This year, New York passed a slew of new labor laws aimed at protecting workers’ rights. However, labor advocates say Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s proposed budget is gutting the very agencies that would enforce those laws.
While campaigning, Mamdani proposed increasing the budgets for both the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) and the New York Commission on Human Rights (CCHR). Mamdani pledged to double DCWP’s budget to $135 million so the agency could be better equipped to fight labor violations such as wage theft. Citing the Adams administration’s under-staffing of the CCHR, Mamdani pledged to fully fund the agency at $21 million so it can effectively enforce workplace discrimination laws.
Yet, on Feb. 17, the mayor released his first preliminary budget for the 2027 fiscal year, which highlighted the city’s projected $5.4 billion fiscal deficit. Although agencies such as the New York Police Department received 104% of their previous year’s budget, DCWP and CCHR were slated to receive less money than the previous year’s budget had allotted. In 2026, DCWP had a budget of $81.7 million. For the 2027 preliminary budget, the mayor proposed allocating just $74.7 million for the agency.
As of 2024, DCWP received 2,519 complaints, opened 506 investigations, closed 413 cases, and recovered nearly $7.9 million in restitution for workers — and they did this all with a staff of 40, comprising just 13 investigators and 15 attorneys. In addition to enforcing city workplace laws such as paid sick leave, the agency will now be tasked with enforcing additional laws without an increase in staff or funding.
With the Trump administration’s proposed 35% cuts to the Department of Labor, as well as a decrease in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) enforcement, Bhairavi Desai, co-founder and president of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), says that DCWP is vital in protecting workers’ rights.
“For workers, DCWP is the closest thing to a city-level department of labor that we have, and given the amount that they recover through fines, the agency practically pays for itself,” she told Documented. “I don’t think we can address issues such as wage theft, which, for particularly low-wage immigrant workers, is at the heart of an affordability crisis without a fully funded DCWP. I hope that by the time we get to the final budget, DCWP staffing will be fully restored.”
The mayor’s office did not respond to Documented’s request for comment about the cuts, but Mamdani has warned in recent weeks of a crippling budget gap in the city, which he says is a vestige of Mayor Adams administration, and is asking the state to raise taxes on the wealthy to bridge the gap.
“A budget is, in many ways, a moral document. It’s a vision of what you want. And these are places that need funding and are really important to working New Yorkers.”
—Rebekah Cook-Mack, staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society and member of the Human Rights Law Working Group
Lorelei Salas, former DCWP commissioner from 2016 to 2021, says the agency has become accustomed to being asked to do more with less amid budget shortfalls. During her tenure, the agency had to take on numerous new mandates — such as the expansion of paid sick leave and protections for fast food and retail workers — without additional funds for staffing or resources.
Salas also noted that the cuts are coming while worker and consumer protections are under attack on a national level.
“Even then, we didn’t have sufficient staffing to do all of the work that we were asked to do,” she recalled. “At some point, your investigations start getting longer because you just don’t have the staff to do the work.”
Funding for the long-fledgling CCHR doesn’t fare any better. In the 2026 budget, the CCHR received $15.4 million. Looking ahead to the 2027 preliminary budget, the agency is only being given about $14.3 million, far less than the $21 million Mamdani promised.
During the Adams administration, CCHR, which enforces the city’s human rights laws, was critically underfunded, critics say. In 2024, the agency had a budget of $12.4 million and operated with a staff of 105, down from a staff of 128 in 2020. With fewer staff members, complaints have piled up. CCHR received 13,630 inquiries in 2024 and had a backlog of 762 pending cases.
In contrast, the NYPD received a boost in funding, with nearly $6.7 billion being allocated in 2027, an increase from about $6.4 billion the year before.
Rebekah Cook-Mack, staff attorney in the employment law unit of the Legal Aid Society and member of the Human Rights Law Working Group (HRLWG), a coalition of 20 nonprofits that advocates for more CCHR funding, says that money earmarked for the NYPD could be redirected towards fully funding both DCWP and CCHR.
“It’s not a huge amount of money for the NYPD,” she told Documented. “But it’s enough to double DCWP, it’s enough to double CCHR. A budget is, in many ways, a moral document. It’s a vision of what you want. And these are places that need funding and are really important to working New Yorkers.”
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Attorney Aaron Horth of the Brooklyn Legal Services and a member of HRLWG stressed the necessity of increasing CCHR’s budget when it comes to issues of workplace and housing discrimination.
“A stronger and robust human rights commission is the best way to ensure that all of our expansive civil rights laws are enforced,” they told Documented. “Without a strong commission, it’s nearly impossible to promptly intervene to address the sort of discrimination in housing and employment and to secure reasonable accommodations for vulnerable New Yorkers in need.”
For years, the HRLWG has been lobbying to increase the funding for the CCHR. As the Mamdani administration settled in, Cook-Mack had hoped that CCHR would be prioritized, but thus far, she has been disappointed.
“The CCHR occupies a field that the federal government has abandoned,” she said. “It’s not like our immigrant New Yorkers, undocumented people, LGBTQ folks are going to go to the feds.”
Correction 3/12/2026: A previous version of this article incorrectly described the increase to the NYPD’s budget.
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