Passing prevailing wage and worker safety expansions

Harry Bronson was elected to the Assembly in 2010 after serving in the Monroe County Legislature for five years, and was appointed in January 2024 as the chair of the Assembly Labor Committee, where he once worked as a counsel before his career in elected office. Bronson recently passed legislation increasing the prevailing wage for construction workers in projects subsidized by the state, and expanded workplace safety and labor protections for those working in rapidly growing warehouse, retail and clean energy industries. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What key union-oriented legislation passed last year? What were the highlights?

The 2024 session was very successful for labor and working families in New York. We break it down into two sectors: the budget and the legislative process. In the budget last year, it was generally a pro-worker, labor-friendly budget. We expanded labor protections within the clean energy sector, including NYSERDA projects. We also created a statewide requirement for project labor agreements on certain SUNY projects, and invested in clean water and infrastructure projects that the building trades would be working on.

As for the legislative piece, we were working on issues related to good pay for workers, health and retirement benefits, and also safe working environments. We want to make sure that families and working New Yorkers could earn good pay and afford their utility bills. Our real focus was on work safety and protections, so we passed a couple bills. One was the Warehouse Worker Injury Reduction Act, since the warehouse industry is one of the fastest-growing industries in the state, and we wanted to make sure that we reduce injuries for these workers who might suffer due to the repetitiveness of their work. Another was the Fashion Workers Act, which created rules to protect fashion workers from abuse, harassment and assaults on the workplace that would require that they would provide a memorandum of understanding of their work responsibilities. A third was the Retail Worker Safety Act, which would require retail workers to institute workplace training procedures. It was in response to retail thefts across the state, and we wanted to make sure retailers put procedures in place to protect those workers.

What’s on the agenda for 2025 in terms of organized labor’s priorities?

We have a pretty aggressive labor agenda. Unemployment insurance benefit levels would likely be done in the budget. Those haven’t increased since 2019, and the reason is a federal requirement that if the state fund owes a debt to the federal government, those benefits can’t be increased. We had to borrow money that has not been repaid because of COVID-19 layoffs. We’re looking to get that debt satisfied and make the unemployment trust fund solvent again, so we can in turn increase the benefits for those on unemployment. There’s a statutory increase that’s required each year but that couldn’t kick in because of the debt.

We will also be looking at prevailing wages. Last year, we passed a bill that got vetoed requiring prevailing wage on brownfield cleanup work, which is highly skilled work, and we wanted that to be included in the budget.

Also there’s a current law we put in place when Gov. Andrew Cuomo was in office, Labor Law 224A. In construction projects that are private projects subsidized by the state at the level of 30% or more, those projects would be deemed a public works project. When you’re a public works project, you’re required to pay the prevailing wage rate for those construction workers. Over the last few years, the mechanism we put in place isn’t working well, so we’re going to revisit that to ensure that when taxpayer dollars are being utilized for private construction jobs, prevailing wages are paid and local people are hired.

We also want to look at other areas related to artificial intelligence in the workplace and make sure that any impact on decision-making where you use an AI tool is done in a fair and equitable way. We want to make sure that algorithms are used fairly and look at its impact on workers and ensure they won’t get displaced because of the utilization of AI technology. It’s inevitable that will happen as we advance our technology, but we want an equitable transition of workers to other locations.

A coalition of unions and other organizations have launched a Share Our Wealth campaign, which would increase income tax rates for those earning over $5 million and over $25 million by 0.5% and increase the corporate tax rate by 1.75% and make these changes permanent. Do you support this proposal? Was this part of the Assembly’s one-house budget bill last year? 

Last year, it was in both the Assembly and Senate budget resolutions. I would expect that to be the case this year, but we haven’t had that discussion yet. This is a measure that really addresses a way to have fair and just taxes in the budget and helps deal with the widening income inequality gap in our state as well as throughout the country. This helps us have the revenues available to address New York’s affordability crisis by maintaining quality public services for New Yorkers. We want to increase revenues and make sure the wealthiest among us pay their fair share and be able to provide for our families.

What are the chances that the governor would ever agree to raise taxes? She’s been opposed to such changes, and seems to be tacking more to the center following the election of President Donald Trump.

True, the governor has several proposals in the executive budget that touch on taxes. The middle-class tax cut, which we’re speeding up this year to help our middle-class households, and that’s important.She also has a mechanism for a tax credit or tax rebate to certain middle-class earners, and that’s a piece of the puzzle to address affordability. And she has child tax credits, which I support.

This is the context for us to really look at the tax structure in the state and address the inequity that’s been there for far too long. We’ve seen that the wealthiest households own the greatest amount of wealth, much more than the vast majority of other households. This fits right in with her desire to make New York more affordable.

Is the best move politically to find compromise and work across the aisle in the current environment, or double down on progressive policies?

When I first started in public service, there was a saying that the art of good government is the art of compromise, and I still believe that. Certainly you give up on your ideals, but you have to keep your eyes on the prize. You’re in it for the long haul and moving a step forward is more important than bunkering down and demanding that you get everything that you want.

At the end of the day when you compromise, you get a better deal and a better result. Most of the things we deal with in New York state, compromise is the way you’re going to have to get there.

Are Republicans gaining ground with unionized workers in New York or nationally? Why? 

It’s a complex issue, (The Associated Press) had polled that roughly 18% of voters in the last election were from union households – with (Kamala) Harris winning the majority of the group, but (Donald) Trump’s performance among union members helped him win key states. So I think that’s probably true. I know members of unions that voted for Donald Trump.

The difficulty is that a lot of people are feeling pressured in their pocketbook. Even though Democrats are doing the work to help them in the wealth area and help provide good pay and benefits, we haven’t articulated that as sufficiently as we need to. On the surface, my sense is we’ve lost some ground with working New Yorkers. We will get them back as they see more of the horrendous things the Trump administration is doing to tear down the rights of workers to organize and get good pay. He has, without authorization, terminated the National Labor Relations Board members so the board doesn’t have a quorum, so they can’t hear cases, (as well as) gutting the federal workforce. There have been some losses, but there has been an opportunity to regain that.

A rising pro-union sentiment and unionization campaigns in new industries and sectors has been apparent across New York in recent years, including upstate. Is momentum growing, or do you see major corporations pushing back and not coming to the table?

There certainly has been support for unions growing, in larger part because many young people face uncertainty about their job prospects and trust in the establishment has diminished nationally.

Unions help provide a collective voice for young people to advocate for fairness and offer more opportunities for young people in their workplace. We’ve seen that some organizing campaigns haven’t been successful, but there seems to be a growing understanding that the collective voice through organizing is really important.

In Rochester here in the last couple years, we’ve had nurses organizing in one of the hospitals, the workforce in a museum organizing, we’ve seen nonprofits organize, and at a school for children with intellectual disabilities, their staff have organized. We’re seeing it throughout all industries. A lot of it is because workers are seeing that through collective bargaining, they’ll have a fairer and more equitable agreement with their employers.

How much of a role are unions playing in the casino siting process? Was the economic boost projected for upstate New York from the last round of casino expansion ultimately overstated?

Regarding the siting process, the legislative action was done in 2022 when we authorized the expansion of additional casinos, three locations potentially and a number of applicants for those locations. When we enacted that we did two things, we created the community advisory council, so there would be local input whether the casino would be sited there. And we made sure labor had a voice in that and wanted them to be a part of how this moves forward. My expectation is that the various unions would be represented in the construction phase or permanent employment. Any developer who wants to put in a casino would want to strike a labor deal to ensure that prevailing wage was paid for its construction and permanent jobs would be created, including well-paying jobs with benefits. My sense is the unions have been involved in the plans and have reached tentative agreements with developers. My hope is that each one of the casinos would have a good labor deal with the unions.

I think that when this was initially launched, we had expected a lot more economic development return on investment. But that being said, with the casino in my backyard, del Lago in the Finger Lakes, which has generated close to 1,000 permanent jobs, these are good middle-class jobs. They’re jobs that would not be available in a different industry in this very rural area. I’m generally pleased with where we’ve gotten. We’re currently tweaking it. I don’t think gaming is the best economic tool at this point. We’ve saturated the market in upstate New York, but those casinos that are there are giving workers a good middle-class wage and benefits. I’m grateful, and I’m glad we did it.