27 progressive community and labor groups pen letter to Hochul ahead of Trump presidency

Twenty-seven workers’ rights and progressive community organizations have sent a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul asking the state to strengthen labor protections and the social safety net in anticipation of what they call "anti-worker" policies under a second Donald Trump presidency.

The letter, sent to Hochul’s office on Tuesday, outlines several areas of action the groups want to see state government tackle under the new presidential administration. Among the signatory organizations are New York Communities for Change, the Alliance for a Greater New York, and the Long Island Progressive Coalition.

"Over and over again, we hear middle- and low-income working people share their fears and needs regarding the unaffordability of basics like food, housing, and healthcare," the letter read. "We need real protections and real help."

Local organizations who signed the letter said the coming administration’s views on the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid spending, Social Security taxation, and deportations all put New Yorkers, especially the most impoverished, at risk.

“If you cut these programs at the federal level…a lot of people are going to suffer,” said Joe Sackman, chief of staff for the Long Island Progressive Coalition, one of the signatories to the letter. “If we have more taken away from us, it’s only going to get harder.”

The coalition of signatory organizations is calling on the state to:

• Standardize the minimum wage paid across the state.
• Increase benefits from social insurance programs like unemployment and temporary disability.
• Enforce and expand labor protections.
• Fund a public child care system with higher wages for child care workers.
• Create "permanently affordable" mixed-income housing.
• Increase pay for home health workers.
• Raise state revenue through increased taxes on "extremely profitable" corporations and "ultra wealthy" individuals.

Additionally, the group called on the state to pass the New York for All Act and enact the NY Climate Change Superfund Act.

The Superfund Act, which passed in the state Senate and Assembly earlier this year, would require the largest greenhouse gas emitters to pay the state a total of $75 billion over 25 years to cover the costs of climate change infrastructure projects.

The New York for All Act, which the state legislature has not passed, would prohibit local and state law enforcement from federal immigration laws and working directly with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Mary Anne Trasciatti, director of Labor Studies and a professor of rhetoric and public advocacy at Hofstra said the letter points to an increased reliance on states like New York to hold the line on labor issues and worker protections.

“You’ve got all these organizations looking around and going, ‘We can’t rely on the federal government for pretty much anything for the next few years, so how can we use the state to our advantage,’” Trasciatti said.

Pointing to Trump’s track record and comments made by his political associates, Trasciatti said concern among worker, immigrant, and LGBTQ advocacy groups is palpable.

“What we’re seeing is a beginning of a real grass roots movement to build organizational capacity to continue to organize people and to mount the kind of pressure progressive democrats say they want,” she said.