Labor of Love? Mamdani’s record with workers in his First 100 Days

Time flies while you’re having fun, and for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, he sure looks like he’s having a fun job running America’s largest city. 

Within 100 days of becoming mayor, Mamdani has kept a jam-packed schedule of public appearances. He has fixed potholes, personally answered 311 calls, and even announced a multimillion-dollar settlement with delivery app HungryPanda alongside an endangered Red Panda at the Prospect Park Zoo. He’s done all that with his trademark smile. 

But aside from the smiles and handshakes, the question remains: Has Mamdani delivered on his biggest campaign promises to improve the lives of the city’s hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers?

Mamdani has made it a point to center the plight of working people as a cornerstone of his administrative agenda. Although his track record shows many successes, challenges have threatened the mayor’s reputation as a workers’ champion. 

Documented has followed the mayor’s first 100 days closely, speaking with dozens of organizers across New York over the past few months. We have watched as Mamdani has stood alongside striking workers and pushed for policies protecting street vendors and taxi drivers (some of his fiercest allies). 

But the mayor hasn’t been in lockstep with labor. Advocates for home care workers and the more than three-quarters of street vendors who are unlicensed say they’re still facing fines from the city. In his first budget as mayor, Mamdani also proposed cuts to agencies that safeguard labor protections and other city agencies that fight workplace discrimination.

Worker groups who spoke to Documented describe a mayor who has had their back and supported them through increasing challenges, including securing millions in restitution for delivery drivers locked out of their apps or not paid owed wages.

“This administration is setting a new standard, one rooted in real enforcement of worker protections, zero tolerance for exploitation, and support for worker power,” Ligia Guallpa, the executive director of Workers Justice Project and co-founder of its Los Deliveristas Unidos, said in a statement to Documented.

Bowling for Nurses

Within days of taking office, Mamdani saw the first major test of his promise to “stand alongside unions and expand labor protections.”  Nearly 15,000 nurses at three of the largest private hospitals in the city walked off the job on Jan. 12, in the largest and longest nurses’ strike in New York history. 

As the strike dragged on for nearly two months, the mayor remained supportive, actively pressuring the hospitals to negotiate in good faith. Ultimately, the nurses won, and in celebration, the mayor went bowling with them at their victory party at a Brooklyn bowling alley. 

Labor Champion as Deputy Mayor

The changes Mamdani has made to City Hall in support of labor have also included the people he has hired to manage his administration.

As one of his first moves, the mayor nominated the Secretary of Labor under former President Joe Biden, Julie Su, to be the city’s first-ever Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice. In her new role, Su will be instrumental in overseeing the mayor’s labor agenda. 

“Over these first 100 days, we’ve marshalled the resources of our administration to make it clear that City government can and must be a force for good in the lives of working New Yorkers,” Su told Documented.

The appointment of Su demonstrated a clear sign that Mamdani’s administration is going to prioritize delivery workers, street vendors, and taxi drivers, central to the labor coalition that helped him get elected, labor leaders said 

“New Yorkers have lived too long with one set of rules for the wealthy and well-connected, and another for everyone else. In our first 100 days, we have aggressively sought to change that,” Mamdani said in a statement to Documented. “We are putting money back in people’s pockets and holding corporations accountable. We will be relentless in using every tool at our disposal to build a fairer economy and a more just New York.” 

Rest and Restitution for Delivery Workers

Among the early achievements of his administration, the Mayor boasted to Documented about the  $9.3 million his office secured in worker restitution since taking office. 

In one of those settlements, the Mamdani administration secured $5 million for more than 49,000 delivery workers and the reinstatement of more than 10,000 delivery workers unjustly deactivated by the delivery app companies Uber Eats, Fantuan, and HungryPanda. The city found that the three app companies violated the required minimum pay rate that the city passed in 2023 for delivery workers. 

Key to securing those funds has been the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP). The agency also recently filed a citation against a Dunkin’ franchisee that operates 21 locations across Staten Island, accusing the franchisee of violating the city’s Fair Workweek and time-off laws. The agency is seeking monetary relief for about 1,000 workers, in addition to civil penalties. 

“The real, tangible things DCWP has secured for New Yorkers — restitution checks, one less junk fee, free income tax preparation — make a real difference in people’s lives and prove that this agency is a force to be reckoned with,” said DCWP Commissioner Sam Levine in a statement to Documented. “We will continue using every rulemaking and enforcement tool at our disposal to prevent New Yorkers from getting cheated and build an economy that works for everyone.”

In addition to the settlements, the mayor spearheaded the completion of the long-stalled Delivery Worker Hub outside City Hall, which opened earlier this month. 

Originally planned during former Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, in 2022, Sen. Chuck Schumer secured $1 million in federal funding to build the nation’s first delivery worker hub, where workers would be able to rest, get legal help, and recharge their batteries safely. But the project languished l until Mamdani pushed for its completion, City Hall said. 

The Mayor also announced the end of the controversial practice of criminal enforcement against e-bike riders and cyclists for low-level traffic offenses. Immigrant delivery workers were often given criminal summons by the NYPD and put at risk for deportation. Instead of criminalization, the mayor launched a comprehensive safety training program for delivery workers and is working with the City Council to pursue legislation to address unsafe practices by third-party delivery app companies that incentivize risk-taking through unrealistic delivery times — part of a campaign promise.

During Ramadan, Mamdani prayed with Muslim delivery workers and broke bread with them. Even a small gesture like that has appeared to endear him to the delivery worker community. 

“In his first 100 days, Mayor Mamdani has stood with New York City’s 80,000 delivery workers and shown he is prepared to fight for their rights, dignity, and safety,” Guallpa, the Los Deliveristas Unidos co-founder, said in a statement, “from repealing the Adams-era e-bike criminalization policies that disproportionately targeted immigrant workers of color, to securing millions in restitution from Uber Eats, Fantuan, and HungryPanda for mistreated workers, and supporting the installation of the nation’s first Deliverista Hub at City Hall.”  

Street Vendor Protections

For street vendors, Mamdani’s first 100 days have been transformative as well. The mayor presided over the passage of several street vendor reform laws that would help bring existing unlicensed street vendors — the vast majority of New York’s street vendors, stuck by a limit on available licenses — into the city’s regulatory system.

In a first-of-kind move, the mayor also established the Office of Street Vendor Services,  led by former Street Vendor Project co-executive director Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez. As a new city agency, SVS is designed to be a vendor’s conduit to the mayor and to help navigate the city’s maze of bureaucratic red tape. 

“These are tremendous steps in the right direction, and we’re looking forward to more support and investment in these small businesses,” said Mohamed Attia, co-director of the Street Vendor Project, in a statement to Documented. “We’re hoping to see City Hall allocating significant resources to the services offered to vendors, to the licensing agencies, so they are able to implement the new local laws in a timely manner and get the vendors out of the shadows. There’s a lot of work needed, and City Hall is on the right track.”

Still, advocates say, more can be done. While on the campaign trail, Mamdani, a lover of halal street cart cuisine, pledged his support for decriminalizing street vending, saying to PIX 11 that he doesn’t think “this has to be a quality of life concern for the NYPD.”

In the weeks following his inauguration, criminal enforcement continued, as Documented reported in an investigation last month. Even after  Intro 47, which effectively decriminalizes vending without a license, took effect on March 9, NYPD continued to enforce the practice as a criminal citation, according to a follow-up investigation by the news outlet THE CITY. 

A Taxi Ally in City Hall

Taxi drivers, arguably Mamdani’s closest labor ally, have also celebrated the first 100 days under Mamdani. More than four years after the then-state assemblymember went on a two-week-long hunger strike alongside taxi drivers for medallion debt relief, Mamdani has championed their cause since taking the helm at City Hall. 

In January, the mayor nominated Midori Valdivia to lead the reform of the long-troubled Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC). By appointing Valdivia, Mamdani told Documented in January that he intends to break with Adams and double down on his support for drivers as they face a new crisis of arbitrary deactivations and lockouts by Uber and Lyft.

“What we saw in the previous administration is exactly the kind of politics we’re seeking to bring to an end,” Mamdani told Documented. “As it pertains to Lyft and Uber drivers, we would not be vetoing the kind of legislation that would protect those drivers against unfair deactivations. We would, in fact, be signing that legislation and then carrying it out and implementing that legislation.”

Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, has given her stamp of approval to the mayor’s job so far and is looking forward to future success for her members as they gear up their campaign to win minimum prevailing wages for drivers. 

“Mayor Mamdani is setting up infrastructure, policy, and litigation to ensure the working class won’t be left behind, and we see ourselves at that center,” Desai told Documented. “As TLC Chair Valdivia begins her tenure, we have high expectations for her first 100 days as well, from reducing costs for drivers by closing up loopholes, especially for lease drivers, a pathway to a prevailing wage for all drivers, and a retirement fund.”

She said she hopes to work with City Hall in restructuring the last remaining medallion loans under the city-backed guarantee program and establish a driver insurance co-op to help reduce costs.

Opposition from Home Care Workers

Not all of the city’s labor unions are declaring Mamdani’s first 100 days a victory for their members. A crisis has emerged between City Hall and home care workers, most of whom are elderly immigrant women. 

Home care workers have for years fought to end 24-hour shifts, instead splitting them into two 12-hour shifts. After Mamdani voiced his support, and the deal to end the practice seemed all but assured in March, the mayor worked behind the scenes to block the legislation, Documented learned. The Legal Aid Society, the union DC37, and disability advocates say that splitting live-in care into two shifts would not be covered by the state’s Medicaid law.

Home care workers are now preparing to launch a hunger strike on April 16 until the mayor and City Council Speaker Julie Menin pass a bill to end 24-hour shifts in the home care industry. 

Lai Yee Chan, a 72-year-old former home care aid who spent eight years working 24-hour shifts, says she was disappointed by the mayor’s lack of support for home care workers despite getting her family to vote for him.

“Mamdani’s only accomplishment in 100 days is to force women workers to have no other choice but to stage a hunger strike,” she told Documented. “We have been abused by this system for too long, and yet he works with Menin to delay us more. I mobilized five people from my family to vote for Mamdani.”

Budget Cuts to Labor Agencies 

Mamdani has also drawn criticism for backtracking on his campaign promise to increase the budgets for both DCWP and the New York City Commission on Human Rights (CCHR). The mayor pledged to double DCWP’s budget to $135 million and pledged to give $21 million to CCHR. Yet in his first preliminary budget for the 2027 fiscal year, DCWP and CCHR were slated to receive less money than the previous year’s budget had allocated. In 2026, DCWP had a budget of $81.7 million. For the 2027 preliminary budget, the mayor proposed allocating $74.7 million for the agency.

City Councilmember Harvey Epstein, who chairs the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection, praised the mayor for his pro-worker initiatives but urged greater funding for DCWP. 

“At a time when the cost of living is squeezing families across our city, these efforts to strengthen worker rights and consumer protections couldn’t be more important,” he told Documented in a statement. “We look forward to seeing additional investment in the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection in the budget so they can continue to deliver for New Yorkers.”

Still, supporters of the mayor found his backtracking a betrayal of his values. 

“While we support the Mayor’s vision for economic justice, we are disappointed by the proposed nearly 10 percent cuts to DCWP and NYCHRC,” said Elizabeth Saylor, citywide director of the Employment Law Unit at The Legal Aid Society, in a statement to Documented. “New Yorkers, especially those in low-income communities of color, deserve a budget that reflects these priorities.”

Looking ahead, the Mamdani administration is not slowing down. Su, the deputy mayor for economic justice, told Documented that the mayor will continue to double down on the gains already made while expanding the scope of City Hall’s work to bring even more workers to the table.  

“We will continue to look for ways to make it easier for workers to organize, for small businesses to succeed, for immigrants to feel safe, and for all who love this city to build a life they can afford here,” she said. “Whether you are cleaning hotels, cooking in restaurants, making music, healing in hospitals, teaching our kids, delivering packages, driving a taxi, or swinging a hammer, every worker has the right to work and live with dignity, and we will spend every day of our administration making that right a reality for every New Yorker.”