Opinion: New York’s workers are under attack. The EmPIRE Act is how we fight back.


As the daughter of Dominican immigrants and a lifelong resident of Northern Manhattan, I know what it means to fight for dignity at work. My neighbors and constituents – home care workers, delivery drivers, grocery clerks, construction laborers, street vendors and more – are the backbone of New York City. They kept us fed, safe and connected through a pandemic, and they continue to power our economy even through hardship. But workers’ rights on the job are under attack like never before under Trump 2.0 – and New York must rise to meet the moment with equal urgency.

That’s why we are working to introduce a resolution in the New York City Council supporting the EmPIRE Worker Protection Act. This critical state legislation would give New York’s working people the tools to enforce their rights under the labor law when the state doesn’t have the resources or political will to do so.

It’s no secret that we’re in the middle of a labor oversight crisis at the federal level. President Donald Trump, billionaires like Elon Musk and a right-wing Congress have declared open war on the institutions that protect workers, gutting the National Labor Relations Board, closing Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission offices and threatening massive cuts to the U.S. Department of Labor. We’ve felt the effects here at home, with recent closures of offices responsible for overseeing Wage and Hour compliance in Queens, the safety and health of mine workers in Albany and Workers’ Comp in Buffalo. 

Unless we act now in defense of working-class New Yorkers, wage theft and discrimination will go unchecked, and unsafe job sites will become the norm. Workers who dare speak up will continue to have their lives upended, whether in the form of retaliatory firings by unscrupulous employers or the ever-increasing threats of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in the workplace.

Here in New York, we pride ourselves on having some of the nation’s strongest labor protections. But labor laws are only as strong as their enforcement. The Labor Standards program of the New York State Department of Labor has fewer than 150 investigators for a state of more than 9 million workers. Cases of wage theft take from two to five years to resolve, if they are resolved at all. For workers in immigrant and low-income communities, who often face language barriers or fear retaliation, justice is even further out of reach.

Meanwhile, corporate wage theft is on the rise. Billions of dollars in unpaid wages, withheld benefits and time and hour violations are stolen from New York workers each year. For families already struggling to make ends meet, a stolen paycheck means missed rent, an empty fridge and even more debt. And it’s not just workers who suffer. Law-abiding employers, especially small businesses trying to do right by their employees, are forced to compete with exploitative businesses that steal from workers and face little to no consequences. 

The EmPIRE Act offers workers recourse. The bill empowers workers, whistleblowers and unions to level the playing field and bring public enforcement actions on behalf of the state if the state attorney general’s office and Department of Labor do not take the case. 

It’s a smart, proven model. California has already adopted a similar law, the Private Attorneys General Act, which in 2022 alone generated $209 million – funds that went directly toward the state’s efforts to enforce existing labor law and inform employers and workers about their legal obligations and rights in the workplace.

This legislation will generate over $100 million annually in new revenue for the state Department of Labor, allowing for urgently-needed staffing and enforcement expansion, including rebuilding the agency’s anti-retaliation unit to protect immigrant and vulnerable workers. Beyond resources, we need transparency and accountability. The EmPIRE Act would also move many cases out of secret arbitration and into the public courts, where working people can tell their stories and demand justice in the light of day.

Let me say this plainly: We cannot wait for the next federal administration to decide whether workers matter. We must act now. I’m urging the state Legislature to pass the EmPIRE Act before the end of session and Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign it into law.

We are in a defining moment. As Trump 2.0 attempts to roll back a century of labor progress, we still have millions of working New Yorkers demanding what they deserve by law: fair pay, safe working conditions and a voice on the job. Let’s give workers more power to fight back.

The EmPIRE Act is a line in the sand. And I am proud to stand with workers in drawing it.