The municipal agency will focus on outreach, education, and policies for workers lacking adequate benefits and representation.

On Monday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that New York City will create a municipal agency to defend workers’ rights and support unions.

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The Mayor’s Office for Worker Power will allocate local government resources to “outreach, education, public policy and research” aimed at “workers who lack decent benefits, adequate wages and representation” in their workplaces.

Considered the first of its kind in the United States, the NYC mayor’s office will connect workers from different sectors across the city, hold public hearings on the problems they face and put them in contact with organizations that can help them unionize.

The new office will be headed by Tony Perlstein, a former longshoreman and former director of union organizing for the United Auto Workers (UAW).

BREAKING: Mayor Zohran Mamdani announces a first-of-its-kind office focused on organizing workers in New York City.

The Mayor’s Office of Worker Power will provide workers with resources needed to organize their workplaces, hold public hearings on major worker issues, and more. pic.twitter.com/tkOg3s3fpn

— Jacobin (@jacobin) September 7, 2026

“Every day, New York City workers show up to their jobs, do their work and keep this city running. Yet, far too often, they have no say in their working conditions. The Mayor’s Office for Worker Power will ensure that they have a voice in decisions before exploitation becomes a crisis and labor violations become routine,” the Socialist mayor stated.

Mamdani, who took office in January of this year as mayor of the most populous city in the United States, pledged during his campaign to increase the number of unionized workers in New York.

Although the city has a high union membership rate, at 20.5%, more than double the national average of 10%, the figure has declined since the mid-2000s, when it was around 24%, according to an annual report published last week by the City University of New York (CUNY).

teleSUR/ JF

Source: EFE

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