city had the biggest drop (50,000), then Oregon, off 37,000, Florida, off 34,000, Minnesota, off 34,000, and Indiana, off 33,000.

Considering California's huge job market, union additions statewide in 2022 equaled 6% growth, No. 23 among the states, and triple the 2% development nationally.

Bottom line

Organized labor's clout-- as determined by the share of the overall workforce-- is expanding in California but down nationwide.
Last year, 16.1% of California employees were arranged labor members vs. 15.9% in 2021. The nation's 10.1% union share of employees was below 10.3% in 2021.

Keep in mind that just three states have larger sections of their workers in unions: Hawaii at 21.9%, then New York at 20.7%, and Washington state at 18%.

And where do unions have the least power? Just 1.7% of all South Carolina workers are unionized, then North Carolina at 2.8%, South Dakota at 3.1%, Virginia at 3.7%, and Utah at 3.9%.

Jonathan Lansner is business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com