New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed an executive order creating the “first-in-the-nation” Mayor’s Office of Worker Power (MOWP).
Rolled out on Labor Day, the MOWP is aimed at organizing workers and connecting them with relevant resources, according to the mayor’s office.
“MOWP will work across City Hall and City agencies on outreach, education, policy, research and strategic partnerships focused on workers who lack meaningful benefits, adequate wages and a voice on the job,” read a Monday statement.
Per the mayor’s office, the 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.”
“We created the first-in-the-nation Office of Worker Power to put the full weight of City Hall behind the people who keep New York running,” Mamdani (D-N.Y.) posted to X on Monday.
The NYC mayor framed the history of Labor Day as stemming from a movement championed and furthered by democratic socialists to “win us weekends, safety standards, overtime pay, a minimum wage, and social security.”
In 1882, 10,000 workers marched up Broadway in the first-ever Labor Day parade. Led by democratic socialists and organized by New York’s unions, they rallied the movement that went o
Hellbound and Down 