NYC Mayor Mamdani Launches New ‘Office of Worker Power’ Dedicated to Labor Organizing
Mayor Zohran Mamdani announces the creation of New York City’s Office of Worker Power.
Photo: NYC Mayor’s Office
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NYC Launches the Office of Worker Power— What’s That?
In a major win for working people, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has created the nation’s first Office of Worker Power, giving City Hall an official mandate to help workers learn their rights, connect with one another and organize on the job.
Established by executive order, the new office will coordinate across city agencies on worker education, outreach, policy, research and strategic partnerships, with a particular focus on New Yorkers facing low wages, limited benefits and little say in their workplaces.
The office will be led by Tony Perlstein, a former longshoreman and UAW organizing director, and will use the resources and convening power of City Hall to strengthen workers’ ability to organize and exercise their rights.
According to Mayor Mamdani’s Office, MOWP will:
Convene rank-and-file workers, union leaders, worker centers, immigrant workers, gig workers and platform workers.
Hold public hearings on significant worker issues.
Provide referrals to organizations that support workers.
Coordinate with City agencies to produce research on pressing issues facing workers.
Develop policy proposals informed by workers’ experiences.
Engage workers on emerging challenges, including new technologies, worker misclassification, immigration-based exploitation and climate risks to worker safety.
Connect workers with information about their rights at everyday touchpoints, including workforce centers, libraries, IDNYC offices, schools and community events.
How Worker Power Was Eroded—And How We Can Get It Back
According to findings from Pew Research Center, America’s union membership rate fell from 20.1% in 1983 to 9.9% in 2024, leaving workers with far less collective bargaining power than they held a generation ago.
That decline did not happen on its own. Decades of deindustrialization, aggressive employer anti-union campaigns, right-to-work laws, weak labor-law enforcement and the expansion of subcontracted, temporary and gig work have made organizing increasingly difficult. Employers have also spent heavily on consultants, mandatory meetings and internal campaigns designed to discourage workers from forming unions.
Meanwhile, public opinion has moved in the opposite direction. Pew found that 60% of U.S. adults now say the decline of union membership has been bad for the country and bad for working people.
The reason unions matter is ultimately about power. Unions have always been ways for workers to collectivize and protect themselves against employers whose interests are always with shareholders and profits and never with the communities, people, and places that make their companies function.
An individual worker negotiating wages, hours or working conditions is bargaining with an institution that controls their paycheck, schedule and continued employment. Collective bargaining allows workers to negotiate together, giving them leverage they rarely possess alone.
Unionized workers generally earn more, receive stronger benefits and gain greater protections around scheduling, discipline, workplace safety and termination. Union contracts can also create formal grievance processes that give workers a mechanism for challenging unfair treatment on the job.
It should then come as no surprise that employers, ever paranoid about unionization, have long created onboarding materials designed to scare employees off from unionization, not because they care about what is best for them, but because unions terrify capitalists.
Walmart has closed entire stores that successfully unionize or even threaten unionization while Amazon, Starbucks and other major employers have faced years of scrutiny over aggressive efforts to prevent or weaken worker organizing.
This helps explain why rising public support for unions has not automatically produced rising union membership. Workers may want greater bargaining power while still facing a labor system that makes organizing difficult, slow and risky.
Mamdani’s approach offers a model other cities can study and replicate. An Office of Worker Power will not reverse decades of union decline by itself, but it expands the role local government can play in making worker organization possible.
For working people elsewhere, this is a prime opportunity to better understand your class position, educate other workers, support local unions, hire union workers and even seek unionization of your own workplace. We’ve listed a few resources below to help you get started.
Take Action
Ready to build worker power?
Organizing starts with knowing your rights, finding the people already doing the work and learning how to build power alongside your coworkers and community.
Start organizing
Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee
If you want to organize your workplace and have no idea where to begin, EWOC can connect you for free with an experienced organizer and help you start building a campaign with your coworkers.
Form a union
AFL-CIO
Learn the basic steps of forming a union and connect with an organizer who can help you determine which union or organizing strategy may make sense for your workplace.
Know your rights
National Labor Relations Board
Learn what federal law protects when workers discuss workplace conditions, organize together or attempt to form a union, and where to turn when an employer violates those rights.
Learn the craft
Labor Notes
Free organizing materials cover one-on-one conversations, workplace mapping, identifying leaders, building campaigns and preparing for common anti-union tactics from management.
Find your people
Your Local Labor Movement
State labor federations and local labor councils can connect you with unions, campaigns and workers already organizing around economic and workplace issues in your community.