With Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor assured, unions and labor leaders are taking stock of what to many marks a repudiation of establishment candidates, not least Andrew Cuomo, and even a long-awaited makeover of the party.
Most of the city unions that traditionally support Democrats endorsed the former governor. But a few – spurred by rank-and-file mobilization – backed the longshot candidate, and they too are taking a victory lap. The labor leader most enthusiastic about Mamdani’s win was the one whose membership bet on him earliest. Brandon Mancilla, the director of United Auto Workers Region 9A, said the morning of June 25 that the union is “super proud to have seen the potential of the Zohran campaign from the very
beginning and our members have been super excited from the beginning.”
The UAW was the first union to endorse Mamdani; its Community Action Program Council unanimously ranked him as part of a slate of three candidates in December when the assemblyman was largely unknown and polling at 1 percent. Hundreds of UAW members fanned out across the city in the months that followed as a small part of the legion of what according to the campaign was 36,000 volunteers who canvassed and lobbied their neighbors to support Mamdani, a fixture at UAW picket lines.
Many of Mamdani’s volunteers are, like the assemblyman, members of the Democratic Socialists of America. DSA devotees are an ever-present force at picket lines across the city and the organization includes young workers from a variety of unions, including the UAW.
The union’s members also participated in campaign videos promoting Mamdani. The union also hammered Cuomo at press conferences. “It means that for the first time our
See MAMDANI, page 5
On what would turn out to be the hottest day in a decade, Rodriguez, 65, walked into 900 West End Avenue, a 1926 pre-war apartment building on the Upper West Side. He put on his navy blue uniform and positioned himself by the door.
“I got married twice, and I had this job. I had my kids, and I had this job. Growing up with all the changes in my life, and I had this job,” Rodriguez said later that morning. “Other things maybe have not been stable, but this job has been stable. This has probably been the only thing in my life that has always been
stable.” Rodriguez started at the building as an elevator operator in 1980, aged 20. He became a doorman in 2001 when the elevators were automated. For all of his years working at
900 West End, Rodriguez has been a member of 32BJ, which represents property service workers.
“He makes everybody happy, and he’s always got something to talk about,” resident Lee Apt said. “He’s
a really generous guy.”
One manifestation of Rodriguez’s cheerfulness is his booming laugh. Residents as high up as the eighth floor could tell when he was on shift because they could hear his laugh echoing up. “When I’m in my apartment and you listen carefully, you can hear his laugh and that makes the whole world better,” said Diane, another building resident. Rodriguez grew up in public housing not far from the building that would become his second home. A longtime resident of 900 West End, Tommy Smith, remembers hanging out with Rodriguez in the neighborhood when they were teenagers. Rodriguez has always been the same cheerful person, Smith said.
Like any good doorman, Rodriguez made it his business to know the name of every tenant in the 130unit building. The mailman, FedEx man and every dog-walker are also in Rodriguez’s internal Rolodex.
“I leave my home to make these people happy,” Rodriguez said. “I love people. I love to deal with people. And this is a good job for that, because I deal with people’s personal lives. I love to be around people; it recharges me, it gives me energy. I just want to do things for them.”
Many tenants said Rodriguez went beyond just the basics of the job — organizing packages, security and knowing residents’ names. He got to know the building’s residents on a personal level.
When Suzanne Inglis, a four-year building resident, moved in, she had recently lost a family member. She recalled talking to Rodriguez about her family and the stress of that time. “Especially, I think it was hard when my parents died, and he listened because I have a crazy family,” Inglis said. “He listened. He understood.”
‘They’re my family’
When Rodriguez arrived at the building that last Tuesday, a handmade sign adorned the doorman’s stand. “Peter, We will miss you! Good luck and have fun!” The script, in blue and orange, was a salute to Rodriguez’s beloved New York Mets. He often attends Citi Field games with residents of the building.
A cup in the shape of a Mets baseball helmet held the Sharpies with
Courtesy of Vail Kohnert-Yount UAW Region 9A
Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, center rear, with members of the United Auto Workers outside the New School Primary Day. UAW Region 9A director Brandon Mancilla is to Mamdani’s right. UAW Region 9A was the first union to endorse the longshot candidate.
Sterling Sewell/The Chief
Pete Rodriguez first walked into 900 West End Avenue in 1980 to work as an elevator operator. But for most of the 45 years he spent at the Upper West Side building, he was doorman extraordinaire. His last day there was June 24.
See RODRIGUEZ, page 7
Legal Aid attorneys authorize strike
So do lawyers at 6 other organizations
BY DUNCAN FREEMAN dfreeman@thechiefleader.com
Unionized workers at the Legal Aid Society have voted for the first time in 30 years to authorize a strike. With 91 percent support and 99 percent of the bargaining unit participating in the vote, over 1,000 workers have sent the signal that they could walk out on strike at any time.
“All options are on the table,” Jane Fox, the unit chair of the Legal Aid Society Attorneys United, said Monday afternoon. The union, part of Local 2325 of the United Auto Workers, is seeking large raises, strict limits on workloads, increased retirement contributions and other terms that would largely be funded by the city’s budget. Legal advocates at New York Legal Assistance Group, Center for Appellate Litigation, Office of the Appellate Defender, Appellate Advocates, Goddard Riverside Law Project and the Urban Justice Center — all affiliated with Local 2325, the Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys — all also voted to authorize strikes with more than 85 percent of members in support. Several more bargaining units are currently voting on strike authorizations or are expected to do so in the coming days. Affirmative votes could mean more than 2,000 workers out on strike si-
multaneously in July.
The Legal Aid workers walked a one-hour lunchtime practice picket of more than 150 LASU members outside of 55 Water Street on Monday. Fox, speaking with The Chief during a break from marathon bargaining sessions with management, suggested that while the city did provide funding for legal services in the Fiscal Year 2026 budget finalized Monday, workers needed more from the city to meet their demands and management needed to improve their economic offers.
“It’s just not enough money,” she said.
The president of Local 2325, Lisa Ohta, said that The Legal Aid Society management’s most recent economic offer was “wildly insufficient.”
“The Legal Aid Society needs to come to the table with more money because we are prepared to strike to get the wages we need to stay in the jobs we love,” Ohta said in a statement. “Mayor Adams and the City Council can solve this. The time to fully fund legal services is now.”
‘We want to just do our jobs’
Lawyers and legal advocates at several other legal advocacy organizations also held practice pickets on Monday. The leadership of a unit of 500 Service Employees International Union Local 1199 members who work as legal support staff at The Legal Aid Society encouraged members to participate in the ALAA’s
practice picket, and workers in that unit could strike soon as well.
In a lengthy statement Monday, Twyla Carter, attorney-in-chief and CEO of The Legal Aid Society, recognized that her staff’s salaries have “historically failed to reflect the value and difficulty,” and said the organization has made “significant headway” in the last three years to secure more funding for the nonprofit, the country’s oldest and largest provider of legal aid. Despite increases in attorney salaries in the last several years, including of 7 percent in 2024, a “significant gap remains between the salaries of our staff attorneys and the rising
cost of living in what is one of the most expensive cities in the country,” she said.
“We respect ALAA’s decision to authorize a strike and will continue to bargain in good faith,” Carter said. “We remain committed to reaching a fair and fiscally responsible agreement with ALAA that honors our shared values and secures the future of our constitutionally and legally mandated work, as well as our broader mission to advance justice and equity. Lastly, if a strike takes place, our top priority will be to continue the high-quality legal services for the people and communities we serve and rely on
us without interruption.”
Gregory Herrera, a staff attorney in The Legal Aid Society’s digital forensics unit in the criminal justice division, said Monday that while he didn’t want to strike, he and his colleagues were spurred to authorize one to try and counteract “decades long chronic underinvestment in legal services.”
“We don’t produce a physical tangible product but the services that we provide help to keep New Yorkers in their home, help keep New Yorkers out of jail and help keep New Yorkers in the United States,” he said. “We don’t want to go on strike; we want to just do our jobs.”
Brian Sullivan, a staff attorney in the Legal Aid Society’s group advocacy project, is a veteran of attorney strikes, having participated in a three-month strike last year at Mobilization for Justice, where he worked for 17 years. That strike went on for far longer than any union members had expected, but Sullivan is hopeful that if workers at The Legal Aid Society walk out, the effect of hundreds of lawyers not showing up to court will push the city and management to agree to a contract that ends the strike quickly.
“For an organization this big, it’s much more disruptive — not just for the organization but for the court system itself — to go on strike,” Sullivan said. “If we go out, and hopefully we don’t have to, but if we do it will be much more disruptive and hopefully a shorter strike.”
Council considers impacts of AI on city workforce
Lawmakers concerned about worker displacement, other possible consequences
BY CRYSTAL LEWIS clewis@thechiefleader.com
As the use of artificial intelligence technologies expand into all facets of daily life, including within government operations, members of the City Council last week questioned city officials about how AI could impact city workers as well residents.
With automation presenting a threat to jobs across the nation in a wide range of industries, the Council is considering a bill that would establish a task force to analyze the ways artificial intelligence has affected the city’s municipal workforce and to determine which guardrails could be needed. The task force would be made up of city agency leaders, technologists, union leaders and city workers, according to the legislation introduced southeast Queens Council Member Nantasha Williams.
During a joint hearing of the Council’s Technology and Civil Service and Labor and committees
on the bill June 26, Council Member Carmen De La Rosa, the Labor Committee chair, probed Adams administration officials to determine what the city is doing to ensure AI is used to support workers instead of displace them. Katrina Porter, the director of human capital at the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, said the city doesn’t have any plans to implement automation technologies in ways that would replace city workers.
Officials from the city’s Office of Technology and Innovation explained that the agency is working to develop training to educate city workers on AI. The city’s goal is to launch the training program by the end of the summer. There are no plans to make the training mandatory, however.
When questioned whether the city has examined how AI can impact civil-service exams or which civil-service titles could potentially be at risk because of automation, Alex Foard, OTI’s executive director of research and collaboration, explained that the office has been working to assess agencies’ foundational needs, such as what their IT teams need or what literacy skills are required. “There is a lot more that we can
and want to be doing, and are doing currently, to better understand the particulars,” Foard acknowledged.
‘AI is already here’
With the city contending with more than 15,000 vacancies, Council Member Erik Bottcher asked whether unfilled positions could be automated, to which Porter stated that the city’s use of automation tools has been focused on streamlining services rather than replacing employees. Bottcher also posed a hypothetical scenario, asking whether the city would decline to use an AI tool that could significantly improve public-service delivery or provide better outcomes if doing so would hurt a civil-service job.
Porter said the question was “difficult” to answer since the city is “in the very early stages of understanding the impacts on AI on the work that we perform.”
Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez, who chairs the Technology Committee, asked whether OTI has done AI training with employees at the Administration for Children’s Services. The agency has been using predictive algorithms to flag some families for increased scrutiny, using 279 variables that
range from past ACS involvement to socioeconomic status and which neighborhood they live in, as first reported by technology news outlet
The Markup. Foard said that OTI had not done any training dedicated to AI with ACS staff.
“I do think it’s harmful, first of all that you are being flagged for a system that says they’re using historic data — that could look like anything — and obviously, for me, that feels discriminatory,” Gutiérrez said. “If both the worker and the New Yorker doesn’t understand why they’re in the system, that can be really harmful.”
De La Rosa questioned if the city was falling behind in terms of preparing agencies and employees for innovation. “The challenge that I’m having is that AI is already here,” she said.
Foard believed that the city was very prepared, as agencies have been using automation tools for “a very long time.”
De La Rosa pointed out that his statement contradicted much of the administration’s testimony.
“On one hand, we’re hearing ‘AI has been around, the workforce has used AI for a long time, our city workers know how to use it.’ And then the other side I’m hearing ‘This is brand new, this is something that
we’re just starting.’ So which is it?” she questioned.
The Council also weighed other pieces of legislation, including a bill that would require the city to create a centralized Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request website to receive and post responses to FOIL inquiries. Advocates from a range of organizations — from The Legal Aid Society to Reinvent Albany to the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project — expressed support for the bill, noting that there were long wait times for FOIL responses under the current system and arguing that the reforms would increase transparency.
Labor leaders representing independent contractors at the Freelancers Union and Workers Justice Project called on the Council to work to increase protections from the harms brought about by AI for freelance employees and deliveristas.
“The algorithms determine how much workers earn, which orders we receive, and all without transparency or the ability to a just appeal process in case of having our accounts deactivated,” said William Medina, a leader at the Workers Justice Project. “This has created a system where deliveristas have very little control over their working conditions.”
to individual researchers, was being terminated. Levy’s grant was awarded to support her research on the history of the U.S. automobile industry and globalization.
She noted that the stipend “is really important, especially for faculty in the humanities — there are not a lot of large grants — so to have two months set aside in the summer to conduct continuous research is a huge honor and prestigious award.”
She added that the majority of NEH summer-stipend recipients also had their grants terminated, and that several lawsuits have been filed over the cuts, including by The Authors Guild. The manner by which she was informed of the grant termination was also extremely unprofessional, Levy explained.
“This email was sent via a nongovernmental Microsoft account created for this purpose, just one example of the cruel carelessness and disregard this administration has shown with these cuts,” she said. “When the Trump administration terminated my and other NEH awards, they violated the terms of the summer stipend, which according to the agency’s own terms, once awarded can only be terminated by the grantee.”
‘A public good’ Kathleen Cumiskey, a psychology professor at the College of Staten Island who has worked at CUNY for 22 years, said that a $700,000 National Science Foundation grant for a threeyear STEM education program aimed at improving academic outcomes at Hispanic-serving institutions was terminated on May 2, just 20 months into the program’s lifespan.
The initiative had improved students’ GPAs, increased retention
rates and fostered an 83-percent pass rate. “We believe the decision to terminate our grant was unfair. Unfortunately, under the current administration, it appears that the agency has been redirected in ways that threaten our nation’s scientific discovery and the importance of broad participation in the creation
of new knowledge,” Cumiskey said. She called on higher-education and research advocates to champion inclusive educational practices. “We need to ensure that discoveries are made to benefit society that are not influenced or controlled by the special interests of those with political and financial power. Science is
a public good, and we must defend it,” Cumiskey said. Monica Trujillo, a biology professor at Queensborough Community College, spearheaded a wastewater surveillance project during the Covid pandemic for early detection of infectious diseases. Two years ago, Queensborough, LaGuardia Com-
munity College and Queens College received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation for a training program that allowed community college students studying wastewater epidemiology to apply for jobs in the city’s Department of Environmental Protection. That five-year grant was terminated on May 2.
“The real truth is they don’t want us to train economically disadvantaged students — minorities — to be able to apply to well-paying jobs,” Trujillo said. “We want our grants restored. Most of all, we don’t want the budget cuts that this horrible bill is going to bring.”
City Comptroller Brad Lander joined the researchers, noting that higher education contributes $35 billion to the city’s economy and employs about 140,000 people.
“Anyone who votes for that socalled ‘Big Beautiful Budget Bill,’ you are responsible for people dying, for people getting sicker, for people losing jobs, right in your neighborhood,” he said.
Davis, the PSC president, urged congressional leaders whose districts include CUNY and SUNY institutions — including Representatives Nicole Malliotakis, who represents Staten Island and Mike Lawler of Hudson Valley — to protect research funding, and to reject Trump’s bill.
“As we go into Independence Day, Congress has the opportunity to do something patriotic … which is to stand up and to vote against this big, ugly betrayal of a budget bill that would deprive hundreds of thousands of people across New York State of Medicaid, that would close hospitals, that would reduce SNAP and food assistance, and that would impose punitive cuts on federal aid to SUNY and CUNY students and the Pell program that allows students to thrive,” the union leader said.
Crystal Lewis/The Chief
Members of the Professional Staff Congress, including the union’s president, James Davis, pictured, railed against federal cuts to research grants that have threatened $17 million in funding at CUNY and $50 million at SUNY. The union, joined by officials from the New York State United Teachers and city Comptroller Brad Lander, rallied against the cuts outside of the Trump Building in Lower Manhattan Monday.
Duncan Freeman / The Chief
Dozens of workers at the Legal Aid Society walked a practice picket line Monday outside the nonprofit’s Water Street offices hours after the workers’ union announced that a strike authorization vote had passed.
City’s street vendors won’t face criminal penalties for code infractions
Council downgrades violations to civil offenses
BY RICHARD KHAVKINE richardk@thechiefleader.com
New York City street vendors who run afoul of city regulations will no longer receive criminal summonses and will instead be liable for fines of up to $1,000, depending on the infraction, according to a City Council bill passed Monday. Queens Council Member Shekar Krishan’s legislation, which passed with 40 in favor and 8 opposed, is the first of four bills whose sponsors are calling the Street Vendor Reform package to get a vote.
Speaking ahead of the Council’s vote, Krishnan, who represents Jackson Heights, called the bill’s impending passage “historic,” in part because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants.
“Our street vendors are our smallest businesses. Across the city, over 96 percent of our street vendors are immigrants. They provide us coffee on our way to work, tacos during a quick lunch break and ice cream on a hot summer day,” he said at the Council’s pre-stated meeting. “But the fact of the matter is, because of a broken vending system, street vendors could face jail time for simply trying to support their families, for simply trying to pay rent or pay for childcare. With the federal government’s horrific immigrant policies that are only about to get worse, the consequences of ending violations have become even more stark.”
Under current law, vending without a license is a misdemeanor and could bring penalties of up to $1,000 in fines, three months in jail or both.
The bill now awaits Mayor Eric Adams signature, after which it would become law in six months.
While Adams has sided with brickand-mortar businesses with regard to increasing street-vendor permits,
it is unclear whether he will sign off on Krishnan’s bill. Monday’s Council’s vote, though, suggests it is veto-proof.
The managing director of the Street Vendor Project at the Urban Justice Center, Mohamed Attia, praised the bill’s passage and called the roughly 23,000 vendors who peddle their wares and sustenance on city streets “the heart of our economy.” He, too, cited the federal government’s ongoing immigrant sweeps, saying they were creating “fear … making the heightened criminalization and intimidation of street vendors in NYC all the more alarming.”
“We applaud City Council’s decision to repeal criminal liability for street vending, a critical step towards achieving an equitable system for our city’s smallest businesses,” Attia said in a statement.
NYPD enforcement jumped
The NYPD issued 1,684 criminal summonses in connection with street vendor activity in 2024, about 35 percent more than police issued in 2023, according to department figures. Through the first quarter this year, officers issued 330 of the “C” summonses, although enforcement
increases in the warmer months.
Other pieces of the Street Vendor Reform package include a bill by Bronx Council Member Pierina Ana Sanchez that would increase the number of food vendor licenses and general vendor licenses each year for five years and after that make available “an unlimited number” of the licenses, which are issued to individuals.
Another bill, introduced by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, would create a Division of Street Vendor Assistance within the Department of Small Business Services to provide business and economic devel-
opment services, resources, training and education to vendors in several languages.
The third outstanding bill would allow vendors to place their pushcarts two feet from the curb rather than abutting the curb, as current regulations require, which that bill’s sponsor, Council Member Carmen De La Rosa, said presents a danger to the vendors.
Sanchez, the granddaughter and daughter of vendors, lauded the passage of Krishnan’s bill, but called it “critical” for the Council to pass the full package, particularly to buttress protections for unlicensed vendors.
“This can still be the Council that reforms the vending system to one that is fair and effective, where vendors and brick-and-mortars coexist and where access to opportunity is made available to all of our city’s small businesses,” Sanchez said at the Council’s meeting.
The bill’s cost is estimated at $125,000, chiefly to pay for computers and software, according to its fiscal note. The Office of Management and Budget, though, estimates the legislation’s cost at about $1.9 million a year, chiefly to pay newly hired personnel, among them seven staff attorneys, four Clerk’s Office workers and one tech person.
Krishnan, calling the city’s vendors “the essential workers of our city,” said his legislation was “common-sense measure” that involved input from several different constituencies, among them enforcement agencies and business interests.
“The bill supports a clear, fair and regulated vending system that is organized and enforceable,” he said during the pre-stated meeting.
He also called for the full consideration of the Street Vendor Reform package, which he said “would create a clear and comprehensive, well regulated and enforceable vending system, one that our city desperately needs.”
City TLC rule increases Uber, Lyft drivers’ pay
Also adds protections against ‘lock-outs’
BY RICHARD KHAVKINE richardk@thechiefleader.com
Uber and Lyft drivers in the city must now be given a 72-hour notice before they are “locked out” of the companies’ apps. The city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission on June 25 approved amendments to its rules that require the ride-share companies to provide the notices to drivers who are available to work.
The drivers have long and loudly complained that they get booted off the apps without cause, notification or due process and with minimal recourse. The drivers who attended the TLC’s meeting June 25 in downtown Manhattan erupted in sustained applause following the unanimous vote by the seven TLC commissioners in attendance. The commissioners also approved a roughly 5-percent increase to the minimum per-mile rates the companies must pay the drivers.
“For too long, Uber got away with locking drivers out of the app in order to avoid paying fair wages to the workers whose labor makes the company billions in profits. Lockouts are an attack on driver pay and driver dignity. Drivers have reported up to a 25 percent loss of income because of lockouts. We fought for over a year to stop Uber and Lyft from locking out drivers in the middle of their shifts on the apps — and we won,” Bhairavi Desai, the executive director of the New York City Taxi Workers Alliance, said in a statement following the vote.
The alliance, which represents the app-dispatched drivers, and city Comptroller Brad Lander last year argued that the companies deactivate drivers to circumvent the city’s minimum driver pay law by inflating the time the drivers have passengers — the so-called “utilization rate” by which the TLC calculates what drivers should be paid.
The commission’s chair, David Do, reiterated as much before the vote, saying Uber and Lyft took advantage of “loopholes” in the TLC’s rules “to avoid paying drivers more, which is unacceptable.”
Drivers, he said, “oftentimes found themselves locked out … in the middle of their shifts as they were working hard to pay for their bills and feed their families.” City Council legislation would make it even more difficult for the apps to lock out drivers. Intro. 276, by Queens Council Member Shekar Krishnan, would prohibit the companies from kicking drivers off their apps except for just cause or genuine economic reasons. The
legislation, which was introduced in February 2024 and got a committee airing in September, would also require the companies to reactivate drivers who were kicked off in the preceding six years if they were not deactivated for those reasons.
Companies cautious
While Krishnan praised the TLC’s rule amendment, he said additional protections, such as those included in his bill, were still necessary. “Providing greater notice for drivers that are temporarily deactivated is a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough for drivers who depend on Uber and Lyft to provide for their families. My bill Int. 276 allows Uber and Lyft drivers to have multiple avenues to fight off unfair deactivations. Uber and Lyft drivers are the lifeblood of New York City, and we must pass Int. 276 to provide stronger protections for permanent deactivations for these drivers.”
The companies, though, argued that the city’s former minimum-pay formula, instituted in 2018 and based solely on the utilization rate, obliged them to lockout drivers’ access to the apps to preserve a high rate. According to Uber, that formula “reduced driver flexibility and limited earnings opportunities.”
The commission’s new pay rules now take into account trip distances rather than just a time-based utilization rate.
An Uber spokesperson praised the rule change.
“This rule finally moves away from automatically tying driver pay directly to utilization — a model that just doesn’t work. It created perverse incentives, stifled innovation, and led to a frustrating, unpredictable experience for drivers,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Noting that the commission acknowledged concerns from the rides-share companies about driver expenses and vehicles’ trade-in values, Lyft was somewhat pleased at the rule change, but also said the increase could have unwanted consequences.
“It’s good to see the TLC listened to some concerns and tweaked their February proposal,” a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “While these changes are a step in the right direction, we still have concerns that the underlying pay formula will still deprive drivers of earning opportunities, drive up prices for riders, and reduce ride availability, which isn’t good for anyone — especially the drivers who depend on steady demand to make a living.”
Desai, the Taxi Workers Alliance executive director, also said there was more to be done, but on behalf
of drivers, and also again pushed for the Council to pass Krishnan’s bill.
“We still have a lot more work to do to protect job security and in-
comes for Uber and Lyft drivers,” she said. “But once again, we’ve proven that when workers come together and show our strength even billionaire corporations like Uber
Mary AltafferAP Photo
A hot dog vendor moved his cart onto his spot on 45th Street in Times Square under the watchful eyes of an NYPD officer.
and Lyft can be held accountable. Today’s victory belongs to the drivers who stood up and fought back against corporate greed.”
NYCTLC
Uber and Lyft drivers applauded the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission’s approval of rule amendments that increased driver pay and oblige the ride-share companies to give drivers 72-hours notice before they are locked out of their apps.
COMMENTARY COMMENTARY COMMENTARY
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Money walks
To The ediTor:
Zohran Mamdani’s surprise victory in the Democratic primary has been revealing in a number of ways. One is the relationship between Democratic establishment politicians like Andrew Cuomo and the wealthy and corporations. Large contributions give these elites access to political power unavailable to ordinary Americans. Cuomo’s super PAC Fix the City raised over $25 million from plutocrats, including billionaire Trump supporters and industries such as real estate that do business with the city. Mamdani had thousands of contributors who gave an average of $80.
This is especially relevant in New York City, given its need to solve the problem of affordability. To cite recent data, about 25 percent, or 2 million of the city’s residents, live below the poverty line, including 425,000 children.
Nearly 3 million households, close to one-third of all households in the state, experience housing insecurity. As for food insecurity, 14.6 percent, or about 1.2 million city residents, are food-insecure.
Nearly 40 percent of adults live in households at risk of food insecurity. City Harvest reported that because of rising costs for food, childcare and housing, nearly 3 million New Yorkers struggle to make ends meet.
WAKE-UP CALL
By contrast, according to Forbes, New York City has approximately 123 billionaires, the highest number of any city in the world. It is also home to approximately 350,000 millionaires, again the most of any city in the world. Finally, many of the wealthiest corporations and financial institutions are based in the city. New Yorkers face an affordability crisis. They also face a systematic structure of income and wealth inequality. It reflects a rigged and corrupt political and economic system gamed by both plutocrats and politicians. This is one reason why Democrats Andrew Cuomo, Kathy Hochul and Eric Adams claim there is never a good time to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations.
Howard Elterman
Twisted logic
To The ediTor:
Whether it’s the New York State Court of Appeals or the U.S. Supreme Court, there is a lack of logic in their decisions.
In an unanimous ruling, the State Court of Appeals agreed that New York City retirees were told that their retirement health package would include Medicare as well as supplementary insurance at the time they were hired. But then they claim that nothing the retirees were told meant that they would get this
coverage for life. Now none of the lower courts, which all ruled in favor of the retirees, were willing to adopt such twisted thinking. Are the members of the high court practicing justice or con artist techniques?
On the federal level, the six Republican-president-nominated Supreme Court justices ruled that lower courts could not issue injunctions against a president’s executive orders. This is in a case where President Donald Trump issued an executive order to eliminate birthright citizenship. This order is a direct contradiction of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. So while Trump and these six justices swore to uphold the constitution, they have made themselves guilty of perjury.
It is too bad we don’t have a truly worthwhile Congress or state legislature. If we did, many judges would be removed for making decisions that are legally, logically and morally indefensible.
Richard Warren
Advantage, retirees
To The ediTor:
This is an open letter from the Council of Municipal Retiree Organizations (COMRO) to the various parties involved in the attempts to force municipal retirees into a Medicare Advantage plan.
To Marianne Pizzitola, president of the New York City Organization of Public Sector Retirees: Thank you and your executive board and legal team for your miraculous efforts to galvanize thousands of retirees across the country to resist the de Blasio and Adams administrations’ attempts to force us to lose our Medicare benefits and literally place our lives in the hands of for-profit insurance conglomerates.
To Mayor Eric Adams: We join
A quiet place resonates
BY RON ISAAC
There are now no differences among them. The calendars of their lives have run out, and all their legacies are equalized. The dates of birth and death on their stone monuments yield nothing about their individuality when alive. Their chronicles are interred with their bones.
The living should pay respects to anyone who has “crossed the bar.” Give them credit for completing the journey. They have experienced the final revelation but are not at liberty to share.
They have undergone the unfathomable discovery of faith or its betrayal, but Nature swears them to secrecy. They have no consciousness we can measure. They have shed their electrical fields, but an aura lingers around their graves. Susceptible visitors are prone to picking up on their mystical presence. We’ll catch up with them some day, when we’re done gathering rosebuds.
In a century-old cemetery, minutes from New York City, in a suburb that has seen better days, (its local plumber is actually called “Doodyman to the Rescue”) are left the remnants of tens of thousands of people. Imagine the permutations of their personalities and the trillions of their combined accomplishments, interactions, engagements and decisions when extant.
From all we can tell, since they cannot, they are now all at peace. Or at least beyond awareness. It is too late to interview them, but in some cases, we can still draw inferences and make their acquaintance by research.
I recently attended a ceremony at the gravesite of a relative’s dearest friend. The cemetery, which I had never heard of, had a particularly otherworldly atmosphere that shut out the outer world and put me in a magnified spiritual state of mind.
Allowing for delays because I don’t have a GPS, I arrived early and walked around its crowded grounds and labyrinthine paths, looking at names on tombstones. None of their ghosts gave me the courtesy of popping up to introduce themselves, so I googled the cemetery to see if there were any notable posthumous
Marianne in expressing our gratitude that you were able to “land this plane.” We ask you to instruct the city’s corporation counsel to return to the state Supreme Court to request the court to dismiss all charges and permanently close the Bentkowski case.
To City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams: We agree with your statement that we “can now move towards a solution.” That includes passing Intro 1096, which would ensure future mayors could not try to end our supplemental Medicare coverage.
To United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew: Thank you for opposing the city’s plan.”
We encourage you to facilitate the appointment of a retiree to the MLC’s executive board.
To District Council 37 Executive Director Henry Garrido: You recently stated that “Since the mayor has decided not to proceed with the Medicare Advantage plan, this fulfills the unions’ obligation to generate Medicare-eligible retiree health care savings.”
Earlier this year, the IRS paperwork for the DC 37 Retirees Association was accepted, meaning two outstanding issues have been resolved. It is therefore time for you to request AFSCME to instruct the administrator to schedule chapter elections this fall so that the 26,000 members will have their elected representatives running their chapter.
Stuart Eber
The writer is president of the Council of Municipal Retiree Organizations
Rhyme and reason
To The ediTor: Is capitalism here to stay?
Some say it will never die But was it meant to be that way?
confinements. Here are some of them. What a soiree they would have made!
Eduard Bloch was a Jewish physician who treated Adolf Hitler and his cancer-stricken mother. He didn’t charge them because they were poor. A few decades later, his medical practice was closed by the Nazis, and Bloch pleaded with Chancellor Hitler to intervene.
That was, to say the least, a long shot, the ultimate Hail Mary pass.
But Hitler responded by ordering the Secret State Police (Gestapo) to leave him and his family alone, letting him sell his house at market value, and allowing them to leave Germany while exempting them from the Reich Flight Tax, which normally confiscated all Jews’ assets.
Bloch emigrated to the U.S. and lived out his life in The Bronx!
Bernard Herrmann was the composer of music for many of the greatest movies, such as “Psycho,” “Citizen Kane,” “The Twilight Zone,” “Taxi Driver,” “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest,” “The Birds” and “Fahrenheit 451.” He collaborated with Orson Welles, and his classical orchestral compositions were conducted by Stokowski, Beecham, Barbirolli and Ormandy.
Jackie Mason, an ordained rabbi,
the stand-up comedian who almost ruined his career by giving television variety show hosts Ed Sullivan the middle finger, was active into his nineties until his death a few years ago. Typical of his jokes: “Being a doctor is a great profession. Where else can you ask a woman to get undressed and then send the bill to her husband?” (this joke is behind the times, since the woman would get her own bill). Another: “Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe.” At one time he earned the equivalent of $100,000 per week. Now he too is a pauper. What’s the link between Elvis Presley’s hit “Jailhouse Rock” and this cemetery, which is obscure compared with Woodlawn and Green-Wood? Abe Axler, an assassin for the Purple Gang, which took part in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago lies there, utterly de-weaponized and off-loaded by a co-titleist who gave him a touch of his own leaded “medicine.” Sidney Lumet, film director of “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Prince of the City,” “Serpico,” “The Pawnbroker, “ “12 Angry Men,” “Murder on the Orient Express,” “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” “Fail Safe” and “The Wiz,” is now an extra within the big-screen landscape of
that memorial park.
Herman Wouk, author of “The Naked and the Dead,” “The Caine Mutiny,” “Marjorie Morningstar” (cinematized starring Natalie Wood and Gene Kelly), and “The Winds of War” is stationed here. As a soldier in World War II, he served in some of the most nightmarish battles in The Pacific, including Okinawa, the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign, and the life and death struggles in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands.
He was an unapologetic patriot and supporter of a Jewish homeland until his death, just shy of 104. Jack Newfield, a genius of “participatory” advocacy journalism in NYC during the peak of the civil rights movement and anti-Vietnam War resistance, who chose to resign as editor of the Daily News rather than cross the picket line of striking workers, is palpably present to visitors as soon as they catch a glance at his grave marker. He got a special award from the New York State Bar Association for his revelatory investigations of a case in which an innocent person was convicted of murder.
Newfield was a scribe of the New Left but became disaffected by certain of its “incarnations” that seemed “anti-democratic, terror-
Now we don’t know why
Mamdani whipped Cuomo’s hide “Affordability” was his mantra
Young folks cheered progressive jive
Rich folks are having a tantrum
Mamdani, Bernie and AOC
They’re not afraid of socialism
Many right-wingers have one way to see
And it’s very close to fascism
Critics scream the Democrats’ flaw
They have no message or theme
But when the president mocks the law
His effigy is Dems’ angry meme
All men are equal is the rule
But how is that applied?
For some it’s moral to be cruel Don’t good and evil collide?
The greed of the right is crystal clear
The poor must survive on their own Socialism isn’t something to fear
When comparisons are shown.
Go, Zohran Mamdani!
Michael J. Gorman
Alpha and omega
To The ediTor:
A recent letter (“Voter’s Remorse,” The Chief, June 27) noted that a prior letter (“Affinities,” The Chief, May 30) in support of Donald Trump contained a significant misstatement of fact — that Theodore Roosevelt served a third term in office. Online, the author referred to this glaring error as a typo. I submit that the entire letter was a typo. “Affinities” posited that
See LETTERS, page 5
istic, dogmatic, stoned on rhetoric and badly disconnected from everyday reality.” He’d make a scathing “gadfly on the wall” of our modern debating chambers.
Abe Vigoda, the actor famous for roles in “The Godfather,” “The Man in the Glass Booth” and “Marat/ Sade,” and as the star of the television series Barney Miller, shares a casting call at the same cemetery theater as Martin Landau, who is remembered for his parts in “Mission: Impossible,” “Pork Chop Hill” (with Gregory Peck) Cleopatra, and Woody Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
No doubt they’ve both aced their heavenly auditions.
I’d never heard of the jazzily overdone and strikingly original fashion designer Iris Apfel until I saw a movie about her, in which she sported her iconic gargantuan flashy-colored eyeglasses and wit, almost to the hour of her death at 102, but she too occupies a plot less auspicious than the script of her career.
Others who, in a manner of speaking dwell there, include Sam Levenson, who was a very popular humorist and television host; Andy Kaufman, a performance artist comedian who never told a joke and whose days on earth were cruelly truncated; Jay Larkin, a prominent television executive who marketed, distributed and produced such as Paul McCartney, Elton John, The Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder and Frank Sinatra; and psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers, who won the top prize on The” $64,000 Question” scandal-tainted television of the 1950s, and became a ubiquitous media personality and columnist. It’s said that “youth is wasted on the young,” but has it been noted that the lessons of life are wasted on those who are gone and can no longer articulate them?
What really counts to me right now, and what I would never renounce, if my values survived me, is the dignity of ordinary working people. That certainly befits my niche at The Chief. And therefore, I demand to know why don’t the hardworking groundskeepers at Beth David Cemetery don’t have a bench to sit on anywhere?
Chumash11, via Wikimedia
Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, NY.
MAMDANI: Union leaders hail democratic socialist’s victory
Continued from Page 1
members will really have a mayor who supports workers,” Mancilla said of Mamdani’s victory. “He’s going to bring a level of support that working people will feel like they’ve never had before.”
The UAW eventually updated their ranking in late May to encourage members to rank Mamdani first on their ranked-choice ballots and the union’s international president, Shawn Fain, threw his support behind the assemblyman days before the June 24 election.
“We were the first union to endorse Zohran because it’s time for a political movement that puts working class people first,” Fain said in a video message to members the day after the vote. “Congratulations to the working class of New York City for showing the world that when we unite and stand up, nobody can stand in our way.”
DC 37 stands alone
Another international union president also came out in support of Mamdani following the election.
John Samuelsen, who heads the Transport Workers Union, hailed Mamdani’s win as “absolutely epic.”
“This is an absolute repudiation of establishment Democrats,” he told The Chief the day after the primary. “It’s a validation of candidates who are laser focused on affordability for working people.”
But Samuelsen declined to say if
the union would endorse Mamdani ahead of the November general election, noting that Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent, has helped keep his members safe.
TWU didn’t endorse in the mayoral primary, but Samuelsen did speak at a raucous rally of 4,000 Mamdani supporters at the Terminal 5 music venue just ahead of early voting, where he endorsed Mamdani’s plan to eliminate bus fares, one of his central policy planks.
While Mamdani’s free-fare proposal is designed to make the city more affordable, he has said, eliminating the fares would also significantly reduce assaults on bus operators, according to figures from the MTA.
The only large establishment union to throw its support behind Mamdani was District Council 37, the city’s largest public-sector union, which ranked him second behind City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams. The union included Mamdani on its endorsement slate following a concerted campaign from DC 37’s rank-and-file, who implored the union’s leaders not to
‘Labor needs to take a good look and get behind this guy 100 percent.’
rank Cuomo and to include Mamdani.
“Zohran Mamdani’s win is a victory for all working-class New Yorkers and we’re proud that DC 37 was one of the first unions to support his candidacy,” DC 37’s executive director, Henry Garrido, said in a statement. “His hard-fought campaign engaged a new generation of voters who are confronting a reality we know too well: the crisis of affordability and accessibility in the city we call home.”
To the frustration of some activist members who supported Mamdani, much of DC 37’s election outreach focused on supporting Speaker Adams, who garnered just under 5 percent of the first-round primary vote.
Killer of EMS’ Russo-Elling sentenced to 25 years to life
ASSOCIATED PRESS and DUNCAN FREEMAN
A New York man on Monday was sentenced to serve 25 years to life in prison for the fatal stabbing of a veteran FDNY EMS worker in 2022.
Reagan, Bush
Picks
Hypocrisy On Supreme-Court Choice
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But the union showed up for Mamdani in other ways. DC 37’s president, Shaun Francois, who heads Board of Education Employees Local 372, spoke in support of Mamdani at a campaign rally inside of a Brooklyn concert venue in May, and Maf Misbah Uddin, the union’s treasurer, spoke enthusiastically in support of Mamdani at the same rally as Samuelsen. He was also a presence at rallies for the candidate with South Asian labor leaders.
“This shows that the power of the rank-and-file movement in New York City is growing stronger by the day,” Jack Lundquist, a member of Local 375 who helped lead the push to get DC 37 to endorse Mamdani, said of the victory. “A new day is dawning for the public sector union movement.”
Establishment moves to Mamdani
On June 27 the Hotel Gaming and Trades Council and Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union — both unions that endorsed Cuomo in the primary election and Mayor Adams in 2021 — put their support behind Mamdani for the general election.
“Zohran Mamdani has united and inspired New Yorkers around a positive and optimistic vision for a truly affordable city,” Local 32BJ’s president Manny Pastreich said in a statement. “He is ready and equipped to fight for our city and has made clear he is ready to stand up to attacks from the Trump administration. New York’s janitors, airport workers, residential building service workers, security officers, school custodians and window cleaners are ready to join Zohran in the effort to achieve that vision and do the work it takes to get there.”
The New York State Nurses Association, which did not endorse in the primary, also endorsed Mamdani last Friday.
The New York Central Labor Committee, a coalition of more than 300 unions representing over one
million workers, endorsed Mamdani on Monday.
A spokesperson for SEIU Local 1199 said that members would decide how to move forward with the endorsement for the general election.
Local 1199 endorsed Cuomo when George Gresham was still president of the union. He has since been voted out following a litany of corruption allegations and more than 500 members signed a petition calling on the union to retract its endorsement in the lead up to the primary election.
In what might be a relief for the unions that endorsed Cuomo, Mamdani struck a note of unity in his victory speech in the early morning of June 25. “I will be the mayor for every New Yorker, whether you voted for me, for Governor Cuomo or felt too disillusioned by a long-broken political system to vote at all,” he said. “I will fight for a city that works for you, that is affordable for you, that is safe for you. I will work to be a mayor you will be proud to call your own.”
Despite endorsing Cuomo, Anthony Almojera, the vice president of the city EMS officers union, said he was open to sitting down with Mamdani and learning about his vision for the city. “We have to be able to work with whoever is the eventual mayor,” he said. “He seems to be willing to help the working class.” JP Patafio, a Transport Workers Union Local 100 vice president representing bus drivers, said Mamdani’s win is “great for labor and great for the working class.” His experience working with the assemblyman on the original free bus pilot in 2023 showed Patafio that Mamdani is “someone who has the ability to bring people together,” At the same time, he encouraged fellow labor leaders to get behind the Democratic nominee quickly. “It’s a shame people got behind Cuomo,” Patafio said. “Labor needs to take a good look and get behind this guy 100 percent.”
Peter Zisopoulos, 37, was convicted in May of second-degree murder for killing Lt. Alison Russo-Elling, then 61, as she responded to a call for help steps from her Astoria station house.
“It won’t bring Alison back but justice is served,” said Anthony Almojera, a lieutenant paramedic who served with Russo-Elling. “The court system acted exactly as we thought it would and hopefully this brings some comfort to her family and to everyone in EMS.”
Russo-Elling was remembered by mourners as a dedicated public servant. She was months away from retirement when she was killed. She was promoted posthumously from EMS lieutenant to the rank of captain.
George Herbert Walker Bush had to replace the first African American, Thurgood Marshall. He looked all over the country and the “most-qualified” was Clarence Thomas, also an African-American? Of course not. Clarence Thomas is an African-American conservative and he got the gig.
Expect a Top Candidate
“Today, we are appreciative that her killer has been sentenced to the maximum punishment: 25 years to life. This sentencing speaks to the brutality of the crime, and though it won’t bring her back, I pray it will finally give her family the closure they deserve,” said Fire Commis-
Let’s please stop the nonsense in this country. We have never had an African-American woman on the court. Biden will not be selecting a cashier from Stop-and-Shop or a pilates instructor from the local sports club. He will select a highly educated, highly credentialed woman who attended a top college, top law school, clerked for a Justice, served on the Federal appellate court and all the other “credentials” deemed necessary in this day and age for a Justice. The attacks on this decision should be seen for what they are. They are idiotic political theater from a cohort that sees even a tiny effort at progress as threatening the white male position in society.
BY BARRY LISAK
Vincent Scala is a former Bronx Assistant District Attorney. He is currently a criminal-defense attorney in New York City and its suburbs.
BARRY LISAK
and by deducunder Act mar(MFJ), separately household spouse 2021 the dollar and and 65 and blind instandard individuals statuses. 2018 2025, sunsets.
additional deduction because she is 70 years old. Her standard deduction for 2021 is $14,250 ($12,550, the standard deduction for 2021, plus $1,700, the 2021 additional standard deduction for the singles who are over 65 or blind).
Example 2
used exclusively and on a regular basis. According to the S.B.A., just over half of the country’s small businesses are based in a home, but only a small number of taxpayers claimed this deduction. The most common reason for not taking the deduction is the complexity of the paperwork (i.e., IRS Form 8829) taxpayers must file. A second reason for not taking the deduction is fear of an IRS audit, which may also be attributed to the form’s complexity. There is a simplified, “safe-harbor” method of calculating your home-office deduction. Simply, you are allowed to deduct a flat $5 per square foot of dedicated office space in your home, up to a maximum of 300 square feet; thus yielding a $1,500 maximum deduction. Under this alternative, a taxpayer can forgo all the information-gathering and avoid the multi-line tax form previously required. The second and established method for a home-office deduction uses IRS Form 8829 whereby taxpayers must determine which costs are “direct” or “indirect” expenses.
Direct expenses let you writeoff 100 percent of costs associated specifically with your home-office — everything from painting the of-
In 2021, Nicole and her spouse are joint filers. Both qualify for an additional standard deduction because they are both over 65. Their Form 1040 standard deduction is $27,800 ($25,100, the 2021 standard deduction for joint filers, plus 2 x $1,350, the 2021 additional standard deduction for married persons who are over 65 or blind). The above examples reflect the benefit of the new standard deduction. Millions of taxpayers won’t be itemizing this year to reduce their Federal income-tax bill. They’ll claim the standard
da Katz called the killing “brutal and senseless.”
Almojera, the vice president of District Council Local 3621, the EMS officer’s union, said EMS workers were under increased threat of attack, in part because of staff shortages.
Letters to the Editor
Audacity to Criticize Molina
To the Editor:
News published an article entitled, “As NYC Correction Commissioner Molina cleans house, critics worry he’s coddling jail unions.”
Whether it’s a newly elected Mayor, Governor or President, every new administration replaces personnel, notwithstanding their work performance. No reason is needed to remove someone in an appointed position within NYC government with the exception of the Commissioner of the Department of Investigation, even though there is more than enough justification to fire all the top managers in DOC.
sioner Robert S. Tucker. There’s no indication that Zisopoulos knew Russo-Elling. His public defender lawyer has said that Zisopoulos “has a past psychiatric history going back to 2018.” The lawyer did not immediately respond to a message left with his office on Monday.
Top managers likely get their jobs through political connections and serve entirely at the pleasure of the Mayor. Moreover, the personnel that Louis Molina removed were in charge of critical units which they failed to lead effectively.
Queens District Attorney Melin-
“I hope I’m wrong but I don’t think this will be the last time this happens,” he said of Russo-Elling’s murder. “EMS needs more staff. We need more resources to minimize the chances of this happening again.”
Monday’s sentencing came after the unrelated fatal shooting of two on-duty firefighters in Idaho over the weekend.
THE CHIEF-LEADER welcomes letters from its readers for publication. Correspondents must include their names, addresses and phone numbers. Letters should be submitted with the understanding that all correspondence is subject to the editorial judgment of this newspaper. To submit a letter to the editor online, visit thechiefleader.com and click on Letters to the Editor.
Russo-Elling, a Long Island resident, was appointed an EMT in March of 1998. She responded to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, working rescue and recovery efforts at the World Trade Center. She was promoted to paramedic in 2002 and to lieutenant in 2016. She worked at multiple EMS stations, including Station 20 and Station 17, both in the Bronx; Station 16 in Harlem; Station 45 in Queens; out of the Queens Tactical Response Group in Jamaica; and at Station 49’s new house, at 19-40 42nd Street, which opened in summer 2022. Richard Khavkine contributed to this story.
criminals and probably require arrests, prosecutions and imprisonment? If the homeless who are removed from the subways refuse to cooperate with programs designed to help them turn their lives around, what are the penalties? Will they be arrested or placed in secure mental facilities where they will be less likely to do harm to others?
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Continued from Page 1
Free to choose
To The ediTor:
DOC was on the brink of an implosion as a result of the feckless leadership of Vincent Schiraldi and his coterie. Now Schiraldi, who was the worst DOC commissioner in its 127-year history, is questioning Molina’s personnel decisions.
How is it that Schiraldi, a so-called juvenile-justice reformer and expert, failed so miserably in managing DOC?
fice to buying a work computer, or a second phone for the home-based business.
How is it that Oren Varnai, the head of DOC’s Intelligence Bureau and a “former covert officer in the CIA,” could not stop the scourge of gang violence from dominating and ravaging Rikers? Varnai, at least, must be commended for wishing Molina success, and I must say he has impressive credentials.
Indirect expenses are pro-rated, based on the size of your home-office. These are things like your property insurance, mortgage, utility bills and a home-alarm system. If the square footage of your home-office equals 10 percent of your home, you can claim 10 percent of these expenses. Additionally, one must compute depreciation for the home-office portion. Good luck with that one.
How does Sarena Townsend, the Deputy Commissioner for Investigations and a former prosecutor who preferred departmental charges on thousands of uniformed staff—resulting in scores if not hundreds of correction officers being fired or forced to resign—now cries foul when she gets fired ?
You may choose either the simplified method or the actual expense method for any year. Once you use a method for a specific tax year, you cannot later change to the other method for that same year. Each home-office deduction method has its benefits:
• Simplified method:
Very simple computation; $5 multiplied by the square footage of the home office. The maximum writeoff is $1,500. This method eliminates the need to fill out the complex Form 8829. No receipts needed for insurance, utilities, repairs and maintenance, which reduces record keeping and computation to a minimum. This “safe-harbor” method may be better for people who have paid off the mortgage or who have low property taxes. No depreciation deduction is allowed, nor is a later recapture needed.
• Actual expenses method:
Schiraldi praises his managers who created a “war room” to redeploy staff on an emergency basis. That “war room” should have also been utilized to generate and implement new policy to stop the devastating inmate violence that inflicted pain and suffering on officers and inmates alike. Further, the now-garrulous Schiraldi was speechless when the unions continuously sounded the alarm regarding chaos, bedlam, lawlessness and gross mismanagement by top bosses. Commissioner Molina is addressing all those issues. Neither Schiraldi, nor any of his senior managers, have the credibility or standing to criticize Molina.
Those homeless people who are mentally or emotionally incapable of living safely with others have to be “imprisoned,” either in prisons (if convicted of crimes) or in secure mental institutions. Those who refuse to cooperate with reasonable and necessary treatment from qualified and competent authorities have to be treated the same way—prison or secure mental facilities.
Taxpayers with offices larger than
300 square feet will receive a larger tax deduction using this method. If your actual expenses are higher, then it would make sense to use them to determine the deduction. Unused expenses (i.e., losses) not used for current year can be carried over to the next year, which the simplified method does not allow. There is no maximum annual deduction.
Only those homeless who cooperate with those who provide necessary treatment, and can live peacefully with others, should be placed in housing in the neighborhoods in all five boroughs of the city.
MICHAEL J. GORMAN
Skeptical of Union ‘Health’
For most taxpayers, it is recommended that they prepare the home-office deduction for 2024 using both the new optional method and the traditional method and then choose the one that provides the maximum deduction. Regardless of which method you choose in 2024, you have the choice in subsequent years to choose which method benefits you the most. For most taxpayers, it is recommended preparing the home-office deduction for 2025 using both the new optional method and the traditional method and then choose the one that provides the maximum deduction. Regardless of which method you choose in 2025, you have the choice in subsequent years to choose which method benefits you the most.
Barry Lisak is an IRS enrolled agent specializing in personal and small business taxes for 30 years. Any questions can be directed to him at 516-829-7283, or mrbarrytax@aol. com.
To the Editor: The proposed New York Health Act would provide on a statewide level what Medicare-for-All would provide nationwide. Yet in recent issues, it has been claimed that the reason some unions oppose this is because the medical plans they already have provide benefits that this proposal would not include. Now as a retired transit worker, I have always had good health coverage since I started working for the system in 1979. But one friend who was an excellent Transport Workers Union Local 100 rep had serious health issues before he recently passed away. He had a stroke while he was still working, and had to fight numerous large bills for medical care that was supposed to be covered. I remember him saying, “I have great coverage as long as I don’t get sick.” Under the New York Health Act, patients would not have to worry about fighting bills. They would not even have to worry if they
Donald Trump shares leadership traits with other great American presidents, specifically George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. That, of course, is the author’s opinion. Every few years, the Presidential Greatest Project polls renowned presidential historians and political scientists to settle that very question. In 2024, the PGP asked these professionals to rank America’s presidents from Washington through Biden and more than 150 responded. Unsurprisingly, Washington, Lincoln and TR ranked third, first and fourth greatest, respectively (with FDR ranked second). How did Trump fare? Dead last! Forty-fifth out of 45.
The PGP did note some partisanship in the rankings, particularly with Reagan (16th); conservatives thought his ranking should be higher, while liberals thought it should be lower. However, there was no disagreement regarding Trump. His first term (45) was universally regarded as America’s worst presidency by all 150 scholars. I see nothing at this point in his second term that promises to improve on that standing.
“Affinities” versus PGP rankings underscores America’s political divide. For one-half of Americans, Trump is the second coming of Teddy Roosevelt. To the other half, Trump bears no resemblance to Roosevelt; not Teddy or Franklin, and not even Eleanor for that matter.
Joseph Cannisi
The logical inference is baby boomers are “selfish” and “greedy” because they vote conservative. No nexus has been established between boomer voting patterns and alleged boomer greed (“The Greediest Generation,” Letters, The Chief, June 27).
A quick civics lesson for the author: people in this country are free to vote as they choose. Franklin Roosevelt oversaw the mass destruction of food and crops as millions starved. Roosevelt refused to make lynching a federal crime because of the Dixiecrats. Harry S. Truman embroiled us in the Korean Conflict; my father’s life was interrupted by military service. He fortunately fought “The Battle of Alaska.” Johnson faked the Gulf of Tonkin incident that embroiled us in the Vietnam War. Eisenhower created the Interstate Highway system. He also sent the Army into Little Rock, Arkansas, to stop the violence when Central High School was integrated. I guess the author’s right: Republicans did nothing but harm and Democrats nothing but good. Free advice to the author from a boomer: I have voted for conservatives, centrists and liberals. I vote the candidate, not the ideology or party. I know plenty of boomers who have never voted for conservatives. I respect your right to vote how you choose. You should reciprocate. Please do not negatively label, guilt trip, and shame anyone who doesn’t vote how you feel they should.
Nat Weiner
VINCENT SCALA
FDNY
Peter Zisopoulos, 37, was convicted in May of second-degree murder for killing Lt. Alison Russo-Elling in September 2022.
Zohran For NYC Mamdani on Primary Day.
JFK, LaGuardia workers get expanded benefits
BY CRYSTAL LEWIS clewis@thechiefleader.com
About 15,000 concessionaires, cargo and ramp service providers, and ramp and tarmac maintenance workers at John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports now have expanded healthcare and paid leave benefits.
Members of Service Employees
International Union Local 32BJ and Unite Here, Local 100 joined Governor Kathy Hochul on June 26 at LaGuardia to celebrate the enhancements, which were codified by amendments to 2021’s Healthy Terminals Act.
The amendments, passed in May, will for the first time allow airport workers to take up to five weeks vacation time, depending on their seniority. They will also receive 10 vacation days, up from one. The updated legislation also provides for healthcare benefits, including for part-time workers.
The Healthy Terminals Act was passed in 2021. The recently enacted reforms, passed as part of the Fiscal Year 2026 budget, are set to take effect Jan. 1, 2026.
“New York’s airports are our gateway to the world, and each year over 90 million passengers travel through JFK and LaGuar-
‘This is a life-changing and life-saving legislation.’
dia. None of this is possible without the incredible efforts of hardworking airport employees who keep travelers moving,” she said at the press event. “These workers deserve to earn a living wage with good benefits and live with dignity in a state that is affordable. By expanding the Healthy Terminals Act, we are making sure they get exactly that.”
Tameeka Simpson, a passenger service agent who works part-time at JFK, said that she has had to rely on Medicaid for health care coverage for herself and her family.
“All these threats to cut Medicaid make me scared for the future of my healthcare. Now, with the expansion of the Healthy Termi-
nals Act to include part-time workers like me, I won’t have to worry. I know my health care is safe and secure,” she said.
Manny Pastreich, 32BJ’s president, praised the governor and state legislators for “investing in the workers who make LaGuardia and JFK work.”
“This is a life-changing and life-saving legislation that’s going to make a difference for working people,” he said during the press conference.
The coalition also celebrated other achievements for airport workers made in recent months, including increasing the minimum wage and linking future raises to inflation beginning in 2027. The workers’ minimum wage is set to reach $25 an hour by 2035.
“Thanks to the leadership of Governor Kathy Hochul, the people who power our airports, clean our terminals, and feed millions feel seen and feel heard,” Unite Here! Local 100 President Jose Maldonado said in a statement.
“They deserve fair wages, real health benefits, and the time to care for themselves and their families. Amending the Healthy Terminals Act is about lifting up the airport workers who keep New York moving.”
NEW FEATURE!!CALENDAROFEVENTS
Governor Kathy Hochul and officers from 32BJ and Unite Here! Local 100 commemorated the expansion of the Healthy Terminals Act, which will provide paid leave and healthcare to airport employees and expand benefits to part-time workers starting in January.
Don Pollard/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul
Federal workers protest ICE arrests
Federal Unionist Network holds rallies in NYC, elsewhere
BY DUNCAN FREEMAN dfreeman@thechiefleader.com
Federal workers aggravated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers’ arrests and detainment of immigrants within government buildings in New York City and elsewhere are denouncing what one union leader called “extrajudicial kidnappings.”
Dozens of union workers gathered at Foley Square last Thursday, as well as in Seattle and Chicago, to protest the arrests. The rallies were organized by the Federal Unionist Network, a coalition of federal workers and union leaders that has gained strength and members since Trump’s second inauguration in January.
FUN’s co-executive director Chris Doles told The Chief at the Foley Square rally that government workers in federal buildings nearby have watched in disbelief as ICE agents have carried out arrests of undocumented immigrants in recent months. Under the Trump Administration, ICE and the Department of Homeland Security have begun detaining asylum seekers and immigrants just outside federal courtrooms immediately following their immigration hearings.
Immigrant advocates have since accompanied immigrants out of the courtroom following their hearings.
In one high profile case, city Comptroller Brad Lander was arrested and briefly detained June 17 by federal agents inside the Jacob K. Javits Federal Office Building, the city’s main immigration courthouse.
“We want to call out the ways that our building has been turned into our prison,” Harper Stanfield, a New York vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3911, said at the rally. “It happens in our public lobby, we’re all witness to it.” Stanfield said that it became a regular occurrence this spring for over a dozen ICE agents to gather in the lobby of the Broadway Immigration Court building and arrest immigrants as they were leaving following their immigration hearings. After union members complained, the ICE agents moved their operations to the floors where the courts are, but Stanfield said he and his coworkers want them out of the
building entirely.
“We oppose the way that ICE is treating New Yorkers and abusing public trust in the government,” he said.
Earlier this year FUN, which was founded in 2023 and has grown exponentially since Trump’s second term began, held informational pickets in Foley Square to protest cuts pushed by the Department of Government Efficiency that threatened the jobs of thousands of federal employees.
DOGE’s aggressiveness in getting workers to leave the federal government supercharged FUN, Doles said, leading to over 16,000 federal workers reaching out to the organization for help organizing in their workplaces. The organization was created when Doles was an engineer in the Army Corps of Engineers and president of International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 98.
Shortly after its founding, FUN had just a few hundred union members who participated mainly through a WhatsApp group dedicated to better coordination across federal worker unions, he said. It’s since grown so large that Doles left the Army Corps of Engineers to run the coalition full time.
“Under [President] Biden it was about trying to get better raises, trying to get appointees to the Federal Labor Relations Authority confirmed and now under Trump it’s obviously much more existential and dire,” said Doles.
“Our lobbies have become the sites of human rights abuses,” he continued. “These are extrajudicial kidnappings and bait and switch operations.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.
Joining federal workers were a smattering of city civil servants also frustrated by the ICE detentions.
James Davis, the president of the Professional Staff Congress of CUNY, told rally participants that members of his union have been offering advice and support to immigrants entering their hearings. He said that the union worked with students to get ICE and DHS representatives out of CUNY career fairs and told the crowd that “solidarity melts ICE.”
“More and more labor unions are going to need to step up and show up,” Davis said. “We need to show that we’re not going to let this racist invasion be normalized.”
HHS layoffs likely unlawful and must be halted, judge says
A federal judge ruled that recent mass layoffs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services were likely unlawful and ordered the Trump administration to halt plans to downsize and reorganize the nation’s health workforce.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose granted the preliminary injunction sought by a coalition of attorneys general from 19 states and the District of Columbia in a lawsuit filed in early May. DuBose said the states had shown “irreparable harm,” from the cuts and were likely to prevail in their claims that “HHS’s action was both arbitrary and capricious as well as contrary to law.”
“The executive branch does not have the authority to order, organize, or implement wholesale changes to the structure and function of the agencies created by Congress,” DuBose wrote in a 58-page order handed down in U.S. district court in Providence.
An HHS spokesperson said the administration is reviewing the decision and considering next steps.
“We stand by our original decision to realign this organization with its core mission and refocus a sprawling bureaucracy that, over time, had become wasteful, inefficient and resistant to change,” Andrew Nixon said in an emailed statement.
The ruling applies to employees in four different parts of HHS: the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the Center for Tobacco Products within the Food and Drug Administration; the Office of Head Start within the Administration for Children and Families and employees of regional offices who work on Head Start matters; and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation.
CHIEF
Her order blocks the Trump administration from finalizing layoffs announced in March or issuing further firings. HHS is directed to file a status report by July 11.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. eliminated more than 10,000 employees in late March and consolidated 28 agencies to 15. Since then, agencies including the CDC have rescinded layoffs affecting hundreds of employees.
— Associated Press
Duncan Freeman/The Chief Federal workers rallied June 26 in Foley Square to protest arrests made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the lobbies of their workplaces.
Staff Analyst Trainee
The Department of Citywide Administrative Services established a 3,389-name list for Staff Analyst Trainee on April 9, 2025. The list is based on Exam 3132, which was recently held. Readers should note that eligible lists change over their four-year life as candidates are added, removed, reinstated, or rescored. The list shown below is accurate as of the date of establishment but list standings can change as a result of appeals.
Some scores are prefixed by the letters v, d, p, s and r. The letter “v” designates a credit given to an honorably discharged veteran who has served during time of war. The letter “d” designates a credit given to an honorably discharged veteran who was disabled in combat. The letter “p” designates a “legacy credit” for a candidate whose parent died while engaged in the discharge of duties as a NYC Police Officer or Firefighter. The letter “s” designates a “legacy credit” for being the sibling of a Police Officer or Firefighter who was killed in the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, 2001. Finally, the letter “r” designates a resident of New York City.
UPCOMING EXAMS LEADING TO JOBS
Below is a roundup of New York City and State exams leading to public-service positions. Most of the jobs listed are located in the New York Metropolitan area and upstate.
There are residency requirements for many New York City jobs and for state law-enforcement positions.
Prospective applicants are advised to write or call the appropriate office to make sure they meet the qualifications needed to apply for an exam. For jobs for which no written tests are given, candidates will be rated on education and experience, or by oral tests or performance exams.
DCAS Computer-based Testing and Application Centers (CTACs) have re-opened to the public. However, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, walk-ins are no longer accepted and appointments must be scheduled online through OASys for eligible list or examination related inquiries.
All examination and eligible list related notifications will be sent by email only, you will no longer receive notifications via the US mail.
All new hires must be vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus, unless they have been granted a reasonable accommodation for religion or disability. If you are offered city employment, this requirement must be met by your date of hire, unless a reasonable accommodation for exemption is received and approved by the hiring agency.
For further information about where to apply to civil service exams and jobs, visit the thechief.org/exams.
The Federal Government has decentralized its personnel operations and holds few exams on a national or regional basis. Most Federal vacancies are filled by individual agencies based on education-and-experience evaluations. For information, contact the U.S. Office of Personnel Management or individual agencies, or see www.usajobs.gov.
7095 CR(D) Cytotechnologist III $106,880-$144,480
61-639 CR Librarian I 60-180 CR Librarian I, Bilingual (Spanish Speaking)
5263 CR(D) Medical Technologist I $79,212-$91,619
5002 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Acute Care) $96,274-$118,479
5003 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Adult Health) $96,274-$118,479
5004 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Community Health) $96,274$118,479
5005 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Family Health) $96,274-$118,479
5006 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Gerontology) $96,274-$118,479
5007 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Neonatology) $96,274-$118,479
5008 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Obstetrics/Gynecology) $96,274$118,479
5009 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Oncology)
$96,274-$118,479
5010 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Palliative Care) $96,274-$118,479
5011 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Pediatrics) $96,274-$118,479
5012 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Perinatology) $96,274-$118,479
5013 CR Nurse Practitioner I
(Psychiatry) $96,274-$118,479
5014 CR Nurse Practitioner I (Women’s Health) $96,274-$118,479
and 16.5) on List 2708 for any of 9 jobs at NYC Transit. PRINCIPAL ADMINISTRATIVE ASSOCIATE–89 eligibles between Nos. 5 and 255 on List 1507 for 5 jobs in Police Department.
repairs on boilers and boiler auxiliaries under supervision of the marine engineer. They clean, scrape and/or paint compartments, bulkheads, auxiliary machinery, boiler room plates and bilges, and boilers as needed. They wipe, clean and polish equipment.
In ferry terminals, marine oilers operate heating boilers; clean and adjust burners; maintain boiler feed pumps; secure and clean strainers; and maintain proper temperature and pressure in fuel oil system. They inspect below deck emergency and rescue equipment. They also perform required duties at fire drills in accordance with United State Coast Guard and department regulations; take required actions in the event of an actual fire, rescue or other emergency.
REQUIREMENTS
Successful applicants must possess either 1) a valid U.S. Coast Guard merchant mariner’s credential with endorsement as a designated duty engineer of motor vessels of any horsepower or qualified member of the engine department with the following ratings: any rating, junior engineer, oiler or fireman/ watertender; or 2) a valid U.S. Coast Guard merchant mariner’s credential with endorsement for third assistant engineer or higher of motor vessels of any horsepower.
OTHER INFORMATION
This position is also open to qualified persons with a disability who are eligible for the 55-a Program. Applicants should indicate at the top of their resume and cover letter that they would like to be considered for the position through the 55-a Program. Medical guidelines established by the U.S. Coast Guard apply to the position of marine oiler. Candidates
will therefore be required to undergo a medical examination prior to appointment and thereafter, pursuant to Coast Guard regulations. Candidates must also pass a drug screening to be appointed. Marine oilers are subject to random drug and alcohol testing during their employment. Merchant mariner credentials with endorsement and medical certificate must be maintained for the duration of employment. At the time of appointment, candidates must possess a valid Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) issued by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration. A valid TWIC must be maintained for the duration of employment. There are no residency requirements for this position.
For complete information and to apply, go to https://cityjobs.nyc. gov/ and search for Job ID number 710025.
LABOR AROUND THE WORLD LABOR AROUND THE WORLD LABOR AROUND THE WORLD
Unemployment among young college grads outpaces overall rate
AI, tariffs cited as possible causes
BY CHRISTOPHER RUGABER Associated Press
While completing a master’s degree in data analysis, Palwasha Zahid moved from Dallas to a town near Silicon Valley. The location made it easy to visit the campuses of tech stalwarts such as Google, Apple, and Nvidia.
Zahid, 25, completed her studies in December, but so far she hasn’t found a job in the industry that surrounds her. “It stings a little bit,” she said. “I never imagined it would be this difficult just to get a foot in the door.”
Young people graduating from college this spring and summer are facing one of the toughest job markets in more than a decade. The unemployment rate for degree holders ages 22 to 27 has reached its highest level in a dozen years, excluding the coronavirus pandemic. Joblessness among that group is now higher than the overall unemployment rate, and the gap is larger than it has been in more than three decades.
The rise in unemployment has worried many economists as well as officials at the Federal Reserve because it could be an early sign of trouble for the economy. It suggests businesses are holding off on hiring new workers because of rampant uncertainty stemming from the
Trump administration’s tariff increases, which could slow growth. “Young people are bearing the brunt of a lot of economic uncertainty,” Brad Hersbein, senior econ-
Trump’s tariffs would cost U.S. employers
$82.3 billion
Analysis shows layoffs, hiring freezes could counteract losses
BY JOSH BOAK Associated Press
An analysis finds that a critical group of U.S. employers would face a direct cost of $82.3 billion from President Donald Trump’s current tariff plans, a sum that could be potentially managed through price hikes, layoffs, hiring freezes or lower profit margins.
The analysis by the JPMorganChase Institute is among the first to measure the direct costs created by the import taxes on businesses with $10 million to $1 billion in annual revenue, a category that includes roughly a third of private-sector U.S. workers. These companies are more dependent than other businesses on imports from China, India and Thailand — and the retail and wholesale sectors would be especially vulnerable to the import taxes being levied by the Republican president.
The findings show clear tradeoffs from Trump’s import taxes, contradicting his claims that foreign manufacturers would absorb the costs of the tariffs instead of U.S. companies that rely on imports. While the tariffs launched under Trump have yet to boost overall inflation, large companies such as Amazon, Costco, Walmart and Williams-Sonoma delayed the potential reckoning by building up their inventories before the taxes could be imposed.
The analysis comes just ahead of the July 9 deadline by Trump to formally set the tariff rates on goods from dozens of countries. Trump imposed that deadline after the financial markets panicked in response to his April tariff announcements, prompting him to instead schedule a 90-day negotiating period when most imports faced a 10-percent baseline tariff. China, Mexico and Canada face higher rates, and there are separate 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Had the initial April 2 tariffs stayed in place, the companies in the JPMorganChase Institute analysis would have faced additional direct costs of $187.6 billion. Under the current rates, the $82.3 billion would be equivalent on average to $2,080 per employee, or 3.1 percent of the average annual payroll. Those averages include firms that don’t import goods and those that do. Asked Tuesday how trade talks
are faring, Trump said simply: “Everything’s going well.”
Inflation on the horizon?
The president has indicated that he will set tariff rates given the logistical challenge of negotiating with so many nations. As the 90day period comes to a close, only the United Kingdom has signed a trade framework with the Trump administration. India and Vietnam have signaled that they’re close to a trade framework.
There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that more inflation could surface. The investment bank Goldman Sachs said in a report that it expects companies to pass along 60 percent of their tariff costs onto consumers. The Atlanta Federal Reserve has used its survey of businesses’ inflation expectations to say that companies could on average pass along roughly half their costs from a 10 percent tariff or a 25 percent tariff without reducing consumer demand.
The JPMorganChase Institute findings suggest that the tariffs could cause some domestic manufacturers to strengthen their roles as suppliers of goods. But it noted that companies need to plan for a range of possible outcomes and that wholesalers and retailers already operate on such low profit margins that they might need to spread the tariffs costs to their customers.
The outlook for tariffs remains highly uncertain. Trump had stopped negotiations with Canada, only to restart them after the country dropped its plan to tax digital services. He similarly on Monday threatened more tariffs on Japan unless it buys more rice from the U.S.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a Tuesday interview that the concessions from the trade talks have impressed career officials at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and other agencies.
“People who have been at Treasury, at Commerce, at USTR for 20 years are saying that these are deals like they’ve never seen before,” Bessent said on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.”
The treasury secretary said the Trump administration plans to discuss the contours of trade deals next week, prioritizing the tax cuts package passed on Tuesday by the Republican majority in the Senate. Trump has set a Friday deadline for passage of the multitrillion-dollar package, the costs of which the president hopes to offset with tariff revenues.
omist at the Upjohn Institute, a labor-focused think tank, said. “The people that you often are most hesitant in hiring when economic conditions are uncertain are entry-level positions.”
Degree still has benefits
The growth of artificial intelligence may be playing an additional role by eating away at positions for beginners in white-collar professions such as information technology, finance and law. Higher unemployment for younger graduates has also renewed concerns about the value of a college degree. More workers than ever have a four-year degree, which makes it less of a distinguishing factor in job applications. Murat Tasci, an economist at JPMorgan, calculates that 45 percent of workers have a four-year degree, up from 26 percent in 1992. While the difficulty of finding work has demoralized young people
like Zahid, most economists argue that holding a college degree still offers clear lifetime benefits. Graduates earn higher pay and experience much less unemployment over their lifetimes.
The overall U.S. unemployment rate is a still-low 4.2 percent, and the government’s monthly jobs reports show the economy is generating modest job gains. But the additional jobs are concentrated in health care, government, and restaurants and hotels. Job gains in professions with more college grads, such as information technology, legal services, and accounting have languished in the past 12 months.
The unemployment rate has stayed low mostly because layoffs are still relatively rare. The actual hiring rate — new hires as a percentage of all jobs — has fallen to 2014 levels, when the unemployment rate was much higher, at 6.2 percent. Economists call it a nohire, no-fire economy.
For college graduates 22 to 27
years old, the unemployment rate was 5.8 percent in March — the highest, excluding the pandemic, since 2012, and far above the nationwide rate.
Artificial intelligence could be a culprit, particularly in IT. Matthew Martin, senior U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, has calculated that employment for college graduates 28 and above in computer science and mathematical occupations has increased a slight 0.8 percent since 2022. For those ages 22 to 27, it has fallen 8 percent, according to Martin.
Company announcements have further fueled concerns. Tobi Lutke, CEO of online commerce software company Shopify, said in an April memo that before requesting new hires, “teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI.”
Last week, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said AI would likely reduce the company’s corporate workforce over the next few years.
“We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” Jassy said in a message to employees. “We expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.”
Zahid worries that AI is hurting her chances. She remembers seeing big billboard ads for AI at the San Francisco airport that asked, “Why hire a human when you could use AI?”
Still, many economists argue that blaming AI is premature. Most companies are in the early stages of adopting the technology.
Professional networking platform LinkedIn categorized occupations based on their exposure to AI and did not see big hiring differences between professions where AI was more prevalent and where it wasn’t, said Kory Kantenga, the firm’s head of economics for the Americas.
“We don’t see any broad-based evidence that AI is having a disproportionate impact in the labor market or even a disproportionate impact on younger workers versus older workers,” Kantenga said.
The AP’s Matt Sedensky contributed to this report.
But judge orders some back to work
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A strike being staged by nearly 10,000 city workers in Philadelphia entered its second day Wednesday as a judge ordered some emergency service dispatchers and essential water department employees to return to work.
Common Pleas Court Judge Sierra Thomas-Street granted the city an injunction Tuesday stating 237 out of 325 workers at the city’s 911 call center must return to work because their absence creates a “clear and present danger to threat to health, safety or welfare of the public.” The order does not prevent those workers — 32 fire dispatchers, five supervisors and 200 police dispatchers — from participating in the strike during off-duty hours.
The judge also ordered some water department workers back to the job because they’re essential to ensuring fresh, clean drinking water is available to residents.
Seeking better pay and benefits, District Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees announced the strike early Tuesday, spurring nearly 10,000 blue-collar workers to walk off the job. During the day, the strikers waved signs at traffic near City Hall and formed picket lines outside libraries, city offices and other workplaces.
Mayor Cherelle Parker has said the city would suspend residential trash collection, close some city pools and shorten recreation center hours, but vowed to keep the city
running. Police and firefighters are not on strike. Parker, a pro-labor Democrat, promised that Fourth of July celebrations in the nation’s birthplace would go on as usual.
In a statement Tuesday, the mayor said the city had “put its best offer on the table.” The city offered raises that amount to 13 percent over her four-year term, including last year’s 5 percent bump, and added a fifth step to the pay scale to align with other city unions, she said. District Council
University of Michigan
These University of Michigan grads face the toughest job market in years for recent college graduates
