RWDSU on the Issues

The RWDSU is committed to introducing and supporting legislation that helps our members and all working people.

Legislative Issues

Health & Safety

  • Making work safe in the retail sector is the number one priority for the RWDSU. That is why we are championing an effort to make work safe for every retail worker in the sector. Unfortunately, retail workers are subject to constant verbal harassment, threats of violence and actual violence. Violence has become normalized in retail settings since the pandemic, when retail workers became the defacto face of COVID safety regulations intended to keep everyone safe from the pandemic. Grocery stores have recently been targeted for racially-motivated mass shootings; we just honored the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting at the Tops supermarket in Buffalo. This is violence and harassment is unacceptable.

    Contributing to this problem is that non-union workers receive no training in violence prevention or de-escalation tactics. Employers have no obligation to assess the risk of violence in the workplace and develop a plan to reduce the risk. There is no formalized system to report violent incidents, assess their causes and develop better strategies for prevention. This lack of support for retail workers creates a perfect storm for increasingly dangerous outcomes.

    We need a comprehensive solution to address this problem. We will be working closely with our members and our locals throughout 2023 and 2024 to develop a cutting edge policy framework that will actually make retail work safer.

  • Currently, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) allows poultry processing facilities to slaughter chicken at a rate of 140 birds per minute. However, under a Trump-era plan, certain facilities were able to receive a waiver to slaughter birds at 175 birds per minute. This increase would make an already dangerous job even more dangerous for workers throughout the industry. After advocacy from the RWDSU and other advocates, the Biden administration rescinded this proposal, protecting workers from ever-increasing line speeds. The RWDSU will continue to fight for the health and safety of poultry workers in the US.

  • The best way to celebrate our heroes, those workers who kept our economy running during the COVID-19 pandemic, is to keep them safe on the job.

    During the COVID-19 pandemic, the RWDSU fought to protect essential workers from unnecessary exposure to airborne infectious disease while on the job. That’s why we worked with a coalition of groups to pass the NY HERO Act, which created a permanent airborne infectious disease standard in the workplace.

    The bill requires the NY Department of Labor (DOL), in conjunction with the NY Department of Health (DOH), to establish model workplace safety protocols to prevent the spread of airborne infectious diseases, like COVID-19. All private employers will be required to adopt the model protocols and implement them when the DOH declares a state of emergency due to an airborne infectious disease outbreak.

    In addition, employers will be required to allow workers to establish joint employer-employee health and safety committees to evaluate the effectiveness of the employer’s safety protocols and raise safety concerns.

    NY HERO will keep workers safer on the job, honoring the sacrifice each worker makes to keep our economy running.

Wage Fairness

  • After years of advocacy, in 2019 the RWDSU and its members in the carwash industry won an end to the sub-minimum wage for carwash workers. Prior to this victory, carwash workers earned a “tipped wage,” wherein an employer could pay workers as little as $8.30 per hour. Tips were supposed to bring the worker up to the full minimum wage. If the tips did not do that, the employer was required to make up the difference to ensure the worker received a full minimum wage. The problem? Many employers took advantage of this system and never paid workers their full wage. In fact, a 2012 survey of car wash workers found that 94% of these workers were not paid the difference between the tipped minimum wage and the regular minimum wage when their tips did not bring their hourly rate of pay up to the legal rate. In addition, the NYS Department of Labor found that a whopping 79% of car wash employers did not pay minimum wage and overtime, and 86% committed record-keeping violations. Because of the advocacy of the RWDSU and its members in the carwash industry, these problems are now in the past.

  • The RWDSU has said for decades that the minimum wage is not enough to live on. That is why we have been at the forefront of the campaigns to raise the minimum wage.

    The RWDSU brought members out into the streets to successfully push for raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour in New York. More recently, the RWDSU supported a similar effort to raise the wage in New York to $21 per hour. While the more recent effort did not result in a complete victory, we did succeed in raising the wage to $17 per hour and indexing the minimum wage to inflation, so that workers’ wages will keep up with inflation.

    Raising the minimum wage puts money directly in the pockets of those who need it most. It increases the standard of living for low-income workers and puts more money directly back into the economy, creating a win-win for workers and businesses.

  • The RWDSU has fought not just for an increase in the minimum wage, but for an actual living wage for hardworking New Yorkers. That’s why we championed the Living Wage for NYC campaign, to require that employers pay their workers a living wage when they receive taxpayer subsidized funding for an economic development project. The idea behind this campaign is that when the public puts money into a project through tax breaks and other financial incentives, we shouldn’t have to pay twice: once for the subsidy and a second time to support workers who don’t earn enough to pay rent or buy food.

Retail Worker Protection

  • The Retail Worker Safety Act requires corporate retail employers to perform a formal risk assessment of workplaces and provide workers with provide specific safety trainings.

    Retail workers need these fundamental protections at work now!

    New York Legislators need to pass S. 8358/A. 8947

    Learn more about RWDSU’s work to pass this critical legislation on our campaign page here.

  • Workers in retail are often subject to the whims of their employers. If its raining and foot traffic will be low, workers have their shifts cancelled right before they show up. Or, workers will be “on-call,” with no shift scheduled but cannot plan for other work as they must be ready to work in a moments notice. This prevents workers from planning their days and from planning for steady income. That’s why the RWDSU led the fight for the Fair Workweek Laws in NYC.

    The Fair Workweek laws do the following:

    Employers must give workers their work schedules 72 hours before the first shift on the schedule.

    Employers cannot schedule employees for on-call shifts.

    Employers cannot cancel a scheduled shift with less than 72 hours’ notice.

    Employers cannot require an employee to work with less than 72 hours’ notice, unless the employee agrees.

    These changes to scheduling standards in NYC have drastically improved workers’ lives.

  • In NYC, until early 2023, it was still legal to discriminate against people based on their body size in employment, housing and public accommodations. That is why the RWDSU helped lead the fight, along with a coalition of advocates, to end discrimination based on height and weight. As the result of the Campaign for Size Freedom in NYC, height and weight have been added to NYC’s Human Rights Law, ensuring that workers will be judged by who they are and the quality of their work, not by their body size.

    As a union that organizes workers in retail, size discrimination is something we have seen happen time and time again. Particularly in fashion retail, employers place arbitrary and often unobtainable body size standards on workers, undermining workers’ ability to earn an income and feel supported and respected at work.

  • In 2021, as the result of strong advocacy by the RWDSU, cannabis prohibition was finally ended in New York, with a strongest-in-nation approach towards placing equity at the center of the new industry. The cannabis program ensures workers are treated with dignity and respect and have the right to unionize free from employer intimidation, it expunges records of those who were incarcerated due to cannabis prohibition, and it prioritizes those who were unfairly targeted by the war on drugs for first access to economic opportunities in the new cannabis industry.

    This bill set the gold standard for ensuring equity is at the center of the new industry.

  • Significant portions of people in US are unbanked or underbanked, meaning they have no bank in their neighborhood, or the banks that are available have barriers like minimum account balance standards that keep low-income people from accessing their services. Accordingly, when a business does not accept cash, they are effectively denying access to economic participation by those who are unbanked.

    This is not only unjust for community members, but also unjust for workers in retail who stand to lose work as the result of these cashless businesses. That is why we led the fight to ban cashless businesses in NYC. In 2020, we supported passage of a bill to do this and by the end of that year, all business are required to accept cash.

Warehouse Worker Protection

  • Warehouse workers, particularly those at Amazon, are often subject to inhumane quotas that drive workers to injury. That’s why the RWDSU, along with many allies, fought for and won the Warehouse Worker Protection Act (WWPA). The WWPA requires warehouses that use work pace quotas to disclose work speed data to employees and to inform them about their job performance and rights in the workplace. The legislation also protects workers from disciplinary action or firing exclusively because of a failure to meet undisclosed quotas or performance standards, including those that do not allow for proper breaks.

    This bill should help to slow work down and give workers more chance for rest and recovery from grueling work pace standards.

    We are also working on a bill to establish ergonomics standards for warehouse workers, as phase two of this effort. Check back here soon for updates on this campaign.

  • As climate change leads to more extreme temperatures, workers are suffering. Many workers do have the option to work in climate controlled environments and instead are subject to the whims of mother nature. This can have catastrophic results for workers, who are increasingly facing the risk of heat stroke, frost bite and even death.

    This is why we are fighting to pass the Temperature Extreme Mitigation Program, or TEMP Act in New York, which would create a statewide workplace standard on heat and cold that will cover workers in agriculture, construction, landscaping, delivery, and food service, indoor and outdoor, including vehicles.

    The members of RWDSU who work in agriculture throughout New York should have the right to protection from extreme temperatures and this bill would assure that right is protected.

Concerned about one of these issues at your workplace?

Are you an RWDSU member in need of help? Let us know how we can help, send us a message and we’ll get you to the right Regional Director, Union Representative, Business Agent or Local President to help!

Interested in forming a union in your workplace to resolve issues at work? Let us know what you’re experiencing and an Organizer will reach out!

Interested in supporting YOUR local candidates in their elections to pass legislation like this?

Join our RWDSU Votes Crew and let us know how you’d like to help in your area!