Posts tagged Zohran Mamdani
Commentary: Are Unions Rising from the Political Grave?
September 21, 2026 // Here again, however, there may be less than meets the eye. Despite its surprising bipartisan support, the FLCA would raise significant constitutional questions if enacted. By relying on a government-mandated arbitration panel to resolve labor disputes, the law effectively empowers the state to impose contractual terms on private parties—a form of what constitutional lawyers call “state action.” As attorneys Alex MacDonald and Vinnie Vernuccio observe: “[S]tate action opens the door to a slew of constitutional requirements and restrictions, notably to protect rights of free speech and association.”
Editorial Board: $10,000 bonuses teach Mamdani a lesson about the teachers union
September 9, 2026 // Compensation changes for unionized city employees are usually negotiated through collective bargaining between the city and organized labor, but the United Federation of Teachers instead pushed the measure through the City Council. UFT President Michael Mulgrew threatened “all-out war” against Mamdani if he opposed the payouts to school paraprofessionals.
Mamdani creates new DSA-inspired office to help NYC workers unionize: ‘Concerning for small business’
September 9, 2026 // The office will hold hearings on “worker issues” and develop policy proposals based on testimony from employees. It will also give out information about workers’ rights and help connect employees interested in starting unions with organizations that can help them, City Hall said. Tony Perlstein, a former dockworker, union organizer and deputy director of communications for the national lefty organizing group Center for Popular Democracy, will run the office. It’s not clear if anyone else will be hired to staff the office, or how much its budget will be. Perlstein will report to Mamdani’s Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su, previously a cabinet official under President Joe Biden.
Mamdani Clashes With Teachers Union, Citing Fiscal Constraints
August 30, 2026 // Michael Mulgrew, the president of the 200,000-member teachers union, threatened an “all-out war” if Mamdani tried to stop the legislation in a New York Times interview earlier this summer. “It’s always surprising when you see a big rift between the teachers unions and Democratic politicians, especially a pretty far-left Democratic politician,” said Michael Petrilli, president of Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education reform think tank. “Conventional wisdom would say that Democratic politicians try not to get sideways with important parts of their constituency and the teachers unions are such an important base.” The fight has also exposed the realities Mamdani faces now that he is in office to follow through on campaign promises when faced with fiscal constraints.
This Mamdani-Backed Bill Would Kill Jobs, Boost Unions, and Make Deliveries More Expensive
August 25, 2026 // The misleadingly named "Delivery Protection Act" would require companies like Amazon and FedEx to directly hire employees for last-mile delivery, rather than contracting this service out to subcontractors.
Mamdani goes after Amazon — and shows off his stunning hypocrisy
August 20, 2026 // While Mamdani seeks to prohibit Amazon’s delivery contracting model, his administration used an outside company to supply 109 temporary professionals to handle homeless services under an $8.46 million renewal that ran through June 30. It also renewed an $11 million citywide trucking contract that supplies outside drivers and labor. In both cases, private companies employed their own workers who then performed the necessary work — the same model that Mamdani condemns at Amazon.
Freelance Busting: The “Core” Concern
August 18, 2026 // Take one look at the actual language of New York City’s Delivery Protection Act, and even a non-lawyer like me can see that it portends something eerily similar to California’s AB5. The slope is slippery. This bill’s language could be used in the future, with just a bit of alteration, to force union-ready employment status on all kinds of people who are currently earning some or all of our income as our own bosses
Socialists Push ‘Rank-and-File’ Plan to Steer US Labor Unions
August 18, 2026 // From 2018 to 2021, the Young Democratic Socialists of America, DSA's campus wing, adopted what it calls the "rank-and-file strategy" as a national priority, urging members to take jobs in what YDSA called strategic sectors: education, healthcare, and logistics. The Democratic Socialist Labor Commission, DSA's internal labor arm, published a pamphlet describing the approach as a way to rebuild "a militant, left-wing, and democratic labor movement."
‘Delivery Protection Act’ Pits NYC Mayor Mamdani And The Teamsters Against Amazon
August 17, 2026 // Opposition comes from a broad-based business coalition—Amazon, FedEx, logistics and trucking firms, all five borough chambers of commerce, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, Tech: NYC, the Supply Chain Federation, the Trucking Association of New York, the Five Borough Jobs Campaign and others. A study commissioned by the Five Borough Jobs Campaign estimated passage would increase annual delivery costs to New York households by $664 and threaten more than 10,000 city workers. With the bill pending a City Council vote, supporters have intensified their efforts to push the vote forward after Mayor Mamdani threw his support behind it—calling Amazon’s contractor-based delivery model exploitative and a danger to NYC workers, drivers and pedestrians.
United Academic Workers
August 8, 2026 // On campus, the same bloc has changed what a strike is about. In May 2024, UAW Local 4811 called a strike against the University of California over the university’s handling of pro-Palestinian encampments, demanding divestment from weapons manufacturers, amnesty for arrested protesters, and a right for researchers to opt out of military-tied funding. UC warned that the precedent would expose every public employer in California to work stoppages “advancing political and/or social viewpoints.” The UC contract ratified this March carried politics into the agreement itself, featuring a $400,000 legal fund for international workers and a commitment to “non-collaboration with ICE.” The bargaining committee described the deal as having “compelled management to side with workers and not with Trump.”