Albany lawmakers focused on labor agenda brace for Trump’s second term

Organized labor was poised for a major resurgence after notching multiple victories last year, until Donald Trump was reelected to the presidency.

After threatening to strike for several months, building service workers secured a new contract in January 2024 with wage increases and employer-paid health care. Construction trades leaders helped the governor finally assemble a housing package that had bedeviled her for two years. And the city’s retail and department store workers got lawmakers to pass measures mandating training and policies to reduce workplace violence.

Yet Trump’s return to the White House and his administration’s relentless onslaught on the federal workforce has overshadowed those advances. Trump’s move to oust Democratic commissioners on the National Labor Relations Board and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission could prevent the government from ruling on cases when employers violate workers’ rights. His administration has also sought to dismantle Biden-era workplace safety rules, indefinitely suspending a national heat standard that would require workers to receive water and breaks in high temperatures.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency’s indiscriminate moves to slash the headcount at multiple agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Federal Aviation Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the National Parks Service while issuing email ultimatums for federal workers to list their accomplishments or be fired has alarmed their counterparts in state government.

“You look at what’s happening with federal civil servants and in addition to layoffs and the kind of treatment they’re getting, it must be very demoralizing,” said Timothy Connick, chair of the New York State Public Employment Relations Board. “We believe public servants are helping society in a lot of different ways and the degradation of public employees in the federal sector is discouraging.”

More moves are on the way. On Feb. 26, the White House directed federal agencies to develop plans for mass layoffs, close regional offices and limit their use of contractors by March 13.

The whiplash in Washington, D.C., has reverberated through the state Legislature, which must grapple with a weaker enforcement of labor laws and the threats of rolling back billions of dollars in federal aid.

Democratic lawmakers are contemplating additional safeguards that shore up public pensions, enhance worker safety protections and prevent tech-driven downsizing while also promoting new tax increases on wealthy New Yorkers to offset any cuts from congressional clawbacks or the Department of Government Efficiency’s unpredictable payment cancellations. But it won’t be easy. Union membership slid to 9.9% in 2024, a record low for the country, while Trump made significant gains among union households throughout the Northeast and Midwest in the election.

“The difficulty is that a lot of people are feeling pressured in their pocketbooks,” said Democratic Assembly Member Harry Bronson, who represents Rochester and its suburbs. “We’ve lost some ground with working New Yorkers and 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.”

Wealth tax

Lawmakers have tried several times to increase taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents during the Hochul era, but 2025 might finally be the year they do it.

A coalition of labor organizations including the New York State AFL-CIO and New York State United Teachers are supporting a proposal that would raise income taxes by 0.5% on individuals earning more than $5 million and those making more than $25 million, and boost corporate taxes by 1.75%.

New York State AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento argued that the estimated $3 billion in revenues collected from the tax hike could go toward maintaining state services that could be targeted by Congress or DOGE.

“It would help us to mitigate the damage of any federal cuts down the road,” he said. “That $3 billion is a key part in any damage that might occur from Washington and this has become even more important over the last four weeks.”

The proposal isn’t new. Legislative leaders included the measure in their one-house budget plans last year. But Hochul has been reluctant to raise income taxes and instead proposed a $300 to $500 rebate and child tax credits. Legislative leaders said there’s no reason they can’t do both, but some Democratic legislators believe that requiring wealthy New Yorkers to pay a higher tax rate is a priority in the Trump era.

“There are going to be new holes to fill that the federal government leaves,” Queens state Sen. Jessica Ramos said. “That’s something that worries me. We need to make sure our constituents are taken care of.”

Workplace safety

The Legislature could also have to step in on workplace safety matters if the federal government bows out.

After passing the Retail Worker Safety Act last year, which required employers to develop a written policy, add silent response buttons and provide violence prevention training to employees, labor groups want to change reporting procedures to make it easier to tell employers about incidents and increase penalties for anyone who assaults a worker on the job. And they want the safety measures to include public sector workers too.

Teamsters and other labor organizations are also pressing for legislation mandating that employers provide protective equipment, water, rest periods and health monitoring for workers performing tasks outside in extreme weather conditions as the U.S. Department of Labor unwinds its heat standards.

“People who work outside, including Amazon workers, UPS drivers, agricultural workers are increasingly affected by extreme heat due to climate change,” said Ramos, chair of the state Senate Labor Committee. “We want to make sure it’s done this year as soon as possible.” 

Pension reform

Civil service workers mounted a campaign last year to change the pension plan for Tier 6, a category that includes most of the state’s youngest and shortest-tenured employees.

The New York State AFL-CIO successfully backed a measure that was added to the budget that would base a Tier 6 employee’s retirement benefits on the top three years of earnings instead of the top five years, aligning their pensions closer to those in other tiers. Now some lawmakers want to tweak Tier 6 further allowing public sector workers to increase their earnings by $100,000 over their lifetimes. Manhattan state Sen. Robert Jackson, who leads the Civil Service and Pensions Committee, believes these adjustments as well as relaxing age requirements examinations, will help fill 10,000 vacancies in civil service. “The aim is to improve the outcomes so that when people retire they (don’t have to continue working) in order to live,” Jackson said. “We want to get people moved through knowing that if they work hard and put in 25 to 30 years, they can have a pension to live off of.”

AI regulation

State lawmakers are also trying to regulate how employers use artificial intelligence in the workplace. Last year, the Legislature passed a first-in-the-nation measure requiring state agencies to disclose how they use AI technologies for important decisions in the workplace, limit how they use AI to replace workers and set strict guidelines for deployment. 

Now organized labor groups want to prevent employers from using AI algorithms to discriminate against workers when they are being hired for a job and monitored while they are there. “We look at really focusing on high-risk use cases of what we already know on generative AI,” said Queens state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez, who has authored AI legislation. “We’re not necessarily regulating the use of technology but making sure we’re using this technology responsibly.