Dear John,

There’s no glossing over it: This has been an intense month of attacks on workers and federal agencies from President Trump and his administration.

In just one month, he has instituted a federal hiring freeze and reclassified thousands of employees to make it easier to permanently fire them while simultaneously weakening worker protections on the federal level.

By illegally removing board members at the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee and National Labor Relations Board, he has essentially kneecapped all labor and nondiscrimination protections by rendering the boards unable to hold a quorum. This has left agencies gutted and fired workers with no immediate recourse, and it gives employers wide latitude to engage in union busting without the necessary guardrails in place to investigate.

Looks like Elon Musk is getting a return on his investment.

But all is not lost. Conservatives always like to point out the importance of States Rights, and when it comes to labor protections, no state is better positioned than New York.

With one of the highest minimum wage rates in the country and nearly a quarter of our state’s workforce represented by unions, the strength of our labor protections is a beacon of light in these dark times.

This was the message from Jennifer Abruzzo, the former General Counsel of the NRLB, at our Workers’ Rights Convening co-hosted with the New York City Central Labor Council and the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies (CUNY SLU) last week at CUNY SLU.

Jennifer, alongside organizers and leaders from across labor, government, and academia, discussed the strong state of labor policies in New York City and how we can defend against the federal assault on workers’ rights. You can view photos from the Convening here and watch the full recording of the panels below.

We see firsthand the importance of labor at the Comptroller’s Office. It is our job to set and enforce the prevailing wage and benefit rates for all workers employed on public works projects and on City contracts that receive tax exemptions.

And I’m pleased to say that in my first three years as Comptroller, our Bureau of Labor Law has recovered $9,100,254.50 in back wages and penalties.

It’s important to calculate that down to the penny, because even the small settlements could mean another month of groceries or rent paid for hard working New Yorkers. I’m extremely grateful for the work that our Bureau of Labor Law does daily to recover every dollar owed to workers on prevailing wage projects. You can read more about the cases that brought us over the $9 million at The CITY.

Of course, before you can fight for your rights, you need to know your rights.

This is why we also have put a tremendous amount of energy behind outreach and education to inform both workers and employers of their rights. Every year we post the Prevailing Wage Schedule by job and industry. This is mandated by State Law, but we take it a step further, conducting Workers Rights trainings across the five boroughs and providing resources – like our Employer Violations Dashboard – which pulls back the veil on exploitative employers and make the fight for workers’ rights as transparent as possible.

One of the new tools in our toolbox is our Immigrant Workers Resource Guide.

When exploitative employers take advantage of immigrant workers who may be afraid to speak up or may not know what their protections are, the rights of all workers are eroded. Printed and available in 13 languages (English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Bengali, French, Haitian Creole, Korean, Polish, Punjabi, Nepali, and Urdu), the Immigrant Workers Resource Guide provides information about basic workplace rights that impact many low-wage, undocumented immigrant workers, as well as a directory of organizations whose mission is to assist and protect immigrant workers. 

If you would like to order physical copies in any of the languages listed above, please fill out this request form.

If you would like to know more about your rights, file a claim – or even find out if you’re owed money for a project you’ve already worked on – you can learn more on our Workers Rights page or email our Workers Rights team at [email protected].

No matter what happens on the federal level, New York City workers have strong protections, and the Comptroller’s Office is committed to defending those protections to the fullest extent possible.

Yours in solidarity,

Brad

Office of the New York City Comptroller

Our mailing address is:
Office of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander
1 Centre Street
New York, NY 10007
United States

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