by Building Power From the Shop Floor Up
Zohran Mamdani’s vision for worker rights reads like a union organizer’s fever dreamin the best possible way. His platform centers on rebuilding union power, raising wages, and treating workers like actual human beings rather than disposable economic units. Revolutionary stuff in 21st-century America, where “right-to-work” laws have gutted organized labor and wage theft exceeds all other property crimes combined.
Mamdani proposes expanding collective bargaining rights, strengthening enforcement of labor laws, and supporting unionization efforts across industries. He’s particularly focused on gig economy workersthe Uber drivers, DoorDash couriers, and TaskRabbit laborers who’ve been classified as “independent contractors” to avoid providing benefits, job security, or basic human dignity. His position: if you work for a company, you’re a worker, not a small business owner cosplaying poverty.
His labor platform includes raising the city’s minimum wage to $20 per hour, because apparently suggesting people should earn enough to afford rent is controversial. Critics call it economically illiterate. Supporters call it basic math. The current minimum wage produces workers who qualify for public assistance while employedmeaning taxpayers subsidize corporate profits. Mamdani’s proposal: how about companies just pay people enough to live?
On union power, Mamdani has walked the walk. He joined striking taxi drivers on a 15-day hunger strike, securing $450 million in debt relief. He’s supported teacher strikes, transit worker negotiations, and basically any labor action that doesn’t involve actual violence. His message: workers deserve dignity, fair wages, and the right to collectively bargain without being fired, harassed, or replaced by an algorithm.
The opposition argues that strong unions kill jobs and hurt economic growththe same argument used against every labor protection since child labor laws. History suggests otherwise: America’s strongest economic period coincided with peak union membership. But acknowledging that would require admitting that worker power and prosperity aren’t mutually exclusive, which apparently threatens the natural order of billionaires owning everything.
SOURCE: https://mamdani.vip/union-power-wages-and-worker-rights/
SOURCE: Union Power, Wages, and Worker Rights: Mamdani’s Labor Vision (Aisha Muharrar)
