NEW YORK—It can be argued that former governor Andrew Cuomo has built a career defending power, privilege, and the class he came from. After resigning in disgrace in 2021 due to sexual harassment allegations, he has now re-entered the political arena, perhaps hoping that voters have forgotten about his controversies. In his mayoral campaign launch video, he asserts that the founding premise of a progressive Democratic Party is “to serve working men and women.” Throughout a lifetime in positions of power, however, it would appear he has done the opposite.
The Trumpian-like polices he has pushed have been detrimental to teachers, public sector union workers, and the most vulnerable among us in defense of the oligarchy he serves.
Austerity budgets
He began his tenure as governor by balancing the state’s budget on the backs of New York’s workers. Cuomo used the threat of mass layoffs to force concessions from two of the state’s largest unions: the Public Employees Federation and the Civil Service Employees Association. Due to the pay freezes and meager increases across the contracts, the Chief remarked that both unions would be “literally losing money over the course of the five-year deals.”
Cuomo further escalated his attacks on New York’s working class while still in negotiations to freeze union wages. In an interview with The New York Times, he brazenly declared that “curbing public pension benefits will be his top goal in 2012.”
At a moment when working-class New Yorkers were organizing and building a new movement for class consciousness, with Occupy Wall Street naming the financial elite as the clear enemy, Cuomo tried to suggest that retirees and public workers were bankrupting the state, not his wealthy donors and allies.
His Tier VI pension reforms ultimately raised the retirement age for tens of thousands of newly hired public sector workers across New York. It hit the very people who make the city run— teachers, healthcare workers, transit operators, sanitation workers, and countless others. Under Cuomo’s plan, these workers weren’t just forced to pay more out of every paycheck—they were told they’d have to work longer and retire later, sacrificing years of their lives and future stability.
Cuomo’s corporate-funded group, the Committee to Save New York, worked tirelessly to justify his budgets. They spent an estimated $17 million to blame the budget deficit on public sector unions. They spent obscene amounts of money to convince the public that workers need to spend more years in service.
In Cuomo’s last bid for governor in 2018, 43 of New York’s 118 billionaire families donated over $8 million to his campaign and the State Democratic Party Committee he controlled. During the first three months of the COVID-19 pandemic, those same 118 billionaire families saw their net worth increase by $77 billion—more than five times the state’s budget shortfall.
Tax the rich
One of the most basic responsibilities of any government leader is to raise revenue effectively and fairly to fund public needs. How that money is raised—and how it’s spent—lies at the heart of economic policy. When analyzing those decisions, we must always ask the ancient Roman question: Cui bono? Who benefits?
One of Cuomo’s first major decisions as governor was to let the millionaire tax expire in 2011. He justified it by claiming he wanted to make New York more “business-friendly.” At a time when homes were being foreclosed and working-class families were being thrown out onto the streets, Cuomo made it clear whose interests he represented—not the people struggling to survive, but the wealthy elite profiting off their misery.
Even Republican town halls have recently been overrun with chants of “Tax the rich.” Yet Cuomo has consistently resisted taxing the wealthy, leaning on fear-mongering about capital flight. “Tax the rich, tax the rich, tax the rich—we did that. God forbid the rich leave,” he once scoffed, mocking the very idea of progressive taxation.
Though political pressure eventually forced him to implement a weaker, watered-down version of the tax, much of the elite’s wealth remained untouched. Cuomo’s reforms gave the appearance of taxing the rich while preserving the privileges of the donor class he served.
One of the central demands of the early 20th-century progressive movement was implementing a progressive tax system where the wealthy pay a larger percentage of their income. If Cuomo can’t even support policies that were considered progressive over a century ago, there’s no reason to expect him to stand for progressive politics in the 21st century.
No strikes for you!
Throughout the incredibly violent and arduous labor history of the United States, the strike has been one of the most effective tactics for collective workers’ power. It has forced companies and states alike to take drastic measures to alleviate workers’ demands.
New York State still has one of the most regressive anti-strike laws in the nation, known as the Taylor Law. It effectively prevents public employees—including teachers, transit workers, and other municipal employees—from going on strike by imposing harsh financial penalties. Under the Taylor Law, any public worker who participates in a strike automatically forfeits two days of pay for every day on strike.
In the 2018 bid for governor, progressive challenger Cynthia Nixon favored repealing this reactionary law. Cuomo argued that allowing public sector unions to strike would cause chaos in certain industries. Nixon’s campaign acknowledged that there could be exemptions for life-saving or other essential services, which is a position compatible with the U.N. body for workers’ rights. However, Cuomo refused to budge, despite these reasonable demands.
We don’t need no education?
Cuomo’s early education agenda focused on increasing the weight of state test scores and aggressively implementing Common Core standards across New York. Only after widespread public backlash from educators, parents, and students did he begin to soften his rhetoric around these policies.
Time and time again, he has pushed for charter schools where teachers have no unions, limited rights, and limited experience. He received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from real estate executives, bankers, and business leaders who support charter schools. Even while Mayor De Blasio was pushing to limit charter schools, Cuomo outflanked him to the right, further solidifying his commitment to strip teachers of their rights and power.
Cuomo’s war on public education served to preserve the worst class and racial inequalities present in our society. After nearly a decade as governor, working-class New Yorkers— especially Black and brown communities—still face some of the most unequal access to educational opportunities in the country.
In 2020, the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released a report highlighting the deep inequities in the state’s education system. The report stated, “Although it leads the U.S. in average per pupil spending, New York ranks 48th in educational equity among all states by measure of the funding gap between the districts enrolling the most students in poverty and the districts enrolling the fewest, and ranks 44th by measure of the funding gap between the districts enrolling the most students of color and those enrolling the fewest.”
Vote ‘no’ on Cuomo
Andrew Cuomo had countless opportunities throughout his career to deliver for working people. Instead of fighting for even modestly progressive reforms, he aligned himself with the financial elite and ruled in their interests.
Now, despite his long record of attacking workers, much of the media and political establishment are propping him up as an antidote to Trump. New York City voters should see through this. He is no cure for Trumpism but a mirror image of it. Throughout his career, Cuomo has shown us exactly who he serves—and it isn’t us workers.
In this Democratic mayoral primary, all working-class folks should stand together and send a clear message: Cuomo does not deserve our support. Do not rank him on June 24th.
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