New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has management-side attorneys bracing for potential shifts in wage and hour law, including a minimum wage hike, while worker advocates are already celebrating the new administration’s announcements and appointments.
Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist who became mayor on Jan. 1, has called out what he said was the misclassification of app-based delivery workers as independent contractors and appointed former acting U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su as a deputy mayor for economic justice.
He also called for doubling the budget of the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, which enforces wage protections, and he previously advocated for a $30 hourly minimum wage. Attorneys said they are also watching for an influence on state policy, including outside of New York.
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The minimum wage is one of the highest-impact steps New York City can take to address the affordability crisis.
$30 Minimum Wage
During his campaign, Mamdani proposed raising the city’s hourly minimum wage to $30 by 2030, with automatic increases to follow based on cost of living and productivity metrics. The city’s floor is currently $17 an hour under state law, and there is debate about whether the mayor has the authority to raise it.
“The minimum wage is one of the highest-impact steps New York City can take to address the affordability crisis,” said Paul Sonn, state policy program director at the pro-worker National Employment Law Project. “It’s really exciting that Mayor Mamdani has prioritized fighting to finally have New York City have its own minimum wage.”
No city or state has a $30 hourly minimum wage, although a few jurisdictions have that amount or even higher for workers in certain industries.
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Return of Biden DOL Head
Worker advocates have celebrated Mamdani’s appointment of Su as deputy mayor for economic justice, a newly created role. Su previously served as acting labor secretary and deputy labor secretary under former President Joe Biden and as secretary of California’s labor agency.
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“Affordability is about bringing down what things cost and bringing up what people make,” [Su] said. “That’s why we also have to make sure jobs pay enough, that every worker gets a just day’s pay for a hard day’s work and workers can organize and bargain collectively for their rights on the job.”
She added, “We will be laser focused on putting earned wages into workers’ pockets and cracking down on the practices of large corporations that cheat workers and small businesses alike, including through surveillance pricing and wages and algorithmic models that continually slash the income of those at the bottom.”
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Su’s national stature demonstrates the elevated approach cities are now taking to worker protections, NELP’s Sonn said.
“Not that many years ago, people really didn’t think of cities as playing any meaningful role in protecting workers,” he said. “That’s changed very dramatically.”
Sonn described Su and Sam Levine, a former director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, whom Mamdani named commissioner of the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, as “a national-level dream team.”
Focus on App-Based Workers
When announcing Levine’s appointment, Mamdani’s team referred to the debate over the classification of app-based workers. Those workers are typically classified as independent contractors, who generally lack benefits and protections mandated for employees, such as minimum wage and overtime pay.
New York City in the past few years has added protections for certain app-based workers, and the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection is tasked with enforcing those. Mamdani has called for doubling the funding for that agency.
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Read the full story (behind paywall) at Law360.com.
