Zohran Mamdani Is Putting Corporate Sick-Leave Cheats on Notice

In the industrial neighborhood of Maspeth, Queens, Amazon drivers from the nearby DBK4 delivery station often stop at Angelo’s Deli. It’s where drivers gathered in December 2024 before marching to the facility for the first time as union organizers. On Friday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani chose the deli to sit with a dozen drivers who have unionized with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) and announce that New York City will expand protected time off and crack down on employers where workers rarely use sick leave.

“We are going to be looking at every way that an employer is looking to evade accountability,” Mamdani told me. “It’s time to have a rule of law that applies to everyone, and that includes these kinds of corporations that seem to think of themselves as above it.”

Mamdani announced that the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) will monitor how often workers at each company use their paid leave. If fewer than half of a company’s employees take any time off in a year, the agency will investigate the employer for potential violations.

Jerome Sloss, 32, a driver with an Amazon subcontractor, said Mamdani is following through on his campaign promises. He told me, “His entire campaign has been about taxing the rich and helping working class people, and he’s doing what he said he was going to do.”

The DCWP based the threshold on its analysis of national data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which found that half of private-sector workers with paid sick leave take at least one day off annually for health reasons. The agency said it will also investigate violations based on complaints from workers.

Since 2014, employees in New York City have been entitled to time off for illness, injury, or other urgent personal business.

The newly expanded Protected Time Off Law, which will come into effect on Sunday, grants private-sector workers a minimum of 32 hours of unpaid time off per year—available immediately upon hire and at the start of each calendar year. This is in addition to 40 to 56 hours of paid time off annually depending on company size. Approximately 3 million New Yorkers are covered under the law.

The law also expands when employees can use protected time off to include childcare, caring for a family member with a disability, attending benefits or housing hearings, responding to declared emergencies, and addressing workplace violence.

Mamdani has previously backed Amazon workers organizing with the Teamsters. On Friday, he sat with a dozen drivers who shared stories about needing time off for medical emergencies and childcare crises. Mamdani said expanding protected time off is central to improving workers’ quality of life: “This kind of legislation is critical to ensuring that a worker can do more than just work—that a worker can also live, that a worker can also take care of their family and themselves.”

Jerome Sloss, 32, a driver with an Amazon subcontractor at the DBK1 facility in Woodside, said workers earn paid leave gradually based on hours worked—roughly an hour of leave for every week on the job: “We don’t get it front loaded at the beginning of the year. You accrue it over the time you work.”

Matt Multari, 25, another driver working at the DBK1 facility, said subcontractors can change their schedules up to 8 pm the night before a shift. Multari asked, “How are you supposed to plan your life around it?”

Other workers said that when they request emergency leave without enough advance notice or when managers question whether the emergency is justified, some subcontractors retaliate by canceling scheduled shifts for the rest of the week. These workers are among more than 200 drivers at DBK1 who have unionized with the Teamsters. Nationwide, the union represents between 7,000 and 10,000 Amazon workers.

Mamdani, who campaigned on reducing income inequality, said strengthening unions is key to that goal. “The more organized a workforce, the better the lives those workers will be able to live.”

“To be here with Teamsters members who have been on the front lines of fighting for these very kinds of rights and so much more in the face of corporate impunity, it shows us the urgency of this task.”