Brad Lander Unveils First Workers’ Rights Platform of Mayoral Race
Lander’s plan includes strengthened workplace protections to guard against the civil rights rollbacks of the Trump Administration and serial harassers like Andrew Cuomo
Watch the recorded press conference
NEW YORK, NY — With Donald Trump attacking the National Labor Relations Board, unleashing an unprecedented assault on public service workers, and rolling back historic civil rights worker protections, Brad Lander today mapped out a path forward for workers’ rights protections in New York City — the only mayoral candidate to do so.
“New York’s working families are fed up with the skyrocketing cost-of-living, stagnating wages, and a government that fails to deliver on their needs,” said Brad Lander. “As Mayor, I’ll stand up for working New Yorkers, as I have throughout my career. I’m announcing today a commitment to create a Mayor’s Office of Workers’ Rights, to strengthen safeguards against sexual harassment and workplace abuse, and to raise wages and protections for workers across industries, to deliver a more affordable and just city for all New Yorkers.”
As Mayor, Lander will create the first ever New York City Mayor’s Office of Workers’ Rights to lead a cross-agency strategy for protecting and promoting the rights of workers in New York City. This new office would be charged with ensuring that our city has the nation’s strongest labor, civil rights, and immigrant worker protections, and adequate systems for enforcing them.
Lander will work with City agencies and the City Council to enact new policies that give working New Yorkers the protections, job security, and benefits they need to be able to thrive—including union access—while countering the Trump administration attacks.
To tackle the City’s affordability crisis and protect a healthy work-life balance for New Yorkers, Lander will:
Fight to enable New York City to enact and raise its own minimum wage that is in line with the city’s high cost of living. The Raise Up New York coalition and others have proposed updating the Fight for $15’s historic minimum wage increase in New York City to keep pace with increases in inflation and productivity since 2019. The City should use that same approach to phase in a significantly higher minimum wage to meet the needs of working New Yorkers struggling to pay their bills in our expensive city.
Expand New York City’s paid leave law to include an additional five days of paid time off that can be used for any purpose, as Chicago did last year by working with the City Council to update the city’s law.
Lander will protect New Yorkers against unfair firings by working to pass the Secure Jobs Act (Int. 0837-2022), which Lander has championed as Comptroller, in order to extend the city’s successful just cause job protections to New Yorkers in all industries — and guarantee severance pay when New Yorkers lose their jobs.
To fight back against the Trump administration’s assault on our workers, Lander will launch new city efforts to help more workers join unions and to enforce workplace protections, including by cracking down on abusive uses of AI and surveillance. Lander will also fight the Trump administration’s rollbacks of civil rights and attacks on DEI, and protect immigrant New Yorkers facing Trump administration attacks, including by strengthening protections for app-based workers.
To combat a lack of accountability of harassers in the workplace, as seen by the attempted comeback of serial harassers like Donald Trump and Andrew Cuomo, Lander will strengthen protections against sexual harassment and discrimination, and pay inequality.
In the City Council, Lander passed the first laws in the country to guarantee a living wage for Uber and Lyft drivers and deliveristas, and to shield fast-food and retail workers from abusive scheduling, and protect freelancers from being stiffed. As Comptroller, he has recovered over $9 million in prevailing wage violations, and launched the first Employer Violations Dashboard that brings together federal, state, and local workplace violations for companies in New York City.
“I’m proud to stand alongside Brad Lander, a true labor champion, as he releases a labor platform that prioritizes delivery workers and all essential workers who keep this city running,” said Gustavo Ajche, Delivery Worker and Labor Leader. “This policy platform provides us with the vital tools we need to defend our right to organize, fight for better working conditions, and expand labor protections for gig workers.”
“Working New Yorkers are under a lot of stress these days, squeezed by rising costs and worried about the future under Donald Trump. Brad Lander has a long record of helping New York City pioneer smart new solutions that have improved the work lives of everyone from freelancers to deliveristas in our city,” said labor policy expert Paul Sonn. “His new plan outlines an ambitious but practical agenda for improving our jobs, helping more New Yorkers join unions, and protecting all of us from Trump's attacks on our rights and on our communities. It's a blueprint for how a great American city can help its residents thrive -- and is exactly the leadership New York needs in this moment."
“Today more than ever we need leadership that understands the basic fact that New York City does not move without working people. Working people are fed up with promises and no follow-through,” said UAW Region 9A Director Brandon Mancilla, who endorsed Lander for Mayor last year. “Brad Lander knows that unions are the key to changing lives, and this plan commits the Mayor's Office to supporting unionization and workers' rights. His proposal to create a Mayor’s Office of Workers’ Rights shows his commitment to making New York City a place that sets the standard for pay, benefits, protections, and dignity on the job.”