Yesterday, less than a day after the mayoral debate, where Zohran Mamdani answered New Yorkers’ questions, he joined union workers at a “reverse town hall” where he asked the questions. Zohran Mamdani listened to the issues that New York City workers face everyday. He was joined by:
- Members from 32BJ SEIU
- Members of the United Auto Workers
- Doctors from the Committee of Interns and Residents
- Healthcare workers from 1199SEIU
- Paraprofessionals and teachers from United Federation of Teachers
- Workers from Hotel & Gaming Trades Council
- Members of PSC CUNY
- Members of the Communications Workers of America.
Zohran Mamdani has the support of 20 unions, including the New York City Central Labor Council, representing more than 1 million workers. As mayor, Zohran Mamdani will fight for New York City workers, raising the minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2030 and making New York City more affordable for every single New Yorker by freezing the rent of more than 2 million New Yorkers in rent stabilized units, creating fast and free buses, and providing universal childcare.
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Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo has failed New York City workers. Since the primary, Cuomo has lost the support of major unions, including The Hotel & Gaming Trades Council (HTC) AFL-CIO, 32BJ SEIU, and 1199SEIU, all of whom have endorsed Zohran and his worker-focused agenda.
The first speaker, a 32BJ SEIU member, told Zohran the story of her daughter, “My daughter was born and raised here, and she had a job, and she was paying her bills and she could never she came to me and had a heart to heart with me to say, ‘mom, I can’t afford to live here. So she decided to move to Delaware because that’s what she could afford.’”
Zohran Mamdani responded: “Your daughter’s story is the story of so many New Yorkers — parents who tell me that their children have left this city, children who tell me that their grandparents have left this city, not because they don’t love this city but because they can’t afford this city. Raising the minimum wage is going to be a focus the work that we do so that your daughter can not only never have left, but she can actually come back.”
When asked about how affordability issues affect their work, a pediatrician in the Bronx said, “It’s an incredible moral injury to tell my patients I want you to eat healthy and feed your kids healthy meals when I know that’s out of reach for them.”
A CWA worker told Zohran: “So we’re really looking forward to having a strong ally in City Hall who can say that organizations that take city money cannot be run by union busting bosses.”
“Too often it feels that politics at large is treated like a game. We’re talking about people’s lives — whether it’s people’s medicine, whether it’s people’s salaries, whether it’s the protections on the job. This can be life and death for New Yorkers. This is also a question of whether they get to call themselves New Yorkers anymore, because everybody at this table loves the city, and we’re choosing to stay in this city. But sometimes we’re making that choice despite the city, and it’s time to make that choice because of the city,” said Zohran Mamdani. “That’s the work that I’m looking forward to doing. I’m looking forward to being there on your picket lines, being there at your job sites, being there to take this bully pulpit that the mayor of New York City has to shine a light on the workers of New York City.”
See out Instagram for video footage from the Town Hall.
