Inauguration of NYU Wagner Labor Initiative: Government's Role in Standing Up for Workers’ Rights
Please join us for the official launch of the NYU Wagner Labor Initiative, a new program focused on studying, supporting, and catalyzing government action to advance and protect workers’ rights, with a special focus on the role of state and local government.
We will have a conversation with three dynamic elected officials known nationally for their leadership: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, and New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.
We will learn how each of these officials incorporated workers’ rights into their core work, even though their offices were not historically known for working on labor issues. We will discuss their motivation and challenges in embracing workers’ rights as a focus for their office, and will explore the increasingly important role state and local governments in general have played in advancing workers’ rights: enacting innovative legislation, bringing cutting-edge lawsuits on key labor issues, and otherwise taking action to protect workers.
Please join us for this meaningful conversation and the reception to follow.
Speakers
Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. is the 37th District Attorney elected in Manhattan. A son of Harlem who has served as both a state and federal prosecutor, Alvin has spent more than two decades fighting for safer communities and a fairer criminal justice system. He is the first Black Manhattan DA. Alvin restructured the Manhattan DA’s Office to focus more resources on prosecuting serious violent crimes, meeting the needs of survivors, reducing recidivism by addressing underlying causes of criminal behavior, protecting everyday New Yorkers – including workers and tenants – from abuses by the powerful, and vacating wrongful convictions. Alvin also directly oversees the Police Accountability Unit. Since being sworn in as DA in 2022, Alvin has been a leader in worker protection enforcement. In 2023, he announced a new Worker Protection Unit to investigate and prosecute wage theft and other forms of worker exploitation across Manhattan. The Unit pursues criminal charges against individuals and corporations that jeopardize their workers’ safety and steal their wages. Alvin also created a $100,000 Stolen Wage Fund operated in partnership with the New York State Department of Labor to repay wages to victimized workers when funds cannot be recovered from an employer.
Keith Ellison was sworn in as Minnesota’s 30th attorney general on January 7, 2019. As the People’s Lawyer, Attorney General Ellison’s job is to help Minnesotans afford their lives and live with dignity, safety, and respect. He is the lead prosecutor in the matter of the May 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and led the team that successfully convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on a charge of second-degree unintentional murder, which resulted in the longest sentence of any police officer for killing a civilian while on duty in Minnesota. From 2007 to 2019, Keith Ellison represented Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he championed consumer, worker, environmental, and civil- and human-rights protections for Minnesotans. Among his legislative accomplishments are passing provisions to protect credit-card holders from abusive practices and protect the rights of renters and tenants. While in Congress, he founded the Congressional Antitrust Caucus and the Congressional Consumer Justice Caucus, and he served as co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which he helped build to more than 100 members.
Since taking office, Attorney General Ellison has been a leader on workers’ rights. He created the Attorney General’s Office’s Wage Theft Unit to enforce the workplace rights of Minnesota's workers and championed state legislation to strengthen worker protection laws. Since its launch in 2019, the Wage Theft Unit sued the largest property owner in St. Paul for overtime violations, sued the national gig company Shipt for misclassifying workers, led a multi-state coalition of attorneys general in opposing non-compete contract provisions, and, most recently, filed a $3 million lawsuit against a dairy owner that underpaid farmworkers and made wage deductions for grossly inadequate living facilities. AG Ellison also championed state legislation to give his office greater jurisdiction over labor matters, and in the 2023 legislative session, the state budget included six positions for the Wage Theft Unit.
Brad Lander, New York City Comptroller serves as the City’s chief financial officer; previously, he spent 12 years in the City Council. As Comptroller, he appointed the office's first director of workers' rights and has used his position to spearhead shareholder proposals concerning workers’ rights, and in the City Council, Lander was also a leader in passing new rights for low-wage workers.
Leading an office of roughly 800 public servants in their work to promote the financial health, integrity, and effectiveness of city government and secure a more thriving and sustainable future for all New Yorkers. As investment advisor and custodian for the City’s public pension funds, Comptroller Lander stewards the retirement security of over 750,000 current and retired public sector workers. Comptroller Lander also serves as the City’s budget watchdog and chief accountability officer. Prior to being elected Comptroller in 2021, Lander spent 12 years in the City Council, where he co-founded the Council’s Progressive Caucus and won transformative changes to secure tenant protections, create affordable housing, integrate and strengthen the district’s public schools, and make streets safer.
As Comptroller, Lander has been a champion of workers' rights. In his current position, he appointed the office's first director of workers' rights and has used his position as shareholder and investor to spearhead a proposal for a third-party worker rights assessment of Starbucks. In the City Council, Lander was also a leader in expanding rights for workers, including in the successful fight for New York City's paid sick leave ordinance as well as passing innovative laws on scheduling and just cause termination rights for fast food workers, and minimum pay for platform network company drivers and delivery workers.
About
The NYU Wagner Labor Initiative explores, advocates for, and accelerates the often-untapped potential of government in safeguarding and advancing workers' rights. The Labor Initiative helps government work for workers, by serving as a hub of analysis, research, and implementation guidance, as well as idea generation and dissemination, related to the role of government in advancing and protecting workers’ rights.
At the forefront of innovations in workers’ rights are new laws, new approaches to enforcement, and new government agencies involved in worker protection. The NYU Wagner Labor Initiative aims to support sustainable, long-term improvement in labor standards by enlisting and supporting government actors in workers’ rights—especially state and local actors new to the field—and by helping worker organizations more effectively collaborate with government entities. The goal is to improve conditions for workers through well-crafted policy and effective enforcement of hard-won legal protections.