For Immediate Release: January 7, 2025
Media Contact: Lisa Thomas, lisa@alignny.org, (347) 415-6431
ALIGN’s 2025 Agenda: A Green, Affordable NY
New York is at a crossroads: the cost-of-living crisis remains the top concern for voters while the climate crisis continues to rear its head, bringing severe storms, extreme heat, unprecedented drought, and wildfires to places we never imagined. With a new and unpredictable administration entering the White House, threatening to bolster corporate power while stripping labor and climate protections, it’s up to New York to make our state safe, healthy, and affordable.
In 2025, ALIGN and our coalitions are fighting for bold, intersectional action to limit corporate power, create the sustainable jobs of the future, and democratize climate justice for a greener, more affordable New York.
New York State
Make polluters pay
Ensure NY’s Cap, Trade, and Invest program holds the fossil fuel industry accountable and invests in community-led climate action
The goal of New York’s “Cap, Trade, and Invest” program is to cap the amount of greenhouse gas that can be emitted in the state and to invest revenue into communities and programs that further drive emissions reduction. This program will make fossil fuel corporations and other large-scale emitters pay to pollute, with lower allowances each year, and revenue reinvested in climate and environmental projects. But for this program to work, there can’t be any loopholes — ALIGN and the NY Renews coalition are calling for limits to be strict and ineligible for trade, penalties to be high enough to make a difference, and superficial offsets (like planting trees to pollute more) to be prohibited. If done right, an equitable emissions-cap system could reduce energy bills for households and small businesses; improve public health and cut rates of asthma and other illnesses, particularly in Black, Brown, and low-income communities; and fund investments in green jobs and climate justice to build a safer, more resilient New York. We want to see revenue directed to organizations in disadvantaged communities across the state, and community groups, labor unions, and municipal governments empowered to design climate action projects that will make an impact locally.
Check the power of mega-corporations like Amazon
Pass legislation to combat price gouging, monopoly power, and exploitation
The cost of living remains a top issue for voters. But our affordability crisis doesn’t exist in a vacuum — it’s fueled by corporate greed. Companies like Amazon have grown exponentially in the years since the pandemic, but as their profits have skyrocketed they’ve gone to shareholders, not workers, making the rich richer while consumers foot the bill. And when corporations are rich enough to merge with and acquire other companies, monopolize more markets, and bury their competition, they gain outsized power to price gouge and drive inflation.
New York needs a healthy economy that works for everyone, not just the Amazons of the world. The 21st Century Antitrust Act (S6748B/A10323) would empower New York to penalize corporations for unfair price gouging and abuse of monopoly power, so they can’t corner the market and make all the rules.
Fight for fair wages
Commit to comprehensive solutions to our cost-of-living crisis, starting with raising the wage
New York’s minimum wage went up $0.50 this year and will increase another $0.50 in 2026 to reach $17 in NYC, Long Island, and Westchester, and $16 in the rest of the state. But the statewide living wage — what it costs to pay rent, buy groceries, and cover the necessities — is already $26. Baby steps do not make up for record inflation and our ongoing affordability crisis when poverty rates in Buffalo and Rochester are among the highest in the nation and more than half of NYC is low-income or below the poverty line. It’s time for a comprehensive approach, and first we need one statewide minimum wage floor that catches up to increased costs (Upstate Parity Act, S8154/A9093). In 2024, Tompkins County also passed legislation to evaluate raising their local minimum wage. In 2025, we will support the county in implementing a local minimum wage increase, and look forward to growing the movement of localities raising wages to address the cost-of-living crisis. When NYC’s $15 minimum wage went into effect from 2016 to 2019, it marked the biggest reduction in poverty in 50 years while business avoided the squeeze — with more money to spend, people were more likely to put it back into the economy. To make New York affordable, we need bold action from the bottom up.
Protect workers from extreme temperatures
New Yorkers working in both outdoor and indoor sites are exposed to extreme temperatures due to climate change, especially skyrocketing heat in the summer. Recent data shows that in NYC, there are an estimated 450 heat-related ED visits, 150 heat-related hospital admissions, 10 heat stroke deaths, and 350 heat-exacerbated deaths, each year (NYC Mayor’s Office). All workers deserve safe and healthy jobs to maintain their livelihoods. The Temperature Extreme Mitigation Program or TEMP bill would create workplace heat safety standards for 1.7 million workers in the agriculture, construction, landscaping, delivery, and food service industries, requiring access to hydration, relief and rest from extreme temperatures, and PPE, as well as expanded multilingual training.
New York City
Invest in Green, Healthy Schools for NYC’s youngest generations
Fund green energy upgrades in the City’s biggest polluters — schools
The climate crisis and decades of disinvestment are wreaking havoc on NYC’s public schools. They’re among the worst polluters in the city, relying on dirty fossil fuels to power and heat classrooms. NYC 3K-12 students, teachers, parents, and school staff deserve safe and healthy learning and work environments, no matter their zip code. Our Climate Works for All coalition is calling on Mayor Adams to fund Green, Healthy Schools and make NYC’s school district emissions-free by 2040 so all students can breathe clean air and attend school safely. By upgrading school building ventilation and transitioning to green energy, starting in the communities experiencing the most severe climate impacts, we can create green union jobs, meet our emissions reduction mandates, and save the City money on energy bills while delivering the safe and healthy schools New Yorkers deserve.
Build public solar power with green, union jobs
In 2024, labor, community, and environmental justice groups came together to win Local Law 99 — Council Member Sandy Nurse’s legislation requiring solar power installation on New York City’s public buildings including schools, government offices, and public housing. With 70% of NYC’s emissions coming from buildings, this is a huge step forward toward our ambitious climate mandates. But now we need to make sure it’s done right, creating good green union job opportunities and prioritizing environmental justice communities, who face disproportional climate impacts and have for decades. We are calling on the administration to ensure this mandate is adequately funded in the FY2026 budget.
Transform NYC’s waste industry to ensure safe streets & safe jobs
In 2019, New York City’s landmark Commercial Waste Zones (CWZ) legislation (Local Law 199 of 2019) was signed into law — a mandate to create 20 zones limiting the number of private waste companies operating in each neighborhood; greatly reduce traffic and pollution from private garbage trucks, particularly through overburdened environmental justice communities; and empower the City to hold companies accountable to safety, labor, and environmental standards. Six years later, Mayor Adams’ Department of Sanitation (DSNY) is rolling out just one of the 20 zones in a pilot program, while the system remains severely dangerous for workers and pedestrians. Our Transform Don’t Trash NYC coalition, which played a critical role in the bill’s passage, is calling for an urgent and equitable rollout of the full zone system for safe working conditions, safe streets, and clean air.
Protect workers and communities from truck pollution and corporate greed
The e-commerce boom of the last decade produced an unprecedented number of last-mile distribution centers — facilities that deliver goods to their final destination — cropping up in neighborhoods around NYC, many in lower-income communities of color already bearing the brunt of truck pollution and the climate crisis. As New Yorkers rely more and more on delivery for items purchased online, the City must address the environmental justice, street safety, and workers’ rights issues raised by the proliferation of last-mile distribution centers.
We need a licensing process that considers a facility’s impact on a neighborhood, establishes mechanisms to reduce emissions, requires employee classification and minimum standards for wages and benefits, and ensures distribution centers are sited fairly across the city, rather than overburdening specific neighborhoods; and policies like Int 1130-2024 should be pursued with maximum scope and enforcement.
About ALIGN
ALIGN (The Alliance for a Greater New York) brings together labor, climate, and community organizations for a more just, sustainable New York. Working at the intersection of economic and climate justice, ALIGN builds coalitions with those most impacted and uplifts worker and community voices to fight for dignity in the workplace and a just path to a renewable energy economy for all.
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