The politics around unions in NYC are pretty fascinating. Many of the trades and at least some of the public sector workers are making enough money to be upper

The politics around unions in NYC are pretty fascinating. Many of the trades and at least some of the public sector workers are making enough money to be upper middle class (or higher) by any reasonable definition. Much more so certainly than many professions requiring college or even graduate degrees--for example publishing is still fairly big in NYC but pays terribly. However the rhetoric coming out of these unions still hits the themes of poor, underdog working class pretty hard. Meanwhile the actual working class is hit the hardest by inflated costs of virtually everything. You end up with tragicomic situations like the infamous inflated rat protests being manned by poorly paid temp workers because the actual union members can't be bothered.