New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has established the Office of Worker Power, a first-in-the-nation initiative to connect workers with education, resources, and organizations to help them form a union or demand better working conditions on the job. The office will also allow workers more input into city labor policies and assist them in reporting violations by their employers, Mamdani wrote in an executive order.<\/p>\n
Julie Su, the deputy mayor for economic justice and a former acting U.S. labor secretary, will coordinate efforts on the office, and Tony Perlstein, a longtime union organizer most recently with the United Auto Workers, will become its first executive director. The staff head count of the office and its budget have yet to be determined.<\/p>\n
More from David Dayen<\/a><\/p>\n Mamdani signed the executive order in front of workers in the construction, hotel, caregiving, and food service industries. It builds upon a series of efforts to empower workers in New York City, like backing delivery drivers<\/a> in their fight with Amazon over employee misclassification that denies benefits. The Mamdani administration has secured $104 million in tips for delivery workers by enforcing the law on deceptive tipping practices, and recently partnered with New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg to enforce laws against wage theft.<\/p>\n The announcement also comes on the heels of a new report on inequality<\/a> in New York City, showing that the top 0.1 percent received more than half of all New Yorkers\u2019 income growth between 2019 and 2024, while real median incomes in the city fell.<\/p>\n City officials say the new Office of Worker Power is necessitated by the severe drop in union density over the past half-century.<\/p>\n \u201cHistory has proven that worker power is the solution when an economy becomes too skewed,\u201d said Deputy Mayor Su in a press briefing. \u201cWhen workers can organize, everything changes. When they can build lasting, durable power, power that lets them transform their work experience, and by extension their lives, everything changes.\u201d<\/p>\n The Office of Worker Power is intended to work across agencies to connect and inform workers. It will not engage in direct union organizing and will not replace any unions or worker centers. Its mission is to help workers who may want a union but don\u2019t know how to go about it with the information they need to get started, as well as the contacts with groups that can assist them further. This, officials said, will give workers the knowledge and the courage to assert themselves on the job.<\/p>\n The Mamdani administration also envisions public hearings on worker rights issues and other convenings that bring workers together, along with research that highlights key topics and informs policy proposals for the city council.<\/p>\n The communication is intended to be two-way, with workers explaining their challenges to the office and having that lead to policy positions on things like workplace safety, misclassification, the use of new technology like artificial intelligence, or exploitation based on citizenship status.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Mayor\u2019s Office of Worker Power will make sure workers have a seat at the table before exploitation becomes a crisis and violations become routine,\u201d Mayor Mamdani said in a statement.<\/p>\n Perlstein, who will run the office, is a former longshoreman at the Port of New York and New Jersey who became secretary-treasurer of the local longshore worker union. He has a background in organizing workers across several sectors, most recently as a director in the UAW\u2019s organizing department.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been part of many campaigns, some successful, some not,\u201d Perlstein told reporters. \u201cFor me this is not just about the material gains that workers win, but it\u2019s also the transformative process that workers go through as they learn to build together and struggle \u2026 through the process of organizing, people transform.\u201d<\/p>\n The executive order also charges Deputy Mayor Su with establishing enforcement principles on worker protections across city agencies, signaling a strong push to hold employers who violate the law accountable. In particular, the order states that city agencies should investigate workplace violations even when no complaint has been filed. Traditionally, agencies have waited for a complaint to start investigating.<\/p>\n \u201cOftentimes the most vulnerable workers do not report,\u201d Su said, citing reasons like fears of retaliation or a lack of understanding about their rights. \u201cSo it is not enough for government to simply wait until workers come forward.\u201d The order stresses that companies with large numbers of low-wage workers and \u201ca history of labor violations or other indicators of poor compliance with labor standards\u201d should be prioritized for investigation.<\/p>\n In addition, the order seeks to protect workers from being targeted or discriminated against for any reason, but particularly for their immigration status. \u201cThe right to organize and \u2026 the right to be protected by New York City\u2019s labor laws do not depend on immigration status,\u201d Su said.<\/p>\n But the Office of Worker Power, putting the administration in New York City firmly on the side of worker organizing, is the showpiece. Considering that the administration also represents management in negotiations with public employees, it\u2019s an unusual position for a city government, but it\u2019s necessitated, officials say, by the severe drop in union density over the past half-century. New York City has union density among private-sector workers of around 12.5 percent<\/a>, according to the School of Labor and Urban Studies at the City University of New York. This is far above the national average, but that number was double in the 1980s.<\/p>\n