NEW YORK—Mayor Zohran Mamdani marked Labor Day, Sept. 7, by announcing the creation of the Mayor’s Office of Worker Power (MOWP). The new office is the first such body created anywhere in the nation.
Its purpose will be to bring the city government’s full force into the fight to end exploitation of workers suffering from low pay or poor working conditions wherever it finds those problems and, significantly, to create conditions that would prevent such exploitation in places where it may not currently exist but could potentially arise in the future.
On a practical level, it means City Hall will now be involved in and supporting the organizing of unions across the city’s workforce. The MOWP comes into existence at a time when nationwide approval of unions is at a record high level, with over 71% saying they support organized labor.
The level of support for unions has not been that high since the 1950s, when the McCarthy anti-labor witch-hunts targeted unions with left or Communist leadership and sapped support for labor. Now, with the CEOs of the country’s 100 largest corporations earning 614 times their median worker, more and more people are seeing the need for unions—a fact noted by City Hall.
People’s World asked Mamdani’s office to provide the rationale for setting up the Mayor’s Office of Worker Power. A spokesperson said “the necessity for City Hall to have a policy of getting involved with workers to address worker rights is greater than it has ever been and is part of the commitment we have made to address the issues of affordability. This was a major point we made repeatedly during our campaign last year.”
“Workers come into the work place day after day. Their hard work keeps the huge city running smoothly,” the mayor said in a press release. “It’s an important thing they do yet they are not always able to shape in any meaningful way the manner in which their jobs can be carried out. They need a voice on the job, and this is what we intend to provide them with the Mayor’s Office of Worker Power.”
The intention, he stressed, is to “make sure that workers have a seat at the table where decisions are being made.”
The MOWP regularly convene meetings of workers, union leaders, worker centers, immigrant workers, and gig and platform workers. It will conduct public hearings on issues facing workers and provide referrals to agencies and organizations that assist workers when they have problems. It will also coordinate research efforts on workers’ issues with other city agencies in order to develop policy proposals that are informed directly by workers’ own experiences.
Workers will be able to connect with the MOWP and get information about their rights via multiple channels, including workforce centers, public libraries, government offices, schools, and community events.
The office will be run on a day-to-day basis by Tony Perlstein, a long-time union organizer who ran the United Auto Workers organizing arm on a national level. Perlstein has a working-class background, born in the Bronx and raised in Brooklyn. Perlstein emphasized that the MOWP is unique nationally because it puts the city government in the position of backing union organizing and putting workers in control of City Hall policy.
Supervising the whole effort to put City Hall squarely in the pro-union camp will be Julie Su, the Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice. Su helped lead an effort that will see delivery in the city earn over $2,200 more per individual annually after a campaign against stolen tips. She also worked to establish the Deliveristas Hub, a place in City Hall Park where delivery workers can come and rest.
Su explained that it is her aim to make sure the MOWP convenes gatherings of workers when there are problems and gatherings of workers for whom problems have not yet developed but have the potential to develop in the future.
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